yep, according to my calculations oxford, ms was the next stop on our route of the south. we were slotted to play at a place called the red star bar. for some reason i didn’t shoot too many photos the day of the show but i can’t quite remember why. we set off to mississippi and eventually found ourself in a great deal of traffic with people uncomfortable and full of pee

my reaction to the traffic

we eventually stopped at some point at the king of burgers somewhere. i can’t even remember what state it was

i guess we were near rt 412?

on the way to oxford there were tons of two lane highways we got on. rolling, two lane highways.

at some point it started to rain and shit can it rain in the south. the weather just springs out and shows its face. can you see the size of those rain drops? i did my best to capture the sheer magnitude of the things

these photos still don’t do it justice

oh so everywhere in mississippi is covered by this beautiful vine called kudzu (sp?) i was informed that although it looks beautiful it is a complete nuisance to the natives. it springs up and covers literally everything. but it makes for some really marvelous views

we got off the highway and ended up in some sort of ghost town where old college buildings that once appeared to be thriving were just abandoned. they even built the new buildings directly next to the old beautiful ones

we eventually landed in the square of oxford. my first thought was that its not the biggest town in the world. there is just sort of a square with a courthouse in the middle and that is about it. nothing much else. people in oxford seem to like to eat and read because there was only bars, restaurants and book stores

they had cool old phone booths (obviously)

we got to the venue, which was closed, and noticed a flier for our show that night. that ruled. its cool when people seem to care about the show when you get into a town

we walked around a bit and found a bar to watch lebron’s announcement. we were hoping he’d choose the knicks but had no luck

after eating a descent slice of jalepeno pizza we entered the venue for sound checks. this turned out to be the best sounding place we played on tour. the promoter, dent may, really hooked us up. we had a cooler of beers (who cares) and an awesome stage to play on. i didn’t shoot any shots of girlfriends with my camera that night because it was the first night i remembered to take jenny’s camera and use it. here’s one of the shots that i found on her tumblr (which is incredibly entertaining, btw)

after the show we followed dent through what seems like 10 miles of dark forest and eventually reached his amazing barn-like house. we had a few couches and a few strips of carpeted floor to crash on

his house that he shared with a few other dudes was filled with fun stuff like a giant poster of andy warhol, a movie poster for wild style and assorted portraits and knick knacks

also this massive fly was left where it was flatted on the window. i stared at it when i woke up for a while. hey guy, how’s it going

the rain rolled in and out again but we missed it for the minute. i found myself trying to photograph dent’s place and saw jenny was out there doing the same. look at the ominous edge of the sky in the distance

after packing up we went back into town to meet dent and his co-worker pal at a real southern comfort food spot called tallulah’s kitchen. the food was pretty phenomenal but the portions were massive. i couldn’t finish my black bean chipotle burger at all. the others got catfish steaks and fried oreos. woah. i missed the fried oreos but made up for it this past week on the jersey shore. anyway

it was here that dent’s friend (who’s name slips my mind) told me that in town someone started selling a variety of jam made from that stuff kudzu i mentioned earlier. he said it sort of has a minty flavor… who knew!

when we got back to the square i ducked off for some ice cream with the girlfriends. the heat was wearing me down. i took this same photo with my camera but the scan had so much dust on it i decided to use the version i took with jenny’s camera. the coke float i had was so tasty. i wish i was drinking it right now… old thymey coke bottle… mmm

when i walked back to off square books, the place dent worked at, i narrowly missed the rain which came down in torrents. i think pat was unfortunately stuck in it

the book store was really cool, it had all sorts of cool titles and authors as well as recordings and treats. the night prior i wandered into it alone not knowing it’s connection to our promoter and bought steven martin’s born standing up for only six dollars! good read btw

we waited for the rain to dry off a bit and pet the local book store cat. nick and that cat became the best of friends.

the girlfriends were gonna wait a little longer in oxford but i think we wanted to see what our next stop, jackson, was about

we thanked dent and parted ways. he is a great dude, look him up if you’re ever in the city of oxford

off to jackson, the next stop.

after tossing cat peed laptop covers in the parking lot we got into the van and made our way to asheville, nc. this was to be our first long haul. knoxville was originally equidistant between clemmons and wherever we were going after knoxville but because of the cancellation we had quite a drive ahead of us. we loaded up the van, as did girlfriends and his the road

i think we were all pretty exhausted

i think nick or laura drove which allowed me to take a few snapshots of the scenery out the window… more mountains. for some reason when i think of the south mountains NEVER enter my mind. only swamps and deserts, and the truth is there aren’t even many deserts

we did the long drive and eventually landed in the hilly city of asheville. nick got out and posted up against the wall. i think i walked over to this leafy part of the wall and snapped this for some reason

we went outside and headed toward the venue. the only issue we were facing was there was no definite confirmation we actually had a show. the person benny had been in touch with left off with him on a “i’ll call you back” note, but had never called back. so we decided to go straight to the venue to try and sort things out. we go there and there was no one there that dealt with the bar or shows. so while we waited for girlfriends to arrive we decided to check out some of the local hippy-head shops

after finding some free red & white stripped hanker-chiefs we walked into a spot where laura found a hat that she should’ve just haggled for. they totally would’ve let it go for five bucks! it was huge and amazing

i’m not sure what this rock is trying to tell me, but i feel ya. XXX bro

the galfriends showed up a few minutes later and we decided we would just proceed as if we were playing at the bobo gallery whether we actually were on not. the people at the veggie restaurant that was connected to the space didn’t have a clue what was going on so we posted a “FREE SHOW TONIGHT!” live poster in the window and just hoped for the best. jenny designed a flyer for the show and we googled where the nearest copy shop was

we ended  up at a mom and pop copy shop which split its time between copying and dry cleaning… weird.

we all split up and hit the town handing out flyers and posting them on walls of anywhere that music likers might go. i was told not to be ageist so i literally handed them to anyone that walked by with ears. in retrospect.. i should’ve just been ageist because i knew those people weren’t coming. a few people i did hand them to i assume would be really into it and acted like they were totally didn’t come. what a bum out!

nick and i covered a lot of ground and after inspecting much of the city i have decided it’s a cool little city. not anywhere i could live, but if you had to be stuck in the hills in the south this would be a cool place to get stuck. we joined up with the rest of the hounds and friends and headed to a veggie restaurant recommended by a nice lady we passed by.

after lunch we all checked out a cool guitar shop. i have no interest in buying guitar equipment so all i did was marvel at the prices of things. we got info from the clerk that there was a pawn shop type of thing we could go to a bit outside of the city that carried drum equipment. so i went with laura, andy and pat i think to check it out. i am starting to lose memory of how the days went. andy was looking for a cymbal but found nothing but overpriced garb so we headed back to the venue

the bobo gallery had some cool artwork hanging, probably about how society uses the earth as a giant trashcan. they were large pieces, pretty cool stuff

we had quite a while to kill so we hung out for a while. eventually the folks benny spoke to showed up and confirmed that yes, we were playing. later a few folks that we had flyered to turned up and waited patiently for us to set up. on couple, who showed up right as we posted the first poster in the window, came back at 9. they were from baltimore and had originally wanted to come to the show at fan death records house but couldn’t because they were on vacation in asheville… how weird is that! they got a raincheck and saw us that night

we played a cool little set and sold a few singles. i noticed people lining up outside the windows on the streets that were afraid to come in. we should have put a GIANT sign that said “FREEEEEE SHOOOOW COOOMEEE IIINNNN!” because i guess they assumed they would have to pay a cover

girlfriends was awesome as usual. getting tighter and more into a vibe

benny wailed

there was a mr. t piece behind jenny. see? after our sets we hung out for a while at the venue until russel (?) the bartend (photographed by patrick below) told us it was closing time. jenny was trying to get a friend of a friend on the phone that offered us a place to stay. only issue was that it was around 12:30/1:00 am and the friend of a friend was at a dinner party somewhere around the corner

we drove off and headed in the direction of the dinner party counting the stacks of loot we made that night.

which was a two dollar donation split among both bands from a passerby. we eventually hooked  up with a fellow named brown who was so generously offering his place for us to sleep at, having never met us or even seen our show. we paid him in records and thank yous.

his room mate basically had a record store set up in their kitchen. i was pretty impressed

seems like a good way to store lps. i slept in a musky basement all by my lonesome, no one else would venture down there with me. i guess i slept the best though. i dozed off to the soothing sound of stephen colbert.

we said goodbye to brown’s place and boarded bessie on our way to the next location

i can’t even remember where that was but i think it was oxford, mississippi. further updates to come when i have more time