Portland Etc

Originally posted 8/27/08 on our Typepad page

Let’s see, Portland: we played an okay show at this place called the Tonic Lounge. It went alright for a Sunday show. Hung out with some of the Drunken Boat folks and Mike and Emily from mpls, and then the next day we climbed some big hill east of Portland. As far as hills go, this one was pretty good. Yeah.

What else? I think we walked around for awhile and checked out an old school arcade called Ground Kontrol. I randomly played some weird game called Goop or Gorb or something that featured the sample from the Zoinks album ‘Bad Movie Space Cadet.’ The game was terrible! I remember reading an interview where they said the sample came from an obnoxiously loud game in their local arcade… they were right! It was crazy loud, completely drowning out the great Burgertime soundtrack next to it.

I almost bought an NES Power Pad for fourteen dollars so we could use it as a banner behind us for the remaining shows, but decided against it when I realized that was an extremely idiotic idea.

So yeah: that was Portland in a nutshell.

-Nate

Unicorn Saturday in Seattle

Originally posted 8/19/08 on our Typepad blog

We stayed in Seattle on Saturday and played another show at FBK for Jerome from Snuggle’s birthday party. In theory it might seem ridiculous to play the same show two days in a row, but just like the “theory” of gravity no one can say for sure. In our case, the show was great and even better than Friday’s show. First, they had set up a huge inflatable unicorn jumping thingy for the party. Apparently when the company came and set it up no one knew exactly what they had ordered and at first, as it slowly inflated in the back yard, it appeared to be a big blue house. “That’s kinda cool”, people thought, and then everyone was blown away as a horse head awkwardly pushed itself out. “A horse!” But the inflatable party company wasn’t done yet, and as the horse head filled and straightened out, a unicorn horn popped out and pointed towards the heavens as cheers tore through the yard.

Sweet. So, for this show we played in the backyard– I think it was the first time a band has ever performed inbetween an inflatable unicorn and a fire. Suck on that, Dave Matthews Band. Anyway, the fire was pretty hot, though not as hot as the basement on Friday, but it provided a nice way for me to see the dots on my bass in the darkness. Danny thought his drum throne was going to melt but it held up admirably. We also (sort of) pulled off the J Church cover we haven’t played in months. All in all a great time. Afterwards some idiot started throwing firecrackers in the house and hit me in the ear with one, which was admittedly super punk rock but still kind of a drag.

-Nate

Friday in Seattle

Originally posted 8/19/08 on our Typepad blog

The first show in Seattle was great– we played in the basement at the FKB house with Snuggle and Sonskull. It felt like we were playing in a sauna that was built in the middle of a volcano, but it was tons of fun and the other bands were great. Afterwards we hung out in the backyard and got a rockin fire going (see photo). I think that’s about it? I can’t remember; it was days ago and since becoming a blogger last week my attention span now tops out at fifteen minutes or thereabouts.

-Nate

Gladiators

(originally posted 8/13/08 on our Typepad blog)

The van we have is called “the Gladiator”– not a goofy name we chose; that’s the actual official name the company came up with. It’s funny because once you get inside it has silly purple drapes on the windows and is clearly designed with family vacations and crap in mind. So the name was probably meant to appeal to some tough guy suburban dad… “yeah, got me a Gladiator,” he could say to his buddies as they have a beer.

“Oh yeah? Let’s take a look inside.”

“…nah, right now it’s… full of dead deer…. that I killed.”

Anyway: I assumed the marketing effort failed because I’ve never seen another one. Until now! Five minutes out of town, we’re behind another Gladiator. I wanted to pump my fist at them in solidarity but they exited too quickly.

-Nate