I think I missed something throughout this whole ordeal of writing about the journey of two bands through the west. Did I ever explain the misspelling on the title? Well if you’ve traveled throughout the U.S. one of the things you notice is that we all speak the same language. The difference between us is our pronunciation of the words we use. As a New Yorker, specifically as a Long Island bred New Yorker, I tend to say things without pronouncing letters. These hooligans from the Northwest just add extra letters. After the third or fourth day I decided to give them something to be self conscious about. The word “tour” – which in the East is pronounced “tore” – was having an extra syllable added to it. “Tu – Er” – but said more rapidly of course. “Yeah, we did a to-er of the west last summer, but that to-er was different than this one. Other to-ers we’ve done were like this” and so on.

I’m sure according to Oxford neither of us is correct but it’s just some funny shit that carried through the trip, noticing each others accents and commenting on them. Trying to recreate each others accents and such. I will say Bobby has the absolute best North West accent I will ever hear in my life and I want him to record for my GPS. Hearing him try to recreate our NY accent was quite a scene as well. Conor gets awards for best impression of Joe’s “Up here we have a saying – pipe down.” Anyway, onward with the photos…

So I think some of these were taken on the way out of Oakland but honestly I have no clue. They just look like city to me. We were done with the shows now and on our way to Seattle to drop Justin off at the airport.

What’s funny though is that originally we were going to play a show in Portland (or somewhere) before he had to take off. I can’t imagine the amount of stress involved in that. We were supposed to have been coming from Reno for that plan but the idea was still in the air for a few minutes there.

The drive back to SeaTac ahead of us was at least 14 hours if not more. The early morning hours were spent laughing about the events of the previous night. Probably one of the funnest 10 minute sets I’ve ever played. The So Adulters just being hilarious, with HoJo leadin the pack. Homie grabbed a drum stick and jumped in on bell duties for “Knitting Circle” and moshed hard while scattering the ear plug jug all across the floor. I laughed through the whole set and could barely keep time.

Justin sent our dog, Cone-anne, some texts the next morning which were met with funny responses. It was quite funny but I won’t go into much detail. The drive was of course very long with some of us sleeping, some of us sleeping inside our pillows.

After a well earned rest stop the fellas started to wake up a bit more. I did my best to capture the mood of the back seat crew.

But it sure was tough to fit everyone in the frame

Up in the front Bob-o was pulling in another 40,000 mile drive with Derek as the co-pilot. Probably another 2 hour circuitry discussion as well.

Moving along quite nicely at this point and getting close to Portland we pulled off for a dinner break.

The gents took us to a Middle-Eastern spot they frequented on other trips. I will say one thing about the West – they may have tacos down but they ain’t got shit on some falafel or gyros.

The wait was to be a little while so we posted up outside and I started snapping some photos. The light was incredible because the glass was set up right in front to bounce some warm light onto the dudes

I moved around to get comfortable but ended up snapping a bunch more to really take advantage.

I love a stacked shot like this one a few people at different levels.

Bo posin hard.

Joe contemplating life.

Derek doing a “and I’m reaping all the benefits”

Then I decided I wanted to nab a group shot by setting up the self timer. I love this shot. Like I said before, these guys… these are the guys.

We went in finally and ate. I mean it wasn’t horrible but there just wasn’t much spice to any of it, and I don’t mean specifically heat, I mean out here the use of spices is taken advantage of a bit more. They did have they massive pitas though which were awesome. The light was too poor in there for me to get them in focus but just understand they were close to the size of a pizza.

On the way out Joe was ridin the vibes high and for some reason that is now lost to me and started bustin some moves. It  started with his left overs, but then to properly give it to the camera he laid down his weapons and went for it  unarmed.

Giving me some Pulp Fiction

This might be a Ric Flair type deal? I can’t remember

Then he pulled out the peasant mosh

Going for it hard in a butthole universe

Just look at the toughness in those eyes

Then he just ran some circles through the parking lot. After Joe settled down a bit I said I wanted to get some more groups shots. My only regret is that I didn’t do it in the location I had originally planned. Someone said we should do it in the back near the graffiti  and I obliged but the light was terrible there.

Not only that the overgrown ledge I had to prop my camera up on was so far away. Oh well. Live and learn. Here are some dimly lit pictures of the group that are poorly scanned

I kept running in back thinking I would be cut off more than I was cause I forgot how much room the ledge left me

The scans suck but the moment is there. We had fun and it shows so yeah whatevs brah

We got back in the van still laughing and giddy. At this point we set every movie quote to a butthole universe and were so tired and ready to sleep it was all the funniest shit we had ever heard.

The drive back from Portland was still another four hours or so and in the back of our minds we were still worried about getting Justin on his plane in time.

The drive back was really awesome though.

These photos of course do no justice to the sunsets I was seeing

We got Justin back to the airport with time to spare and said our goodbyes. That dude had to take a  7 hour flight with layover in Texas after doing a 15 hour drive and then go to work! I don’t know how he did it.

After dropping Justin off we made another of the 761 trips from Seattle to Bellingham and were getting pretty spacey but we made it in one piece.

I was stoked to be going to sleep and happy to see this little one for a last time.

The next day we geared up to get some breakfast and said hello to one of the neighbors as she passed through.

They took us to fill our stomach with some breakfast burritos. Why don’t they make them like this back home? I mean come on. Potato burritos NEED to happen here.

The gear was still sitting in the van so we headed back to the bowling alley for a last time

In scanning this shot (I wish Bobby wasn’t blinking, sorry Bobby!) I was trying to figure out what looked so wrong and I realized it was just because Bobby was still so sun burnt from Soak City.

I think I nearly passed out in the van from the fullness I was experiencing around now.

We loaded stuff in one last time to the place we all met a pair of weeks earlier. Bummer to have it end obviously but I was stoked to get back to New York. Derek is always the jokester.

We rolled to Bobby’s with Bo because he was going to drive us back to Seattle again.

Bo (or Derek or someone) pulled up to his apartment and followed behind him to his dumpster. He was not loving it. We went back to Whole Foods in Seattle to say goodbye to Cecelia (who was already in town working farm stand) and then said goodbye to Bo who stayed with her. Bobby got us to SeaTac just in time. We had a few hours still to kill but we had no trouble crashing for a few hours.

Of course our flight was delayed a few hours so that sucked, but there was enough to do in the terminal. They have a giant food court with huge windows which made for this lovely view of the mountainous landing strip. Matt spent a lot of time chillin in one of the bars knockin em back and catching up on sporting matches. The flight were descent and flying into NY was clear as day, I saw our apartment building on the way to LaGuardia. Getting out and hearing different accents and seeing different colors is always so refreshing to me and really makes me feel at home. Big Matt was nice enough to grab us from the airport and drive us home.

I was most excited to see these ones. (Plus Mackie who was in hiding during these pictures)

I missed Ms. Chuck Davis like crazy and was really pumped to see her finally. I won’t go into it because y’all don’t need to hear that.

My kitties are the best

Little summertime puffballs

Back in Queens again. It’s been a couple months now and I miss those buttheads. Looking forward to next summer when we crash the East. Get Pumped for that, world.

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.