• TOUR DIARY (click HERE for selected set lists)
FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2007
CALL IT IN THE AIR
Bristol, England.
In 2003, after about a week of being home from one of our first tours,Kelly Caldwell sent me two emails one morning about how she was doing
post-tour and how she saw the direction of things around her at that point. The tour had been emotionally harrowing for sure, but more or
less successful and a ton of fun. Really strange chemistry between everyone involved; musically, personally, romantically, everything. One of her emails was super positive and noting all the things she was happy to be home for, what she missed slightly about tour but how great it was to look forward to new times and be part of her own space again. The next email cited the same stuff as the first, but spun from a much darker and entirely negative perspective, looking at how horrible it was to be trapped in her own space again, with all these new awful times looming above her head like stormclouds. Both of the emails were fully sincere and it was shocking how electrically unstable and divided things were for her at that moment.
I've been thinking a lot about those messages in relation to this tour we're on presently. Every time I talk to someone back home there are
one of two extremely different ways I could spin the story of extreme dichotomy that is this trip overseas. And not just in a way where it
feels like there's both good and bad to focus on, but in a way where every event could be looked at from the angle of sickness and weight or from the angle of blessed opportunity. Is it right to get stressed out about having to pay unforeseen way too much for our van rental and
backline gear when we're traveling through endless countrysides of untouched natural beauty everyday? Or- should I write to tell the world about what a drag it was when we had to carry all our drums, amps, merchandise and personal effects by hand two miles through the streets after our Stockholm show, or should I focus on the fact that we played an amazing gig to about 1,000 gorgeous Swedes, getting drunk with our friends that we hadn't seen in forever and making new ones of the amazing bands we played with? Both are valid, of course, and both merit mentioning, but it's striking how almost every turn could "go both ways" as they say.
Right now we're in Bristol, England, and I am awake before everyone yet again. Our sleep has been the cruelest joke. Plane, train, van,
floor or hotel lobby, sleep has been like "Uh uh, motherfucker! I ain't givin' you shit!" It's interesting to get into the type of mode
where you can be like "Ok, sleep, you little bitch. I don't need your ass. Watch me go it alone with this weak-ass British Coca Cola that
tastes like vegetable oil!" Last night we played on a ship docked in the harbor. It was one of the nicer venues we've played at so far, and
our show was great. There haven't been a ton of people at most of the shows, due to the fact that school's out or in, or we don't have a new
record out or somewhere along the chain no one knew about it or whatnot, but it's great playing to smaller and more laid back audiences because it frees us to play whatever we want, and stretch out ideas if we like. At present our set list changes every night, and we're playing about 9 songs off a record that won't come out until October, and then one or two even newer ones that probably won't be recorded until 2008. The night before last in Aberdeen Scotland we were treated so amazingly by Richard, Katrina and their friends. I was met by the promoter with a friendly handshake and a CDR of the Wolf Eyes gig there two weeks prior, just cause he knew I liked them. Such sweetness bled into a long conversation about music and where all the good bands went bad, some vegetarian haggis (!!!!!) and nice whiskey and then a bunch of nice folks out to check out the sounds. I wish we would have played better, because the people of Aberdeen were so good to us. Our set was kinda garbage, out of tune, bad sound, bad communication. Felt weird. One audience member set the tone early on by screaming "Liar!! Quit pretending to be American!"
The night before in Newcastle we played what might have been the best Saturday Looks Good To Me show ever. Definitely one of the top ten,
fully connected and solid, with a pacing and flow that seemed just miraculous. We unfortunately played it to about ten people, but it was
a night where I didn't even realize there was an audience present. Other highlights so far include a stellar show in Olso, Norway where
they had a Twin-Peaks themed dance night after we played and our lovely promoter/host Ingebord assumed the role of the Log Lady all night, carrying around a log and not speaking. In Malmo some sweet girls baked us a cake as thanks for getting them in on our guest list, and we subsisted off said cake for the next three days. Betty was hanging out in Sweden so she played the first two shows with us, and before our show in Stockholm we did some filming for a website that collects exclusive performances of indie bands playing their songs in public places. We walked down the crowded streets singing and playing guitar and there was something sweetly junior high about it. Playing pretend for all the pretenders. That show was with Of Montreal, and our new favorite friends the Shout Out Louds, both bands killed it dead and revived it with voodoo to kill it again. In Norskoping at our first show there was dead air for a while when we plugged the wrong kind of voltage adapter in and ruined both Scott's keyboard and my looper pedal before the first note of music was played. I got a chance to play a cracked out solo set while they tried to hunt down a keyboard replacement, never predicting that this was the start of a journey that would see more breakage, more miles, more kind eyes, more low lights, coughing, spitting, shouting, oceans and an series of coins tossed in synchronicity very fast, until they looked like fields of yellow flowers sprouting up out of the ground.
 THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2007
SXSW
What can I say about the South By Southwest Music Festival that hasn't
already been said about Cambodia? Both feeding frenzy and civilized plastic
toss, be it tossing plastic down a well of Lone Star beer or plastic ice
cream melting into the side of a building secretly designed to look like an
owl? No, I'll skip all the nonsense about what famous people we met, slept
with or saw walking by. I'll even skip out on where our shows were or what
we ate, drank and thought about. I will however say, it was the best SXSW
we've ever had, trouncing last year's shitty, sick, brokenhearted and broken
down blog-fest gargamel adventure. I feel like this year there was so little
hype. None that I felt, at least. It was less like a cool-off and more like
a party in a house with too many rooms and not enough sleep. Every show felt
great, especially the Polyvinyl showcase where Elliot, Betty and Faith
jumped up for a few songs each. That's the real stellar point of our family
band. When we can jam, we all jam. Everyone has so much to say. So much to express. Why in this day and age would having one band be enough for anyone,
or having a set line up with the same people every time? So lame! Every show
we played at South-Bi was different and odd in that perfect, hazy, soaked
and slightly terrified way that only Texas can offer.
The road back to Michigan was long and interesting. The shows around SXSW
are treated more like ettiquite in the days of noblemen than chances to jam
legitimately. That is to say, if you're a knight, you have to bow and chant
in a very specific way when a king and queen walk in the door. You're not
sure why, that's just the way it's always been done and that's what's expected and that's what you're going to do or be beheaded. Likewise,
directly after playing the huge annual festival which takes place in Texas,
you're going to either head east and play in Atlanta, Birmingham and some
part of Kentucky or head west and play Houston, Phoenix, San Diego, etc.
There will be five bands at least on every show. Everyone will be tired and
on their way home. We're not sure why it's always like that, but it somehow always is. We acted out this etiquite with our homies Oppenheimer and Asobi
Seksu at the Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta. It was a great show, but yes,
everyone was hungover, tired and on their respective ways home. Playing the
Bottle Tree in Birmingham Alabama was amazing. Twenty people at the show or
2,000, it's the best venue and best vibes the band experienced on this tour. The food was great, the sound was great, the most relaxing, joyful and
breezy kind of show, and so perfect after the ever turbulent SXSW schedule.
Our endless respect and love go out to the place and it's people, and if
you're involved in indie rock on any level and have a chance to check it
out, you really should.
Things kind of blur until Bowling Green. Scott got the really awful news
that his mother-in-law had passed on right before our show in Lexington.
Such a bummer and such an anxious feeling. I love playing music, recording
songs and working on this band in all it's various facets, but something
like that so quickly reminds me it's just me and some friends playing
pretend like grown up children. We're having fun and playing a specific
game, and it's really important in some contexts... and the least important,
most self-indulgent thing ever in others. He was on the next flight out to
be with Laurie, but rejoined the tour for our last show in Detroit a few
days later.
The endless and relentless dropping-off of members during this tour had an
equally drastic effect on our set-list choices. Playing at the Southgate
house the next night without Scott found is in rare, weary, insane and fine
form. Not only did we bust out two new songs, rarely played before, but for
our last number I fired into this weird loopy riff that we'd been fucking
around with at soundcheck, and everyone else followed me off the cliff, improvising lyrics, guitar parts, pattern changes and the like. Who am I?
What am I? What's happened to me? I later found myself when someone asked if
we'd play "We Can't Work It Out" for an encore, and I remembered my roots
have a tambourine tied to their foot.
We were less lucky the next night in Bowling Green, when, even after four
other bands, including our homies The Tapes, The Ahia and the Hat Company,
the bar still wanted us to play a two-hour set. That's insane, for us or any
band really, but more so because the audience was pretty done with us by
about song #12. We did the best we could, but got into some new territories of antagonistic remorse with the
crowd that night. The ever-popular "Where's the girl?" heckle came up once
or twice, ending when someone asked me why I didn't have a girlfriend and I
replied "Because I am gay." and ten beefy dudes threw their hands up and
walked out. Fuck them. By our second encore someone in the back was
screaming for us to stop playing music and go home. Deep into some whiskey
by then, I apologized, citing how easy it was to just make up songs, get
them recorded, book shows around the world and get a crowd of people
interested in what you have to say as you put yourself completely on the
line every night for six or seven years. Much easier than yelling at a
stranger annonymously. I played a Bob Marley song for him and we still had
another half hour to kill.
Detroit found us back at our original launchpad The Magic Stick. What they
say, however, about how you can never go home again... that shit is true! On
the way down I was talking to Chris and Ryan about how I've spent a
cumulative two years or more of my life at the Magic Stick.. that is to say,
i've been there over 700 times, playing shows, seeing shows, getting drunk
when I lived down the street, stopping by for whatever reason... It is a
place so familiar to me that I could list all the important things that
happen in a young man's life and almost all of them will have taken place
for me there, at least at some point. But you can't hope that anyone else
gives a fuck about your coming of age novel, because no one remembered me at
all. Not the manager, not the sound guy, none of the bartenders (who were
mostly new to me)... only the worldlessly kind doorman. He was always nice
to me. The show was packed, and the Paybacks and Grande Nationals were
purebred rock and roll while the Displays were true teenage power. They were
actually teenagers. I think their drummer was 12. Nice kids, and they had an
intense stage show for having to get driven their by their moms. By the time
we played, I was wasted past the point of any cognitive recollection. Warn
was there helping me out, but I was to the point where I would say something
like "Thanks for coming to the show." into the microphone and seconds later
wonder if I had just shouted garbled syllables spelling out the names of
Roman mythological creatures. Could you tell?
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007
L.A. BLUES
Were the Stooges the best rock and roll band ever? Yes.
I remember being 19, hanging out in my summer sublet in Ann Arbor doing
nothing all summer while my girlfriend worked two jobs and I slept until 3pm
to avoid the heat, listening to their first record and having a slow, vapid
epiphany that when Iggy Pop sang about having no fun and walking down the
street feeling that same old way, he was walking down the same Ann Arbor
streets that I was, feeling that same old way twenty five years earlier.
When he said he was gonna be 22 and not too stoked on it, he was just giving
up some stoned late sixties perspective about hanging out in Michigan doing
all the same stuff that I was doing. Only he was bored and despondent at
shows by The Third Power and the Rationals and I was awkward and
self-destructive at Unwound shows. I tried to answer him back with a song
about falling asleep when I turned 23. Listening to the "Fun House" record,
which was recorded the next year in LA, I felt the Midwest vs. Plastic City vibes strongly. Trying to meld Detroit's eternal underdog mentality with the
Luv-Ya-Babe-Let's-Do-Lunch Beverly Hills fog. The record stands for much
more than that, but that feeling of misplaced, stranger in a fucked land and
you've got to be kidding me, people actually live here? sort of sentiments
that came through on my first touring experiences in Los Angeles, that to me
is one of the subtexts that makes "Fun House" such a unique and important record.
L.A., like anywhere, I suppose, is people at their absolute best and very
very worst. I always love to be in L.A. to play shows and visit and hang
out, but I love leaving equally, cause I just feel like I don't fit, or I'm
not ready to try to fit myself into anything there. Case in point: We
haven't played a show in LA in about three years. Epicenter of culture,
especially for the music industry, we have a bunch of amazing and loyal
supporters there, and we always have the best shows at Spaceland. We even
try to do as much pre-show external stuff as possible, like playing
instores, radio shows, an all ages show as well as a 21+ jam, etc. This year
we were scheduled for a radio performance at KLXU, but we got there 15
minutes late and couldn't play. Drag, yes, but one of the amazing potential
opportunities that makes LA awesome. Now the dark side: Traffic was so
fucked and horrible that the 15 mile drive from the LMU campus to Silver
Lake took us three hours. We arrived haggard and insane, and Scott had to go
pick up his wife Laurie somewhere in the middle of it, getting sicker and
sicker as he braved the road rage and clusterfuck of cars to get all the
logistics in order.
Our show that night was brilliant. Juan filled in for Ryan, out for a week
with his other band Canada, by playing just floor tom and snare in place of
a full drum kit. The results with Spaceland's amazing sound system and that
night's fantastic and surprisingly large audience was one of the best
Saturday shows ever. A blissed-out Velvet Underground on happy pills vibe,
and more singing along and song requests than ever before. It was great to
see some of the same beautiful children, patiently returning from before, as
well as meet some new folks. The energy was perfect, and we played as many
songs as we could muster. I even ended with "When The Party Ends", solo,
which hasn't been played in so long I think my voice was working primarily
on muscle memory to get all the lyrics straight. A full-band version of "I
Wish I Could Cry" ended the night and we slept in a mansion in Beverly
Hills, not far from Laurel Canyon, where Fleetwood Mac and Arthur Lee had
homes in their heyday and the Manson Murders brought a horrible close to the
Summer Of Love. The next day was where the LA blues kicked in hard, in what
was supposed to be a six hour drive to Phoenix turned into a six hour drive
getting out of LA, moving only 150 miles in that time, and then racing at
buried-needle speeds to the Modified Arts to load onto the stage at
midnight. We left around 2pm. The Phoenix show was still good, if the band
was spacey as hell and ready to retire. It's of course always good to see
our close homies in Tempe, and hanging out with Kyle, Billie and all the
family was low-key relief. We watched an especially great episode of Deal
Or No Deal and passed the fuck out. Deep in the night, lost in love.
MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2007
SUNSHINE, FLOWERS, SKELETON HANDS
We got into Portland in time for two of the nicest days of the year. Perfect
and sunny, flowers blooming and houses sprouting hands full of candy all
over town. I was so excited to see my friends and darlings, as well as show
everyone in the band around my new hometown. There was a solid day of
sightseeing and me pointing at things and explaining what they were as if I
actually knew what i was talking about. The Portland tour ended with me
taking everyone to my favorite Mexican joint down the street from my house
right before the show for some of the best burritos in the known world.
Everyone was stoked and we headed off to the venue happy and warm. A little
too warm, it turned out. Chris, who is deathly allergic to avocados had
given some specific directions at the restaurant about how he needed his
food made, explaining how even a flake of the green fruit or an unwashed
knife cutting his burrito in half could kill him. Despite the warning, he'd somehow managed to ingest some and by the time we reached the Holocene he
was walking us through calling an ambulance and how to inject him with the
epipen anti-seizure needle he carries around with him. Shit was horrible!!
Nothing like loading in to the club as your bass player gets loaded into the
back of an ambulance. Everyone was pretty shaken up, and it felt hard to
pull it together and try to have a good night while we worried about Chris.
I was especially bummed out because a bunch of beautiful and amazing people
showed up on a random-ass Monday night, and i really wanted Chris to blow
them away with his solo songs. Worry. Fret. We heard from him finally just minutes before our set began. All was well,
he'd been sleeping and languishing in a heavy benydril IV for a few hours and was feeling much better. I got the news, downed a tall glass of whiskey
and we started one of the more rock and roll sets Saturday has done on this
tour. Lots of guitar solos for some reason, just that kinda night. It felt
great and seeing everyone was the best part. The dreams that stuff is made of. I rounded out the night drunkenly loading the van, and then heading home
for more drinks and sadly limited time with Soma. Never enough time. Ryan
had to get on a plane back to Michigan to meet up with his other band Canada
for their southern tour, so he just went to the airport at three am and
slept in front of the gate. Sellwood originated this trick on a super
drunken trip to Vegas. He knew he'd miss his flight cause he'd pass out so
hard if he just waited at the gate, so in his inebriated visions he straight up laid down in front of the door to the gate so that the flight attendants
would be forced to wake him up when the boarding began. Genius.
SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 2007
LESS THAN A FEELING
Driving to the northwest was intense! The 13 hour drive from Salt Lake to
Portland was pretty harsh to begin with, but then there was the whole
ice-storm mountain pass to make things a little more tense. And just when we
thought we were in the clear… They closed the highway and we had to stay in
LeGrande Oregon overnight! I've never experienced weather so fucking bad
they close the highway before. Lucky bunch that we are, we got the last available hotel room in town AND they were showing Deuce Bigallow Male
Giggalo on HBO. Cakes and Pies!!!!
We finally made it to Olympia, where one of my lifelong dreams was fulfilled
and we played an amazing, stellar show at the Capitol Theater downtown. I
remember seeing footage of Beat Happening playing there at big festivals,
and being filled with the sense of excitement and inspiration that a lot of
people get a lucky chance to feel when they witness a movement in it's
prime, fully in motion. One of the reasons i'm so happy the band is working
with K Records now is that they've been imperative to my sense of potential
and vision since I was 15. K represented one of my first exposures to people
doing what they wanted to do and making what they wanted without asking or
waiting for someone else's validation. Books could be written (and have
been) on all that K and like-minded institutions have done for youth
culture, but the main feeling i have is that they're still a growing and
hugely empowering force, and I can't wait to see what we do together. It
will be more than songs.
The show was awesome. The Cave Singers played a short, spooky set, then
Calvin Johnson threw down a spacey set with an a capella Roy Orbison cover.
Next up was Chris, who has been having amazing solo sets on this tour, every
night outshining the full band by crushing us with his sad,
room-obliteratingly heavy acoustic loop jams. I'm gonna get to say I knew
him when he was poor and cool, before fame and money made a dickhead out of him. We played alright, but it's hard to bring it back up when you're the
bouncy pop band that plays after three super downer quiet drifter folk acts.
But Olympia likes us now, I think. People had fun and danced, and I told a
story about the first time we played in Oly and Steve and Elliot smoked weed
in my van while me and Kelly rolled repeatedly down a hill. We went back to Calvin's house and I got to see his cat Pookers. I fucking love Pookers, but
she's really feisty and will turn on you in a second.
The next day we got into Vancouver and met up with Ladyhawk, who we're
touring down to SXSW with. After the show we went to a sick party that got
more and more ridiculous as the night went on, culminating in Juan walking
up to the turntable while half the party was dancing to a Boston record and
throwing down some impromptu dj scratching, much to everyone's angry dismay,
and our uproarious laughter.
Seattle was great, with a lot of people coming out on a Sunday night,
including many old friends and some new ones as well. David Lazan from Pedro
The Lion opened up with an amazing set of solo acoustic songs that warmed up
the entire room and filled me up with good vibes. I also got to re-visit my
longest running tour hobby in Seattle, that of obsessively buying reggae
records in bulk quantities and invariably being bummed when I get home and
realize they all sound exactly the same. Jah screw.
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