DanielPaulBoucher's2004EuropeanTourJournal

DISCLAIMER: The content below reflects the opinions and thoughts of Daniel Paul Boucher and not the entire rock entity that is hereby known as Neptune.

June 25, 2002 Philadelphia, PA @ Doc Watson's W/ Pornbelt
I woke up at 7:30 am, got coffee and and headed for the train. I had to go downtown and get my bike where I, in no condition to drive, had left it locked up the night before. I got on and rode, brutally hungover, to the much dreaded shithole apartment John and I used to share. I had to have the last of my stuff out of it before leaving for tour. Our landlady, Bunny, had sold the place. I brought the last few boxes of stuff over to Jason's and my friend Melissa was kind enough let me store my kitchen table and other junk with her downstairs. I was in a horrible mood: had no money, no apartment, no job and was not in the least excited about going on tour. My friend Liz made me a cheese sandwich which improved my mood a bit, but very slightly so.

After everyone arrived we loaded our equipment into the van and left just before noon. It was really hot. In the van I assembled our new records, a tour only 7" that we were bringing with us. The ride was really long, I read, listened music and talked as little as possible. We got stuck in traffic in NYC and I suddenly had a great triumverate of realizations; 1) Not having a job is a tremendous blessing, 2) I really wouldn't miss a filthy apartment with no heat, an attic infested with all kinds of rodents that would keep me up until all hours of the night and a shower that had mushrooms growing out from underneath it, 3) I'd be gone for a few weeks and could worry about everything when I got back.

We finally arrived in Philly and got to Doc Watson's. We heard Pornbelt (mainly our friend Debbie laughing) before spotting them and minutes later they pulled up in a pretty bitchin green stripped van. We all loaded in and then Mark and I got burritos next door. I forgot what we actually talked about but we laughed a lot, my mood was improving. I wandered aimlessly around Philly, a city I've never felt much attraction to. It always feels barren to me and not in a good way. Maybe it's just my mood. I got back to the club as one of the other bands was finishing and realized another thing went my way today: missing most of that band, they were awful poppy radio garbage. Pornbelt went on and destroyed the audience in a pummeling take over and the few people there had no idea what to make of it but stared with agape mouthes. I was internally smirking because I knew they totally pissed off that other shitty band. They did a Neptune cover which even further improved mood. After them, we set up and played. The audience grew to a maximum of maybe 8 people including bar staff and the applause swelled to a deafening silence. We were really sloppy but the tension was good I think. After the show we went to a friend of Debbies and had a rock n roll slumber party. I guess overall it was a better Philly experience than usual. Was fun to hang out with Pornbelt, they're rad ladies, we drank whiskey and talked raunchy nonsense. We're caravanning to Baltimore tomorrow.

June 22, 2002 Baltimore, MD @ Payan's Rugs W/Crack We Are Rock, Nautical Almanac, Pornbelt
Got up around 11:00, left Gen's and went shopping for sandwich building materials. This is the first time I ever experienced grocery shopping with another band. It was pretty sweet. Short drive, under 2 hours, Jason and I made sandwiches. We were rollin' all up into Baltimore when we noticed a curious street-corner vendor peddling cases of GI Joe Brand juice bottles. At 2 dollars a case who could say no? We snagged a case of the most obvious choice: Cherry Commando. Pornbelt would months later write a song of the same name, how perfectly fitting. The Juice nicely packaged in plastic bottles shaped like cantines and contained 0% real juice. Dually nourishing on both the psychological and nutritional front. Quality stuff.

After we loaded into Payan's we went to Fells Point to find our boy Jason Urick who set up the show. John and Jason S. opted to walk down to the water. Mark and I got a beer is this awesome Latin bar that was really sketchy, yet strangely alluring. There were a few early day patrons scatted about already completly wasted. Of couse, everyone looked at us like we were aliens when we walked in but soon they realized we were less important than the drinks sitting in front of them. On the way to the bar, I got a used copy of Boz Scaggs 'Silk Degrees' on vinyl for 50 cents. Some would say I paid 50 cents too much, but I felt good because I thought it was a deal. Mark and I had been singing Lido Shuffle in duet for some time now and driving our band mates insane. After we left the bar we went to a junk shop where I scored an elongated teddy bear that may have been made out of old socks and a leather bracelet that made me secretly wish I were in Judas Priest. OK, that's really no secret I guess.

Upon returning to Payan's, I took off by myself to check out the city. I really like the sad desolation of Baltimore. I walked through a part of the city that had all these beautiful buildings that were vacant and crumbling. All the people I passed on the street also seemed to possess the same quality of these buildings. When I got back we went on a beer run...my friend Larissa and I split a 12 pack of Heineken and the rest of Pornbelt each got 1 bottle of wine for themselves and some other cheap liquor to split. Nautical Almanac was up first. I love their name and the guy played a keyboard with his foot. They were pretty cool. Next were Crack We Are Rock, they were great...2 masked dudes doing noisey electronics and beats with 2 short oddly dressed, very cute eerie vocalists. Pornbelt played the most drunken set I have ever seen them do. 4/5 of them were completely wasted...it was great entertainment. We hung out outside after, drank beer and Mark kept making me laugh with his Cherry Commando tough guy routine. You just don't fuck with a dude toting a bottle of CC. Everybody knows that. Pornbelt decided not to stay and drive 14 hours back to Boston. It was fun being on tour with them, even though it lasted only 2 days. We left all the gear in the venuie and went to Jason U.'s house to sleep. I instantly became covered in hives from the feline inhabitants of the house. I showered for the first time in days and slept pretty well.

June 23, 2002 Charlottesville, VA @ Pudhouse W/ Herds and Words
Woke up at 11:24 AM a bit foggy. We went to Payan's to load out and meet our friend Tom who lives above the space. We had some time before leaving town so we went to the Dime Museum. It was probably the worst museum I've ever been to. Jason loved it. He paid my way so it wasn't a total loss and I felt grateful to him because he knew how broke I was. The museum boasted of a 500 lb. bat, which sounded cool but turned out to be a large wooden baseball bat in the center of the basement floor. I would have been overjoyed to ram it up the ass of the person that thought charging people 10 dollars to see such blatant crap was a good idea. I would have only done so after getting Jason's money back of course. I don't usually resort to violence, so I quickly ditched the idea. We went back to Fells Point to say goodbye to Jason U. and give him some records to for the shop. Jason S. and I went to the Goodwill to get our customary costumes for our show at the Pudhouse later on. John and Mark dropped off the records and Mark came back with the new Tom Waits cd for me. I ate warm chili out of the can and some raw carrots before falling asleep despite the sweaty greenhouse atmosphere inside the van.

When I woke from my nap, we were in the mountains of Virginia. Not nestled in the breasts of a skeezy hooker, but in the beautiful, foggy Appalachians. We drove into C-ville and got lost. Somehow we ended up at Spudnuts, the donut shop near the Pudhouse, so we got out and called our friend Colin. To kill time we went to the Food Lion and bought some stuff for dinner. We made rice and Colin showed up with some Vegetable stew. Our good buddy Jarrod arrived and shortly after him our friend El showed up with 2 cases of Old Milwaukee Ice, a Pudhouse staple. We all hung out and savored the delicate flavor of warm, canned OMI. We played first. Jason wore a slinky see-through mini-skirt and a stuffed-animal parrot on his head. I had to top the Pokimon costume I wore last time, so I hollowed out a fluorescent stuffed dinosaur, put my things in it and tied it to my crotch with yarn. Aside from a brightly colored ladies half shirt, the stuffed animal was pretty much all I wore. We played really franticly and somehow the dinosaur stayed affixed and nothing fell out. I liked the excitement of it potentially falling off, leaving me heaving about naked in front of friends and strangers. It was really fun. Herds and Words played next, drums and clarinet, singing, samples and guitar. Rad. After all the rock John still had not fully recovered from an earlier asthma attack, so he crashed in the van.

At this point Jason, Mark, Colin, El, Herds and Words dudes, some other folks and myself decided to go for a midnight swim. First drove pretty far to Jarrod's house where we had more beer and ate some cookies his grandmother lovingly sent him in the mail. We drove for another 20 minutes to this woman Sally's house, then walked 10 minutes through a field and some woods and eventually ended up at an intimate pond. We all got into a boat and rowed out to the middle of the water. People started diving in. I decided that skinny-dipping was in order and prepped myself for the dark water. Little did I realize upon diving in, my pants were still bunched around one of my ankles. They came in with me as I dove and Mark thought it was hilarious. I guess it must have been a sight. The moon was large and brightly lit the trees all surrounding us. Frog and bat sounds were emanating from all directions. The water was warm as a bath… and it was amazing. Someone mentioned that the land we were illegally frolicking on was owned by the author John Grisham. Serves him right for owning land with a pond on it. I was getting tired and feeling weighted down by the consumption of low quality beer, so I swam back. As I was exiting the water I realized I was almost up to my knees in sludgy mud. I was then struck by a wave of panic and braced myself to start ripping the leaches off. Luckily there were none. Everyone else eventually swam back.

We got back to the house and spotted a large trampoline on the lawn. Mark and I started jumping. At this point I knew, without any doubt, nude trampolineing was the only way to go. There I was, jumping up and down naked as a Jay Bird. Mark ran off with my pants and thought it was quite the prank. I too thought it was funny, I must admit but really didn't care if our hosts me naked. It was beginning to get light out. My pants were returned and I went inside. I showered the remaining mud off and did another leach check. Shelly offered us a really nice bed. I instantly fell asleep. I love Charlottesville.

June 25, 2002 Charleston, WV @ The Empty Glass W/ The Pistol Whippers
We rolled into Charleston around 5:30 & parked in front of The Empty Glass. I was really van weary so I took a walk to the capitol building and watched 2 squirrels drink from a fountain on the lawn. In my state of minimal brain function this was highly amusing. I walked down by the river and somehow ended up in a gnarly part of town. Some kids pulled up in what they must have thought was a macked out ride and started harassing me. The ringleader leaned out the passenger window and yelled "Where you goin', Playboy?" His friends thought that was pretty damn funny and as they sped off as at least 2 of them gave me the finger. I think they called me a pussy too. How did they know me so well? I love feeling welcome. I went back to the van, my safe home away from home. I was really depressed and the temperature inside the van could have killed a dog, so I rolled up the windows as tightly as possible and took a nap.

I woke up as someone was opening the van door to load our stuff out. We set up as a colorful crowd of drunken wierdos assembled. We played. Sloppy but energetic. Some really wasted guy stood right up front pumping his fist yelling shit at us. All I could make out was "Imma turn it out!" He was pretty cool, a fine specimen of local color. Pistol Whippers played after and when they finished I told the bass player I liked them and he called me a liar. I, in fact, was telling the truth.

This is where everything began to get really weird. After both bands played, it was open mic night at The Empty Glass. First up, a dude on guitar that did all Jeff Buckley covers. Almost as fun as having the skin on your shins flayed off with a wood planer. Brutal.

Next up two kids played guitar, saxaphone and scratched...shirtless, of course. They were really awesome. After that a rather large man with long Sammy Hagar-esque hair, mismatched Nike/Adidas socks (that's pretty cool alone) and dark sunglasses got up and did a guitar solo then rapped. He started out with the line: "I've got intellectual balls the size of watermelons". I knew this guy was no joke and would be one of the best performers I'd ever see. An true and absolute freakshow. As he attempted to leave the stage, the crowd cheered him back on. For an encore he did a drum solo, then another rap. I recall it written to an ex-girlfriend and included the line "I spit in your food, I came in your drink". Wow, I wish he was coming on the rest of the tour with us. The last act of the evening were two heavily stoned, heavily dorky hip hop kids. They we're really good, but by this time the free pints of Bass fogged over my perception and I don't remember so much. For me the night was over. John, Jason and Mark slept in the "band room" above the bar and I slept in the van playing the part of drunken guard dog.

June 26, 2002 Knoxville, TN @ The Pilot Light W/ Lo-Fi Landscapes (Film Show)
I awoke as the temperature in the van started to climb at a quick and steady rate. I went upstairs to shave. It was the first time I could shave over the nasty, scabby gash on my chin that I sustained in a bike accident after leaving a party at John's house a few weeks earlier. A small triumph yes, but a triumph nonetheless. I should have gotten stitches, but I didn't and it was a gooey mess hangind upside down under my jaw. The drive to Knoxville was really nice. Was excited to see our friend Regina. After checking email at the library we went to her house and made dinner & talked endlessly about records over a few beers.

We were going to play after a few short independent art films. I watched only a few minutes of the first one. The combination of being in a dark room and watching a slow motion black and white home movie was lulling me into a near coma. I walked around the town until we played. We played really well despite how tired we all were.

We went back to Regina's and crashed. Was a fun show and was great to see Regina as it always is.

June 27, 2002 Evanston, IL @ Nevins Live
We got up at 6:30 am because we had a 10 hour drive to Illinois. Spent most of the drive mindlessly gazing out the window. I've officially entered that spaced out perma-haze that comes after about 5 days of being on tour. We got to Chicago around 4:30 pm, good timing thanks in part to the time difference. We went to a Guitar Center to get bass strings and drum sticks. John, Mark and I all started playing the electronic drum kits like a bunch of drooling five-year-olds. We must have looked like we were on leave from the institution for the afternoon. I think Mark did actually drool onto one of the drum pads. It was really fun. Good times, hot jams. We drove to Evanston and found the place. Our friend Paul was there, we hung with him and ate dinner. The crowd was good. We played well. I felt really happy.

As the next band played I watched Polyester on a TV with no sound and drank Old Styles with Paul. After the show we went back to his house, when we got there his cat was asleep in the bathroom sink. That was pretty cool, the cat had a good style. We hung on the back porch, ate pizza and drank Tecate from the can. Paul emitted stranger and stranger noises as the night progressed and I had no idea why. Mark admitted he was in a strange mood but hung out anyway, John went to sleep in the van and Jason fell asleep in his sleeping bag, mid-party, on the porch. It was a really fun night.

June 28, 2002 Madison, WI @ Tornado Steak House W/ Bootcha Hop Scooties, Ifihadahifi
Woke up on Paul's couch really sweaty with a grotesque hangover. I had really crazy dreams. Mark and I had a plan to go to this record store he thought I'd really dig. This guy Steve was going to drive us there, but he fell back asleep after watching a particularly exhausting episode of the Rikki Lake Show. Oh well. We stopped for coffee before getting on the bus and the woman behind the counter was spouting off this crazy shit about the high ptice of coffee to us. What an awful sales-woman. Though I fully agreed with her, I'm sure the manager would have been pissed off. Whatever. We got to the record store and I found the record I wanted...Mark was right, the place ruled. We walked through Boy's Town, Mark bought a $40 belt, then had lunch at a trashy mexican joint. We all met back at Paul's and packed up, left and almost immediately got stuck in some brutal airport traffic.

We finally made it to Madison at 4:00ish, ound The Tornado Steak House and brought our equipment in. I walked around a bit. Mark and I got a beer at The Rainbow Room, a seedy gay bar two doors down from the steak house. This place had a real charm. There was a cool stage stage where I imagined malnourished strippers danced and crazed trannies would taunt bar customers. I kind of felt at home here.

Bootcha Hop Scooties played first and were good. Reminded me a bit of The Fall. We played next...pretty well, maybe the best so far this tour. After us was Ifihadahifi, noisy carnivalesque spazz rock. They were pretty funny, music was good. Some guy in a Gumby costune came out and swept the carpet as the band played. The guitarist threw potatoes and repeatedly hit himself in the face. Fun show. As we were loading out another band that played were having a saucy argument that provided for some tasty post-show entertainment. I love other bands' drama, makes me feel like maybe I'm not that crazy after all. Or maybe I am? Something to ponder on the next drive.

We stayed with this guy named Jake's house. As it turned out I had met him before. One fateful night where I had accidentally had too many martini's before practice and left in the middle of it without telling my band mates. So, I had absolutely no recollection of this meeting ever happening, but he seemed to be cool so I belived him. We kicked it with Jake for a bit then crashed on the floor.

June 29, 2002 Milwaukee, WI @ Punk Mahal W/ Glacier, The Squish, Ifihadahifi
I've felt another depression slowly creeping up on me for the past few days. After some coffee, in my now awake state I realized it had fully arrived. We made a plan with Jake to go to Dr. Evermor's sculpture park. This prospect made me feel a little bit better. We followed jake on his motorcycle and about halfway there we got a flat tire. Jake rode back into town to get a tire iron. Jason put the spare on. We got back on the road and arrived at Dr. Evermor's without to much delay.

On the way I noticed that Wisconsin has a shit load of cornfields. Anyway, Dr. Evermor's was absolutely amazing. In the centre of it was something called the Forevertron. It was this enormous metal sculpture about 65 feet high and its width was just under double that. It looked really futuristic in an old, rusted way. There was a large egg-pod at the top that will launch Dr. Evermor into space after he dies. Pretty fascinating imagination.

There was a musical Bird garden that had all these towering metal birds with large shear blades for feathers that covered their wings. Their bodies were old musical instruments like french horns, trumpets and steel drums. I particularly liked the menacing cello-flamingo's. They were evil but elegantly beautiful. We got to meet Dr. Evermor after walking around for a while. Jason showed him one of the bass guitars and he seemed to find it amusing. I bet in his day he would have been a rippin' bass player that could fire off mountainous licks at the drop of a hat. Dr. Evermor seemed like a sweet old man and he definitely had that mad scientist vibe going on. Something about him reminded me of my dad which helped ease the awful feeling I woke up with.

We got a bag of cheese curds and got back on the road to Milwaukee. Never had cheese curds before and was amused to no end at the way they squeak when you chew them. We got to Punk Mahal. It was a house that had shows in the basement. We hung out in the living room until the show started. The bands were good. Lots of canned LaBatts. The day ended better than it started. I slept in the van.

June 29, 2002 Chicago, IL @ Fireside Bowl W/ Sicbay, Valina & Herc
On our way out of Milwaukee we stopped at a Salvation Army where I scored some sunglasses and a huge New Kids on the Block pin. Jordan Knight. Had to represent my hometown. The drive to Chicago was under 2 hours and as soon as we arrived we went to John's friend Angela's house. We hung there for a bit then went to the lake and walked out on this question mark-shaped jetty. Jason & I fell asleep on the cement for a bit. There was a large group of dudes in satin shorts practicing a saucy march to really loud 70's disco in preparation for the gay pride parade that was to take place the next day.

An hour or so later we drove to the Fireside. The matinee hardcore show was still going on when we got there. It was funny to watch this one dude play guitar and do the really high backwards kicks at the same time. After they were done, the crowd changed over and Valina played. They were on tour from Austria...they were good. We played and at some point I hit Jason's friend with a drum stick. When we finished she threw it back at me really hard. It hurt. After milling about the bar for a bit we went back to Mark's friend Javier's house. It was a pretty sweet pad. We ate cheese fries on their deck as I gazed fascinated at The Sears Tower and all the other buildings in the Chicago skyline. While doing this I sipped some vodka drink before falling asleep on the couch.

June 30, 2002 Chicago Gay Pride Parade / South Bend, IN @ Some Dude's House
Woke up on Javier's couch at about 10:30 and some women whose name I forget shared her sugary coffee with me. It was so thick and syrupy it was tough to gulp down but I managed. She too was sweet and kind of motherly. Maybe she felt bad for me or something? Today was Chicago's Gay Pride Parade and Mark, Javier, Javier's girlfriend and myself decided to go. We took the train to Boy's Town and went to a friend of Mark's that was having a party on the roof of their apartment building overlooking Halstead Street. I had some Miller Genuine Drafts and Mark got tipsy on mixing alcholic lemonade drinks with berry flavored wine coolers. We watched the entire parade which was pretty long then went down to the street to walk around and take in the sights. Mark and I had fun taking pictures, licking the shoulders of hairy burly dudes (OK, that was just me) and being drunkenly obnoxious. Mark claims that I peed in the middle of the street, however I don't believe it. We split to head back and meet John and Jason to go to South Bend. I really wanted to stay, at this point South Bend seemed about as fun as drowning.

I slept most of the way. We got to South Bend at around 7:00 and found the club. It was closed and looked like it had been so for some time. Some guys in the parking lot told us the owners were evicted and that most likely we were not playing there that night. Hmmmmm. We found a phone and called Raw Dog, our friend that set up the show. He invited us to his dorm at Notre Dame where a small barbecue gathering was underway. He told us the show got moved from the club to some dude's living room. Seemed quite fitting to me since last time we played South Bend we played in this guy Vinnie's bedroom. Vinnie was a cool stoner hippie dude with a serious aversion to doing laundry or taking the dirty dishes out of his room. That show was great though, by the last song people were playing sauce pots, frying pans and the washing machine along with us. I had a feeling this show wouldn't be as funny.

So, we went to this other guys house and set up in the middle of his living room. It was so small we hardly fit. Paul and Angela came up from Chicago. Paul watched through the window from outside. I think we played well, but I was still out of it from the serious parade soiree earlier. After the show Raw Dog took us to this hotel in town to go hot tubbing. He had a friend working the front desk. A sweet hook-up indeed. THe hot-tubbing put the final nail in the coffin...I needed sleep. We crashed in one of the empty dorms on campus.

July 1 , 2002 Ypsilanti, MI @ The Elbow Room W/ 25 Suaves
Most boring and lonely day on tour so far. Walked around Ypsilanti and with each lap around the town it became about a billion times more dreadful. So at somewhere around 7 billion times dreadful I again became depressed. I hung out in this park until the show started. We played, was boring. 25 Suaves were blisteringly amazing like always, but I just wasn't into being at a show so enthusiasm was minimal. We left the Elbow soom and went to The Suaves house out in the Michigan countryside. It was nice. Pete gave me a record I've been coveting for some time now, that made me feel a bit happier. We traded tour horror stories and Pete had some great ones.

July 2 , 2002 Detroit, MI @ Indiego! W/ The Phantom Limbs, Bear vs. Shark
Had a great morning. Fumie/DJ Party Girl/Suaves drummer made these amazing wheat pancakes with orange juice and walnuts. I sat on the grass and read my book in the sun until I became totally bored with it. A popular novel by a rather imfamous womanizing drunk that thought pretty highly of himeself and that being an asshole held some sort of merit. Fuck that. I ditched the book a little more than halfway. I enjoyed the sun for a little while longer before getting back in the van.

Got to Detroit and loaded our stuff into the club. Bear vs. Shark were already there. The Limbs pulled up shortly after and looked so ganrly and utterly fucked up. It was great. Detroit is so incredibly nasty and sad. Our friend Brandon that set the show up told us that people had been going around fire-bombing porches for fun. A few minutes later we heard all these sirens and saw a bunch of fire trucks go by. We went outside and saw this plume of thick black smoke stretching really high into the air. We headed toward it and at the plume's base was a volkswagen van fully engulfed in flames. The people on their porches and in their yards didn't even seemed phased by it. I wondered if they even saw it at all. It was like being in an episode of the Twilight Zone and Cops at the same time. Very surreal, very unsettling. They seemed to view it as a commonplace summertime occurance like the ice cream man coming down the street. The ice cream men and women of Detroit must live in absolute fear. It's a scary place.

A few people showed up. We played awfully. The limbs were next which was great because I love them so much. As the set up, Hopeless, the singer, got naked in front of the stage as he slid into some sort of costume. I was mostly impressed that he painted his teeth black. That's cool. They played and were amazing. Did a few songs I didn't recognize. I befriended some dude at the bar and we talked for the rest of the night. He bought me a shot called "The Mind Eraser". With the realization that I'd eventually have to go back outside onto the lurid streets of Detroit this seemed like a sterling idea.

We crashed at some kids house. It was disgusting, littered with trash, and had enough bong water spilled everywhere to actuallt wade in. I slpet in the van. Due to the horrible living conditions inside, everyone else slept on the roof of the apartment building. The hosts, a young punk rock couple had a terribly loud arguement behind a filthy sheet that acted as their bedroom door. Before falling asleep I wrote down some adjectives describing how detroit makes me feel. These are a few: Piss, Hot, Loud, Shitty, Low, Toilet, Crumbs, Sucky, Suck, Sucks.

July 3 , 2002 Kent, OH @ The Zephyr
Woke up in the van feeling like absolute hell. The pollution was aggravating my lungs forcing upon me a pretty bad asthma attack. Drive to kent was unbearible. Walked around by myself all day. I felt that my bandmates were really pissed off at me, which I'm sure they were. Borrowed money from Jason to eat. I smell unhumanly awful. I've had the same shirt on for every show so far. After wasting an entire day trying to occupy myself in 101 degree heat the club finally opened. A few people showed up. Played well. People bought stuff. Blah...blah...blah...

July 4 , 2002 Columbus, OH @ Bernies W/ Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party
I got up when the van became too unbearibly hot. Went inside to where everyone else was crashed out and slept on the carpet for a while. Got up and showered a few days worth of silme off. Another short drive, however it was 105 degrees. We got to columbus and went to Jason's friends house. The heat was brutal and nothing in the town was open because it was July 4th. We got to Bernie's and found it to be a dingy, scuzzy basement punk bar. It made me feel at home because it reminded me of an old punk bar that used to be in Kenmore Square in Boston. The Rat. This show was set up by a friend of a friend. Tyler from R.Y.B.T.P. introduced himself and we met the rest of the band. Really nice guys. Tyler had ice blue hair that stuck up about half a foot.

There was a really good crowd. We played after a bunch of other bands. We played really franticlly, maybe the best on tour. The crowd energy was really good. I stepped on this girl's foot at the end of our last song and she punched me in the arm. I felt bad so I gave her a record and we we're cool after that, homies even.

After us was Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party played. Really crazy insane-o shit. Really whacked out time signatures and a mind-numbing amount of changes in their songs. I found myself paying really close attention to see if their songs ever repeated parts, but my simple brain gave up on me. They were fun and people freaked out for them. After they played I talked to the bassist for a long time. Was a really fun show, best of tour.

July 5 , 2002 Buffalo, NY @ Soundlab W/ Parts + Labor
A bit of a long drive. Got into Buffalo and no one in town seemed to know where the club was. Turns out to be an art space. It was concrete and cavernous. Parts and Labor played first and were incredible. Because the room was so huge it was kind of echoy, but still they kicked it pretty hard. We played next and it was fun. I fell over twice during our set from tripping stuff I threw and/or tipped over. Rooms like that always make us sounds like ass. Was a fun show though.

July 6 , 2002 Rochester, NY @ Monty's Krown
When we got to Rochester the sky was reddish and really hazy. Aparently it was because of a forest fire burning somewhere in upstate New York. John and I had trouble breathing. We hung out, played, hung out some more. An uneventful day and an uneventful show. We had to be in Providence early the next day so we left after the show and drove over night.

July 7 , 2002 Providence, RI @ Tin Can Fest, Song for Song Battle with Fat Day!
I woke up and we were parked outside of the old mill factory building where the show was being held. I got up and walked to get coffee. The place opened and soon after Fat Day arrived. was cool to see people from home. We couldn't decide on when everyone would play, so we decided we'd all set up and play at the same time. A song for song battle, but since it was Fat Day we did one song to two or three of theirs. Was really one of the most fun shows ever. At the end we played over each other and I ran over and jumped on Matt's back. He was horrificlly sweaty and I realized this was not such a great idea.

Was a good end of tour even though It wasn't the easiest tour for me to get through. I was really glad to go home, we'll to Jason's and sleep. On our way back to Boston we passed Fat Day and mooned them.

balls the size of watermelons". I knew this guy was no joke. As he attempted to leave the stage, the crowd cheered him back on. For the encore he did a drum solo, then another rap. Truly amazing. The last act of the evening were two heavily stoned, slightly dorky hip hop kids. They we're really good, but by this time the free pints of Bass fogged over my perception and I don't remember so much. John, Jason and Mark slept in the "band room" above the bar and I slept in the van playing the part of guard dog.

June 26, 2002 Knoxville, TN @ The Pilot Light W/ Lo-Fi Landscapes (Film Show)
I awoke as the temperature in the van started to climb at a quick and steady rate. I went upstairs to shave. It was the first time I could shave over the nasty cut on my chin that I sustained in a bike accident after leaving a party at John's house a few weeks earlier. A small triumph, yes, but a triumph nonetheless. The drive to Knoxville was really nice. Was excited to see our friend Regina. After checking email at the library we went to her house and made dinner & talked about records over a few beers.

We were going to play after a few short independent art films. I watched only a few minutes of the first one. The combination of being in a dark room and watching a slow motion black and white home movie was lulling me into a near-coma. I walked around the town until we played. We played really well despite how tired we all were.

We went back to Ragina's and crashed. Was a fun show and was great to see Regina again.

June 27, 2002 Evanston, IL @ Nevins Live
We got up at 6:30 am because we had a 10 hour drive to Illinois. Spent most of the drive mindlessly gazing out the window. I've officially entered that spaced out haze that comes after about 5 days of being on tour. We got to Chicago around 4:30 pm, good timing thanks in part to the time difference. We went to a Guitar Center to get bass strings and drum sticks. John, Mark and I all started playing the electronic drum kits like a bunch of drooling five-year-olds over a candy-lined basket of kittens. We must have looked like we were on leave from the institution for the afternoon. I really think Mark may have drooled onto one of the drum pads. It was really fun. Good times, hot jams. We drove to Evanston and found the place. Our friend Paul was there, we hung with him and ate dinner. The crowd was good. We played well.

As the next band played I watched Polyester on a TV with no sound and drank Old Styles with Paul. After the show we went back to Pauls, when we got there his cat was asleep in the bathroom sink. That was pretty cool. We hung on the back porch, ate pizza and drank Tecate from the can. Paul seemed to make stranger noises as the night progressed and I had no idea why. Mark was in a strange mood, John went to sleep in the van and Jason fell asleep in his sleeping bag mid-party on the porch. It was a really fun night.

June 28, 2002 Madison, WI @ Tornado Steak House W/ Bootcha Hop Scooties, Ifihadahifi
Woke up on Pauls couch sweaty and a bit hungover. I had really crazy dreams. Mark and I had a plan to go to this record store he thought I'd really dig. This guy Steve was going to drive us there, but he fell back asleep after watching an exhausting episode of Rikki Lake. We stopped for coffee before getting on the bus and the woman behind the counter was spouting off this crazy shit about the high ptice of coffee to us. Whatever. We got to the record store and I found the record I wanted...Mark was right, the place ruled. We walked through Boy's Town, Mark bought a $40 belt, then had lunch at a mexican joint. We all met back at Paul's and packed up, left and almost immeadiatly got stuck in some brutal airport traffic.

We finally made it to Madison at 4:00ish. Found The Tornado Steak House and brought our equiptment in. I walked around a bit. Mark and I went to get a beer at The Rainbow Room, a slightly seedy gay bar two doors down from the steak house. It had an amazing stage where I imagined malnourished strippers danced.

Bootcha Hop Scooties played first and were good. Reminded me a bit of The Fall. We played next...pretty well, maybe the best so far this tour. After us was Ifihadahifi, noisy carnivalesque spazz rock. They were pretty funny, music was good. Some guy in a Gumby costune swept the carpet as the band played, threw potatoes and hit themselves in the face. Fun show. As we were loading out another band that played were having a saucy arguemwnt that provided for some post-show entertainment. I love other bands' drama, makes me feel like maybe I'm not that crazy after all.

We stayed with this guy named Jake's house. As it turned out, I had met him before the night I had accidentally had too many martini's before practice and left in the middle of it without telling my bandmates. So, I had absolutely no recollection of this ever happening. We kicked it with Jake for a bit then crashed on the floor.

June 29, 2002 Milwaukee, WI @ Punk Mahal W/ Glacier, The Squish, Ifihadahifi
I've felt a depression slowly creeping up on me for the past few days and after some coffee, I realized it had fully arrived. We made a plan with Jake to go to Dr. Evermor's sculpture park. This prospect made me feel a little bit better. We followed jake on his motorcycle and about halfway there we got a flat tire. Jake rode back into town to get a tire iron. Jason put the spare on. We got back on the road and arrived at Dr. Evermor's without to much delay.

On the way I noticed that Wisconsin has a shitload of cornfields. Anyway, Dr. Evermor's was absolutely amazing. In the centre of it was something called the Forevertron. It was this enormous metal sculpture about 65 feet high and its width was just under double that. It looked really futuristic in an old, rusted way. There was a large egg-pod at the top that will launch Dr. Evermor into space after he dies. Pretty fascinating imagination.

There was a musical Bird garden that had all these towering metal birds with large shear blades for feathers that covered their wings. Their bodies were old musical instruments like french horns, trumpets and steel drums. I particularly liked the menacing cello-flamingo's. We met Dr. Evermor after walking around for a while. Jason showed him one of the bass guitars and he seemed to find it amusing. I bet in his day he would have been a rippin' bass player. Dr. Evermor seemed like a sweet old man and he definatly had that mad scientist vibe going on.

We got a bag of cheese curds and got back on the road to Milwaukee. Never had cheese curds before and was amused to no end at the way they squeak when you chew them. We got to Punk Mahal. It was a house that had shows in the basement. We hung out in the living room until the show started. The bands were good. Lots of canned LaBatts. The day ended better than it started. I slept in the van.

June 29, 2002 Chicago, IL @ Fireside Bowl W/ Sicbay, Valina & Herc
On our way out of Milwaukee we stopped at a Salvation Army where I scored some sunglasses and a huge New Kids on the Block pin. Jordan Knight. Had to represent my hometown. The drive to Chicago was under 2 hours and as soon as we arrived we went to John's friend Angela's house. We hung there for a bit then went to the lake and walked out on this question-mark shaped jetty. Jason & I fell asleep on the cement for a bit. There was a large group of dudes in satin shorts practicing a saucy march to really loud 70's disco in preparation for the Pride Parade the next day.

An hour or so later we drove to the Fireside. The matinee hardcore show was still going on when we got there. It was funny to watch this one dude play guitar and do the really high backwards kicks at the same time. After they were done, the crowd changed over and Valina played. They were on tour from Austria...were cool. We played and at some point I hit Jason's friend with a drum stick. When we finished she threw it back at me. It hurt. After milling about the bar for a bit we went back to Mark's friend Javier's house. It was a pretty macked out pad. We ate cheese fries on their deck and I gazed at The Sears Tower and sipped some vodka drink before falling asleep on the couch.

June 30, 2002 Chicago Gay Pride Parade / South Bend, IN @ Some Dude's House
Woke up on Javiers couch at about 10:30 and some women whose name I forget shared her sugary coffee with me. It was so thick and syrupy it was tough to gulp it down but I managed. Today was Chicago's Gay Pride Parade and Mark, Javier, Javier's girlfriend and myself decided to go. We took the train to Boystown and went to a friend of Mark's that was having a party on the roof. I had some Miller Genuine Draft and Mark got tipsy on some lamonade drink or wine coolers. We watched the entire parade which was pretty long, then went down to the street to walk around. Mark and I had fun taking pictures, licking shoulders and being a bit obnoxious. Mark claims that I peed on the street, however I don't believe it. We split to head back and meet John and Jason to go to South Bend.

I slept most of the way. I wanted to stay in Chicago...it was so much fun, but whatever. We got to South Bend at around 7:00 and found the club. It was closed and looked like it had been so for some time. Some guys in the parking lot told us the owners were evicted and that most lekely we were not playing there. Hmmmmm. We found a phone and called Raw Dog, our friend that set up the show. He invited us to his dorm at Notre Dame where a small barbecue gathering was underway. He told us the show got moved from the club to some dude's living room. Seemed quite fitting to me since last time we played South Bend we played in the guy Vinnie's bedroom and by the last song people were playing sauce pots, frying pans and the washing machine along with us.

So, we went to the guys house and set up in the middle of his living room. Paul and Angela came up from Chicago. We and all our equiptment just barely fit and Paul watched through the window from outside. I think we play well, but I was still out of it from the serious parade soiree earlier. After the show Raw Dog took us to this hotel in town to go hot tubbing. Was fun but put the final nail in the coffin...I needed sleep. We crashed in one of the empty dorms on campus.

July 1 , 2002 Ypsilanti, MI @ The Elbow Room W/ 25 Suaves
Most boring and lonely day on tour so far. Walked around Ypsilanti and with each lap around the town it became about a billion times more dreadful. So at somewhere around 7 billion times dreadful I became a pretty depressed. I hung out in this park until the show started. We played, was boring. 25 Suaves were blisteringly amazing like always, but I just wasn't into being at a show so enthusiasm was minimal. We left the Elbow soom and went to The Suaves house out in the Michigan country. It was nice. Pete gave me the Suaves/Oneida split LP. Pete rules.

July 2 , 2002 Detroit, MI @ Indiego! W/ The Phantom Limbs, Bear vs. Shark
Had a great morning. Fumie/DJ Party Girl/Suaves drummer made these amazing wheat pancakes with orange juice and walnuts. I sat on the grass and read my book in the sun until I became totally bored with it. A popular novel by a rather imfamous womanizing drunk that thought pretty highly of himeself and that being an asshole held some sort of merit. Fuck that. I enjoyed the sun for a little while longer before getting back in the van.

Got to Detroit and loaded our stuff into the club. Bear vs. Shark were already there. The Limbs pulled up shortly after and looked so ganrly. It was great. Detroit is so incredibly fucked up. Our friend Brandon that set the show up told us that people had been going around fire-bombing porches for fun. A few minutes later we heard all these sirens and saw a bunch of fire trucks go by. We went outside and saw this plume of thick black smoke stretching really high into the air. We headed toward it and at the plume's base was a volkswagen van fully engulfed in flames. The people on their porches and in their yards didn't even seemed phased by it. They seemed to view it as a commonplace summertime occurance like the ice cream man coming down the street. The ice cream man must live in absolute fear. It's a scary place.

A few people showed up. We played awfully. The limbs were next which was great because I love them so much. As the set up, Hopeless, their singer, got naked in front of the stage as he slid into costume. I think this one was white face paint and black teeth. They played and were amazing. Did a few songs I didn't recognize. I befriended some dude at the bar and we talked for the rest of the night. He bought me a shot called "The Mind Eraser". With the realization that I'd eventually have to go back outside into the lurid streets of Detroit this seemed like a sterling idea.

We crashed at some kids house. It was disgusting. I slpet in the van. Due to the horrible living conditions inside, everyone else slept on the roof of the apartment building. Before falling asleep I wrote down some adjectives describing how detroit makes me feel. These are a few: Piss, Hot, Loud, Shitty, Low, Toilet, Crumbs, Sucky, Suck, Sucks.

July 3 , 2002 Kent, OH @ The Zephyr
Woke up in the van feeling like absolute hell. The pollution was aggravating my lungs forcing upon me a pretty bad asthma attack. Drive to kent was unbearible. Walked around by myself all day. Borrowed money from Jason to eat. I smell awful. I've had the same shirt on for almost every show so far. After wasting an entire day trying to occupy myself in 100 degree heat the club finally opened. A few people showed up. Played well. People bought stuff. Blah...blah...blah...