So we were on our way to the next show in Oakland. I think it was the day before that we learned that the space our Reno show was to be held was double booked so the show was cancelled. There was a bit of scrambling to get something else while we were already trying to find a legit gig in San Fran or the surrounding areas. Turns out someone (who I can’t remember) hooked us up at the stork club.

So we made our way and on our way we passed Santa Maria Way. So I texted Andre. We were on the road for quite a while again I think (the information is starting to leak from my head as it’s been about a month now. I just got back from vacation though so I had to take some time away from scanning.)

It’s amazing what spending two weeks in a van will do to you. I started seeing things differently. For example this view from the back seat of the van felt like Stonehenge.

Justin took this picture and I can’t remember if it was from this morning or not but I was half laying in and out of the van and apparently resembled Hank Rollins because of the angle of my neck.

We got into some town that Bobby was familiar with. He said it had a good Mexican spot and a Guitar shop so we figured why not.

The west coasters really scrutinized the food but to me Mexican can only be really bad if it’s bad. It’s hard for it to be really good, it just has to be fresh and freshly cooked to be good. Maybe it’s a balance of ingredients that make it good. Get what I’m saying? Do I?  I couldn’t complain about any of the Mexican food we got over there cause it’s nothing like over here (‘cept you, local truck!)

I had this other picture of Joe looking at the menu but can’t find it on my hard drive now. It was a big menu. So I don’t remember the name of the town we stopped it but it was quiet and quaint. This was a cool and well tended bridge. I mean look at the hanging flowers. You think you’re gonna see that on the kosciuszko? Nahson.

While the fellas looked at amps and guitars I walked over to this little park and walked down to the stream. To my surprise I heard the sound of chickens cawing. I was a little what the fucked out by that.

A few seconds later these two big sons of bitches come running down the path toward me. The looked like cock fighting big dudes. I dunno much about chickens but it was weird.

I was by no means threatened by them but it was weird to see them be sort of not threatened by me. I was thinking “what tricks do you got up your sleeve? I’m 6’1″ and you can’t fly so you gotta be able to jump high to peck my eyes out, son.”

It was definitely super cool to see them just roaming around on their own though.

Headed back to the store and saw Justin chillin outside with Elvis. That dude didn’t have much to say though.

When we were done we got ready to get back in the van and everything was like normal.

I have no idea where this photo was taken. That’s Bo and he’sa walkin’. This mighta been when we got into Oakland?

We met up with John Ahn (sp?) who is our homie from Pittsburgh. He was on his way to Hawaii and was spending some time with friends and his brother in Oakland. So we were put up with his friends who were super nice and awesome for letting us hang.

Joe’s a smily guy.

We eventually headed out and checked out some of the hilly area record stores like Ameoba and Rasputin. I caught some cool shit while there. Plus it was fucking cold there! I couldn’t believe it was that cold in California in the summer. Seems wack. I bought an Ameoba Berkeley sweartshirt just to be comfortable.

I dunno if these glasses were new for Matt or not but he was wearing them while we were on our way to the Stork Club.

Here’s the So Adulterers playing jams. We both sounded especially awesome that night because the sound guy there was cool. Justin read the rules and regulations of the Stork Club before showing up and noticed that if we brought CDRs they could make a soundboard recording of us. The soundguy was fucking thrilled to do it! He was like “no one ever reads the website!” and his whole attitude changed toward us. He made us do the most thorough sound check.

What was really funny was that the next day we listened to the CDRs in the van on the way to lunch. The mix was straight off the board, as mentioned, so the vocals were cranked up about 10 dbs louder than the instrumentation. It was hilarious because Joe didn’t have words for some of the tunes so he just mumbled 90s style into the mic.

Here’s Conor with Ms. Uni Verse. Apparently that was her name. She was the bartender at the Stork Club. She also apparently asked Joe for a shirt and he gave it up – within the time frame of getting it from Joe and working her shift for an hour and a half or so she managed to mangle and cut it up like so.

I mean how does one do such a thing?! My mind was blown. She must do the Misfits and Tiger Army shirts I see on eBay. So everything was pretty cool during that show. I think we made 12 dollars or something, Uni Verse won her street fight with the crackhead that tried to steal her tips, and we went back to sleep on a floor with kitties that climbed through the rafters.

The following day I didn’t take any pictures for whatever reason, but everyone either split up to go guitar shopping, record and or book shopping, and eat vegetarian asian or korean food in various groups. I hung with 1/2 of S.A. and we ate lunch with the Wuv cats. After a nice meal me and Bo did some shopping. The previous night a man named “Conin Newtronn” (the names of this one guy have been altered to slightly prevent stuff like on tv) heard of our dilemmas with Reno and offered us a spot on a show in Oakland the following night. We were specifically told something along the lines of “oh, we’ll hook you guys up. We know what it’s like to be on the road.”

So we show up to the weird ass show and start talking to some of the folks and realize what a treat we’re in for.

On the sign outside it says like “Dark Beach, Victor Associate, and Funny Frank and the Fart Brigade. And Touring Bands” is written underneath. Awesome stuff. We start loading in.

We bring all our shit in and at this point are fully aware that we do not belong and that this will be a strange affair. We try to keep a positive attitude.

Hey, there’s Frank and the Fartknocker over on the left! So we chat some more and figure we’ve got time to go get food. Apparently now we’re being tacked onto the VERY END of the show, so everyone’s sets will run as planned and we will be splitting 20 minutes or some shit. I don’t remember exactly what was said, it probably wasn’t that, but it certainly was a slap in the face.

The inside of this weird fucking show was like a craft fair that happens every day. Even while the show was starting ladies were still cutting up fabric behind the scenes.

I think this is about the time we started sending mass texts making ourselves laugh at everyone involved because of how absurd this was turning out. We’re not total dicks, its just that we were described a completely different scenario by our boy Cone.

The light was super awesome so I snapped a bunch of photos while I waited for us to go eat.

Is Derek trying to warm his knuckles on Justin’s croch?

Ok so me and Conor and Bo go to get pizza at this point, all the while telling each other how much we don’t want to go back and play this awkward event.

But again… the light was cool.

So after our pizza we head back  to the show We were able to catch the show’s announcement. “Guys please welcome to FartBeat Oakland: Dark Beach, Villianous Bropriates, Frank and the Fartknocker and The Touring Bands!” Awesome again. Dark Beach played first and they were pretty fucking cool actually. I mean, the drummer was bad and I desperately wanted to give her advice on where to place drums and how to use her arms effectively, but the guitar player / singer was sick. She had the exact same set up as Derek! Fucking weird. Sort of a Bikini Kill Hot Snakes combo. I liked it. It seemed there was hope for the show. Wait, then The Victimless Propriates played. Oh boy did we text the shit out of each other and laugh about that set. I’ve never seen a bigger example of a group of people playing together but not listening to one another. By the way, these guys are definitely going to make it. Without a doubt. You can just tell by the earnestness of each of them while they stroke their six strings. How passionately they pound the skins. How they hold their hand to the sky to mime the lyrics they wrote in 8th grade but haven’t used until now. Great stuff. I lost my 7″ on the plane ride home cause I left it in their merch box. After them we got to hear about an hour of Frank and the Fartknocker sing unfunny songs about weed, weiners and women (they’ve never slept with), and about being on tour. I think it was Derek that said like “driving with your friend to Colorado for a week’s worth of vacation and playing one show at a friend’s bar is not the same as touring.” We prepare to leave and hopefully never speak to anyone there ever again and end up hearing one of the Dark Beach boyfriends say “touuuring baaands, tooourrrring baaands” at us after some misguided conversation.

One last night in the Brooklynesque loft space with the boys and then it was back on the road to Seattle.

Conor did the old glasses switcharoo trick with John, as ya do.

And here is one of their cute pooches. The last update will be the journey home. To be continued.

Here’s that cute cat again. I think it’s Bo that took the floor in this shot to play with it in the morning. That morning So Adult and Deep Pockets were to be playing in Goleta, California, which is in the Santa Barbara area.

After some breakfast tacos at that local “franchise” spot we drove the scenic route along the water to Santa Barbara. I think I had a middle seat so no pictures of the water from the window. Water’s water though, so fuck it. I got some later.

I actually found a camera store that had 120 film and I was able to replenish my stores and reserves.

Our first stop, after peeing at Starbucks of course, was some over priced record store.

I spotted a really tight Suicidal shirt at that place but wasn’t able to pay the asking price. I’d rather just make another one (where the fuck did that last one go!?)

Here’s Joe in front of his cafe. What a torn up young man.

After the record store we hung out on the strip next to some fake crust punk beggar types. They smelled like shit but had iphones and new sneakers. Fuck that type of person. If you pay a phone bill then you can fucking shower.

I think maybe Bo found some good shit in that place?

Conor got something that seemed to look like an oversized floppy disk. And I meant floppy disk, not the plastic ones that people continued to call floppy.

Here’s some palm trees. Reminds me of the Beach Bummed single.

The So Adult guys are like dieting teens and are obsessed with 16 Handles. I saw them make at least 4 stops before I finally caved on the fifth.

Now they got me going to the local one with all the weird fake Miami Astorians.

After we had our fill of the strip area we headed over to the beach. Check out this weird fucking seagull-pigeon. I don’t think that’s a technical term but seriously… that’s what that is. Am I right? Maybe you have to see the high res…

I took a little walk over to the cliffs while the other dudes were either napping or swimming. Check out this weird death trap thing. I’m sure it’s fine actually.

I was watching this dude fish off the edge and not get a single tug. Sucks. Teach a man to fish and he’s still hungry sometimes.

Oh and look at this, behind us… fuckin mountains again!

This lady was walking her kid pretty close to the edge and I was getting a little nervous because I wonder how parents can be so dumb. Not fully captured here though.

This shit reminded me of Montauk kind of. And the Capital song.

That’s me.

This is the river or stream or bay or something. Pretty awesome nature jazz.

Back to base camp to catch up with the other weiners.

Jwow’s a big fan of no shoein it. Not shown in this particular frame was a team of competitive cheerleaders doing all sorts of fancy lift and throw moves. Reminds me of the high school wrestler Mike Brendli.Wonder if he’s still a champ.

Here’s one of Justin’s of Matt putting hisself into the Pacific for the first time. Good moment for sure.

After the beach we made our way to the show space, which was really awesome. Check out this weird brain thing. Art.

I think Joe’s humping it in this one? I dunno, Justin’s pics again. We got some over priced college food a few blocks away before the show which was pretty banging even though the price sucked shit. When we got back we met back with with Funds and met his German wife, who was awesome. I chatted quite a bit with the dudes from Become, who were really awesome. Reminded me a bit of a west coast Everything Sucks maybe. They definitely had a Citizen’s Arrest meets Rites of Spring vibe. I spoke to one of the guys for a while because he used to live in NYC and had a few stories about it. Really nice guy.

Here’s some more vids of these guys playing their shitty songs, or other people’s songs that they made shitty.

Nah sike. Joe riffs a bit in this one about downloadable t-shirts which was funny. Someone bootleg recorded the show apparently. I can’t find a link for it but it definitely exists.

After the show we went to some grocery market chain they got out there and I copped some Nutella and pretzels. Perfect combo. We stayed at the Become house. I was searchin for space and found some under a table. It seemed like a nice quiet and out of the way nook so I took it. Everyone else assumed it was because I was earthquake nervous. It wasn’t, but they can think that if they want.

This guy has a new BR tattoo right above that PMA now. We left Santa Barbara to head to some of our last stops at this point. More shit to come though.