weed hounds southern tour, pt 1 – baltimore
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.