so part II… charlottesville, va. at this point i was already confused as to where we were headed on what day. i didn’t know that charlottesville was even in virginia until a day later when we passed out of virginia. the drive wasn’t too bad but the heat when we got out was rough. surprisingly enough it was 102 degrees in nyc. we got out of the van and began walking to the venue, which was called the box

pat and i stopped off for some free peanuts and peeing at five guys. the fellow behind the the counter got wise to our schemes so we walked outta there

when we made it to the box we noticed a cool little poster announcing that girlfriends would be arriving in town with us as supporters, it was a really cool little poster. i think the photo was from andy’s friend’s parent or something? anyway we had a whole mess of hours to kill so we walked through “the mall” where laura purchased some stuff at urban outfitters and i  got a two for one gatorade deal at cvs

we were told by the bartender at the box that we were entitled to some free fried rice whenever we wanted it so we came back and got our fair share. the food was incredibly tasty, especially because it was free. i had the tofu and covered it with hot sauce. it was delicious

oh and they had an enormous painting of mr. miyagi behind the bar. unfortunately the light in the bar did not allow for the depth of field i had hoped for, but here’s a blurry vision of him… you get the drift

in an effort to waste more time we went to another bar that had billiards and played a best of three tournament.

i forget the outcome but i was on lc’s team. i think we may have won? the only reason i assume this is because during our third game the strangest dude came out of the woodwork and introduced himself as randy (a drawing was made in the tour notebook which i may try and scan later) randy proceeded to ask if he could play the winner of the game, but because it was two on two it made it hard. he didn’t quite get the drift that we were happy playing on our own and we told he we guessed he could play whoever won. he then told us he was originally from new york… new jersey, ny. and then he started doing what i think was supposed to be some sort of brooklyn slang and kept saying “‘three fingas’ …am i right? hahaha. ‘gimme three fingas’.” and we were quite lost. add in some awkward conversation attempt to laura with an aversion attempt by me, a completely pointless story about his father’s death being “one week to the day” from september 11th and some weird praise for the connection he felt to us and you have the factors that lead to us filing out one by one.

pat was the first to go just on his own, followed by (or nick and i thought) laura, then nick and  then via phone call / “something important is happening!” me. nick and i hurried back to the safety of the venue and expected to find pat and laura, only pat was sitting alone. laura had simply walked off to the restroom without the knowledge we left so when she returned she apparently saw randy on his own staring into a mirror. she tip-toed outta that bar and made her way back

the pool game was fun while it lasted at least. we asked the bar tender back at the box if there were any cool parks with rivers or creeks and she gave us a general direction of how to get to one. at first we followed her exact instructions and ended up in private property, but then by scoping out a sign marked “one lane bridge” we came across this really amazing park with a river running through it.

the landscape was beautiful. we took our shoes off and headed it, because there were already a few others bathing so we knew it was ok to not die in

the light was really amazing as it passed through the opening of the brush. i kept trying to capture the others as they mingled in the right spot.

the river bed was rocky, but well worth the stop. laura had sandles so her feet were ok

this was definitely one of the highlights of the tour for me, stumbling across something like this. being from long island you really don’t get to experience rivers so i was really looking forward to these type of findings

at this spot the light was really amazing. too bad my scanner kind of sucks right now

nick scaling the high peaks off the river

the one thing about the 6 is the focal range on the lens is just over arms length so any arms length self portrait is bound to be out of focus, unless you’re a long armed basketball player or something

we made our way back to the venue because girlfriends let us know they were approaching. i got some really delicious and messy ice cream from a mom an’ pop store

the show got started pretty late, around 10 or so, but to our surprise adam and cousin ari made it out again with a few friends. they rule. we were introduced to his local friend maureen. she offered to let us all crash at her place which was perfect

we went on, then girlfriends went on. we both played well i think

i took a few 3200 shots with the new camera, but was surprised that i still had to shoot at a relatively slow shutter speed for some reason. normally i can get away with something a bit faster

it still yielded some cool, art-crappy looking fotos. i kid, i actually like them

especially this one of jenny. we were headed to winston-salem, nc the next day and the drive wasn’t supposed to be too bad so we headed back to maureen’s to hang and eventually get some sleep. i did well on my loaner air mattress (that chuck d provided me with). however, this was the first night i learned of the southern sweat-night-heat-chills. no one really calls them that, but i made that up right now. the phenomenon i am trying to describe is that when you go to sleep it is so damned hot you are drenched with sweat, then right around 5 am to wake up freezing without any blanket or coverage and you have to change you shirt or whatever you got on. this would happen to me almost every night for the remainder or the trip and would become the reason i lost a lot of sleep. the next update will be from the true best city in america, clemmons.

i recently returned from my first tour of the south that i did with the weed hounds. now, i will start off by saying that about two weeks before the tour i told the group i would be leaving after the trip because it had started to become too stressful and unfun. i enjoy playing music, but when the operating of a band gets in the way of that enjoyment i don’t see the point in continuing. i didn’t want to leave them high and dry and leave before the tour, which we had put a lot of time and effort into planning and i also figured it would be a lot of fun. well it was mostly fun with a few hiccups, but overall i had a good time though don’t know how quickly i would rush to do it again… especially of the south.

it started off with charlotte and i getting on the long island rail road the morning of july 2nd to go out to pick up our rental van. we met nick and laura to load it up with all the WH gear that i would drive down to DC with me and after my sister’s wedding on the 3rd i would meet the hounds in baltimore on the fourth for the first show. (the wedding photos will be complete other post).

this is the “on tour” duffle bag i found at k-mart which i felt was completely fitting and needed to buy. i was bored in the parking lot of some rite aid waiting for the hounds’ bus to arrive in b-more.

this was that parking lot. at this point i should mention i bought a rangefinder camera for the trip and wedding and life and was still testing some things out with it so i was taking rando photos like this

this… now this is the amazing custom long board that was my wedding party parting gift from my sister and new brother in law. they had it made from a fella who is the brother in law of a brother of my brother in law’s wife. get that? it is really sweet and i brought it along for the trip. i was completely stunned when tim handed it to me because it was the last thing i expected to go home with. i took it through the back roads of a bunch of cities on this tour and have to say it flows amazingly

anyway after scouring the city of baltimore to find the other three hounds (the arrival address wasn’t showing up in the gps really) i finally found them about a mile out of the city limits

we loaded up the car and headed back to baltimore to see what it was about. we got a few recommendations from laura’s bf, tom of where to check out.

we passed this completely false statement on the way to the downtown area…. really? you cannot be serious in that claim. like really?

this was from the water front out there. i think that’s the potomac river but i could be wrong

it was fucking hot as blazes so we went to a liquor store to buy beer and non beer to take over to the first show we were playing which was at the fan death records house. it was a really cool bbq/house show. we arrived to the house just around 3 and were met by a nice bunch of folks willing to put food in our stomachs

they had a really cool back yard area… i loved the hanging ivy (which i learned later would become a theme to southern landscapes) a few minutes into the lighting of the grills this fellow had been pulling a homer simpson and squeezing a few gallons of lighter fluid stuff onto the grill… when he lit the match a flame two feet taller than he was shot out to the sky. he singed his arm hair and eyebrows off. glad it was only that big

at this point the camera was giving me some issues and i was annoyed so i went out front to fiddle with it. i fixed it somehow eventually, but this resulted in having a couple of out of focus shots i would have liked to see. adam from 538 came out to the show with cousin ari (not his real cousin but he definitely introduced us to his as his cousin)

as the night progressed more food and beer was consumed by the party and the music began. i originally though that the neighbors would mind the noise, considering it seemed to be a pretty residential hood but the sound was completely drowned out by exploding, serious fireworks. although they were all pretty awesome it was pretty unnerving because parents and children alike were just walking in the middle of the street to light these things.

also, the locals that put the show on kept telling us that the fourth is strange around there because you don’t know if it’s the sound of fireworks or the sound of gun shots you’re hearing. we weren’t in the nicest part of town, that much was clear but i got talking to a few of the neighbors and they were nothing but nice and welcoming. i didn’t see how the crime could be so high but i will not doubt that it was

but again the lack of concern from people about lighting off some massive fireworks was weird

the neighborhood was really cool though, especially with puffs of smoke absorbing the night light.

our touring buddies, girlfriends, hit the floor and started playing. i was really super excited to see them because the last time we were slotted to play with them there was a personal issue with the band and they had to cancel. we still got to meet jenny and andy and hang with them in a boston basement, but it would’ve been better playing with them. anyway… they were amazing. it took them a few tries to get one song going this night (and a few night following) but they were so tight and really captivating. they have a chemistry together that a lot of bands lack.

after their set we set up for our first performance of the tour. before leaving we played at 538 about a week earlier but were honestly still a bit rusty. it probably wasn’t the worst set, but definitely wasn’t the best. the one thing that did put a damper on things was that the police had finally showed on the block  so during our performance flashing lights made us halt  more than once. that sucked.

after the set we went back out on the street to cool off because it was hot as blazes in that room, the very same room we were about to lay our asses down to sleep on. apparently there was a mosquito problem there too but i so rarely get bitten i didn’t notice.

around this time the last band was finishing up and i was still drying off. a half hour later or so this dude from the first band got into a yelling match that would last the night with chris from fan death records, the guy who put the show on. the dude in the band had a pink leather jacket stolen from his car and was fairly upset. so to make the pain go away he drank his ass drunk until he was obviously not suited to drive. his bandmate, andrew bucket (who booked us at the velvet lounge in dc) argued that he should just go down to the basement and sleep it off. the drunkard and his female bandmate/gf bounced back and forth with chris and andrew for most of the night about how uncomfortable and weird he felt at the house and how he just wanted to leave. he called chris a “buttplug” about thirty times and kicked in a few of his fence posts. what a dick. that kept us awake most of the night. at 4:30 am keys were passed and he was out of our lives.

the next morning we surveyed the damage from the fireworks and packed up our gear. i had a nice conversation with a neighbor across the street named vernon, a 40 year old itt tech student, about the events of the night. at this point i began what i wanted to be a regular thing… taking a group photo in front of each venue we played. this one might’ve been the only one we did because i forgot to do it the second night due to time constraints and figured if i missed one the whole concept was over.

we thanked chris and headed on our way to charlottesville, which will be my next scanning project and post most likely. stay tuned matt and rachel.