:: Music As Social Agitation Records::

:: Monday, January 31, 2005 ::

so our bus ride wasn’t too bad today and we got into Pasco around 2pm. Oliver was there to pick us up and we headed out in his pick-up truck. the drive to Walla Walla was about 45 minutes and me and Tony were grateful both for both the rides Oliver gave us to and from. we hit up a taco stand before our trip to Walla Walla and Oliver had some tongue/.it was an amazingly warm day for eastern Washington in January, probably the warmest and sunniest day we had seen all tour. the entire day and evening, in all our travels around town, that familiar eastern Washington romantic pull was hitting me hard. I need to move over here sometime and write a book or record an album or something (I am not going count the stars and mountains ASS album). we stopped by the Gillians Island halfway house and dropped our shit off. the house was super awesome and I guess somewhat legendary around town (though they hadn’t done any shows there in awhile). the old tier of roommates that had started the shows and the house had all moved out and later in the evening, right before the show, we were able to meet all the new roommates as they were finishing up a house dinner. I think the best use for main, wood-floored downstairs would be to have a roller-derby rink. the kitchen, living rooms and four-staired hallway all made a nice, pretty wide circle that would be awesome to race around (especially the up-then-down stairs). we then headed over to Olivers apartment and met his roommates and dropped some things off there. it was the upper floor of a larger house and a nice apartment at that. I guess the rent is really cheap. we then decided to walk to campus and try to take advantage of some wi-fi action outside the library/dorms. the walk was beautiful, as was the campus, and it felt a lot like a warm late fall day. I was having a hard time not falling in love with the place and kept trying to remind myself that the weather was a fluke, as probably was any other glamour. we hung out up there for a bit on the big lawn near most the campus buildings. Oliver kept bumping into people he knew and eventually Kate, whom we were to share the bill with that night, walked by. we met here and walked around campus some more, checking out the new science building and the theatre arts building. the theatre stage was immense, and took up more space than all the seating in the theatre, the backstage was even bigger and quite the labyrinth. this was Olivers home turf. after that we walked to the student building, which was either new or newly renovated, and checked out the campus coffeehouse and the radio station and such. then it was time to head to the show. Oliver was gonna have to come back up to campus for an hour for rehearsal right in the middle of the show, and he wound up missing both me and tony’s sets. the roommates took off right as we showed up, a few others remaining behind, yet hidden upstairs for the whole evening. Kevin was supposed to do a set of his music, but apparently he was very sick. that seemed fitting to tony. kate was there though and she played a four songs. not before this nice kid, who came with two friends, jammed for a bit before the show and we rocked some sing-alongs. by the time I played there were six people there outside of me, tony and Kate. it was a funtime, though, and me and tony made the best of it (tony had a little harder time since this was the second time he had a poor show in Walla Walla). the kids there were nice and I gave away a few cd’s and we made 1.50 in donations. rock. Oliver showed up after tony was done and, apparently, the elusive Kevin had shown up during the end of tony’s set, though he didn’t feel like introducing himself and took off before we had a chance to met. we decided to go back to Oliver’s house and make some food, rather Oliver make us some food. his roommates had just rented Garden State which we watched while Oliver made some dinner. I was happy to see that their household was way into the Mate (they had two gourds), as one of the roommates was from Argentina. Garden State I found a little disappointing, though I need to see it again. I didn’t think the editing was smooth enough and at times the movies seem to pluck its aesthetic appeal (with shot angles, silences, facial expressions and vocal patterns and tones) from other mainstream indie hits of the last five years. I was unable to pay attention to the ending, which I heard kind of sucked anyway. there was a few subtle things I really liked, most among them the fact that the bathing suit Sam is wearing when she is swimming is two piece with a pink bottom and a burgundy top. later in the movie, when the three of them are on their mission towards the abyss, Sam is wearing a pink hoodie and main-dude is wearing a burgundy one. the dinner was much better and shortly afterwards we hit the sack.

I woke up early again, like every morning, and was able to get a couple hours of computer time in on Olivers laptop before the house woke up. we milled around a bit and then packed up and hit the road (though the bus didn’t leave until two, Oliver had to be back by one for classes). the drive was filled with debates about windmills and chagrining about spoonerisms. then we said our goodbyes and massive amounts of thank yous and Oliver was gone. me and tony had a few hours so we decided to walk into the downtown area near the bus station, a charmingly latino-dominated few blocks that reminded tony of texas. we had a beer and some lunch at a Mexican joint and then went back to the station. the pasco station is a nice and new affair. right now we are in The Dalles as I type this, our voyage along the Columbia taking a bit longer as the driver will not go over 50 MPH cause his front windshield is breaking and tons of air and pressure are compromising the structural integrity. sorry. I had to say it...

(0) comments
:: brs 1:58 PM [+] ::
...

hey everybody... so we are back in washington state and here for a few final shows together before tony takes off south again for more shows (he is a touring maniac). um, so yeah come out and hang out:

01.30 Gilligan's Island Halfway House, Walla Walla, WA (6:30pm)
01.31 Dunes (1905 NE MLK) Portland, OR (9pm, with The Solvents... Folk The Police Night)
02.01 The Boiler Room in Port Townsend, WA (8pm, The Solvents)
02.02 ABC House (105 Sherman NW) Oly, WA (7pm, donations, with Palisades, The Solvents)
02.03 Stuart's Coffeehouse (1302 Bay St) Bellingham, WA (with A Heartless Solution, The Solvents)

tour journal: www.masarecords.blogspot.com
tony: www.tonypresley.com www.myspace.com/tonypresleyreallivetigers
1985: www.masarecords.com/mr_1985.html www.myspace.com/1985

(0) comments
:: brs 5:22 PM [+] ::
...

I think this is only the second tour entry I have typed that is happening on schedule, right after the shows. We have been in Montana now for two days and have had two of our best shows in Helena and in Missoula. We were on the greyhound for 24 straight hours to get here from St Paul, though the trip was not so bad and the overnight bus not to full. for the first time I took the very back, three seat by the bathroom and we were on a private line carrier, so the bus was a lot nicer. that allowed me to sleep most of the night away, which helped out. after a few layovers and transfers we arrived in Butte, MT around 4:45. the schedule said we got in at 5:45 and it turns out that we had a 45 minute layover at some casino literally two blocks away from the main greyhound station in Butte. It would have been nice to have figured this out earlier, since Tyson (Old Shoes) and Jen (Annie J & The Radiant Murmur), who set these Montana shows up, were going out of their way to come to Butthole Montana to pick us up, and we were gonna be running behind as is. Me & Tony decided just to walk to the Greyhound Station and wait out the hour there. there was not much we could do to get a hold of Tyson and Jen to get them there sooner. I decided to play some guitar and ruminate on Tony (and some dude behind us on the bus) assertion that Butte was an awesome city. I guess it reminded tony of west texas. I didn’t see the lure at all. I decided to try and re-figure out the Racetrack cover I have done in the past and in the process, came up with a nice progression. I can sing “the way things are here� to the progression, but it is in a different key and pretty different, so I think this is going to be a 1985 song, perhaps incorporating the lyrical theme of the racetrack song. anyways, after an hour, and a bit of watching that shitty movie “Open Waters� (or whatever that new ocean/shark movie was), Tyson and Jen showed up. it was really good to see them, and Emma (Jens road weary car) looked as dismal as ever. It took us a few minutes to find the interstate we needed to take north to Helena, and in those few minutes a pretty fast/witty/sharp/biting/sarcastic tone was set for the trip (I think we overwhelmed our hosts a bit this time). once we got to Helena, it took a few minutes to find The Pattern House. when we pulled up, a few minutes late, we could hear someone playing and it appeared that the show was started without us. The Pattern House is a two-story café/coffeeshop nicely furnished and decorated, with all its glossy wood exposed frames and milk white walls. there was a lot of kids, mostly high school, who showed up for the show which was amazingly awesome. the music was upstairs, in this giant room that ran the length of the building and this guy Matt was playing to pass the time before we arrived. he played a lot of good covers and possible a couple originals and his voice reminded me of Travis Morrison, in good ways. we met Reagan, who had set the show up and whose band (Rusty Guns) was playing. Tyson had known Reagan and Ryan (lead guitarist) for a few years. We set up the merch stuff alongside the crafty display that OS/AJatRM have and after Matt played Old Shoes took the stage. It was a great, loud distorted set for Tyson and the kids appreciated his native banter and charm. the room sounded awesome and it was one of my favorite OS sets all-time. after Tyson, Jen did her Annie J thing and it her voice filled the room nicely. She has the kind of voice that you want reading you stories as you go to bed. good shit. It was my turn to go first (me and tony have been alternating) so I set up and was a bit nervous for such a large, young crowd. I quickly destroyed any inkling they might have towards me with some comment about my age, which I thought came out offensively and rude. I was looking forward to having a good set and most of the songs felt alright (I liked the way the PA handled my voice) and people seemed receptive enough. I ended with A Framing, which I had only played twice on tour, and afterwards tony set up his goodnesses. he had a little difficulty tuning for the first song, the instrumental rock out, but his banter was good and people were patient. his guitar sounded pretty dope in the room and it was a good real live tigers set. he wound up cajole-ing one of the rusty guns (ryan) up to play drums on the last two songs, the final song being the instrumental which tony rocked the fuck out of the way he does. I was feeling pretty dumb and self-conscious, like I had bungled up another of our bigger shows, but rusty guns came to the rescue with their alt-country tinged pop songs. twas good shit and all their friends, who had waited patiently in the hot room through all of us, seemed to enjoy it. afterwards, tony sold a couple cd’s and I half-sold a couple and it was decided that we would go get some food before heading back to Missoula. we were trying to get back before the japanther show ended at area 5, so we could pass out some hand bills, but that was looking less and less likely. after driving around for about a half hour trying to find our state highway and kind of looking for food, we were on the road again, highway 12 our route. 12 is a mountainous, two lane highway and I was pretty much rudely freaking out the whole time and eventually just put my head down and tried to sleep (the dark, foggy road reminded me too much of that canyon where me and jonny spilled our shit). anyways, we got back to Missoula and stopped at a diner. I decided just to continue sleeping in the car cause I was pretty tired and I am not sure how long those kids were in the diner caffeine-ing up. we went back to the dorm that tyson and Jen live in and made a game plan for the the morning. me and tony took tysons room, tyson and jen took jens room….

I woke up early so I could try to get some work done on the computer (the last couple times I had had internet access I used it to try and fill in some show dates for us and was neglecting my responsibilities for work and such). I wanted to try and get a little more filled in on the stuarts closure, though the mess about it on the CP board was a little outrageous. I was finally able to cut my inbox in half, and answered like 80 emails, which is a good thing. tony woke up soon after and at noon we called to wake tyson and jen. after some planning and meeting, tony took off for downtown, I took off for a computer lab in the library and tyson and jen hung out. we were to meet back up at 5pm, in case our radio interview came through, and then we were to meet nathan (aka Purrbot) at the burrito joint at 6pm. turns out the radio thing was a go, and we all reconvened in good time. headed to the station, to the local show. it was good to be back at KGBA or KBGA or whatever the hell the call letters are. I believe Nicki was the DJ's name and she was nice enough to let us hang out for an hour and play some cd tracks and i even did a live performance of olive to close our interview out. she was a little sick/hungover from the night before (the talk of the town this day was the japanther show the night before at area 5). we left the station a little late and traveled down to "taco del sol" or whatever it was called. tyson and jen swore by this place and said it mopped up all over banditos in bham (oddly enough, the two of them had still not gone to casa). it was really good and releatively cheap. the place was packed the whole time we were there. nathan was there and had already gotten his goods. we had a nice meal and it was good to meet nathan and such. afterwards, we headed to area 5 and began to set things up and get ready for the show. nathan and tyson had done a great job promoting the show, so we were optimistic that it would go well, despite there being 3 other all-ages shows that night. well, at 8:30 pm we started and there were only a handful of people there. but i took a turn as the doorperson and during tysons set, people started to fill the place. eventually there was like 35 people or so and it was a great crowd in a great venue with great music and great friends. tyson and jen both did amazingly well and they charmed the audience in the end with a duet sing-along to "total eclipse of the heart." tony went next and he had one of his best sets as well. his music does well in the bigger, hard-sounding rooms, echoing nicely. i was a little nervous when i went on next, not because of the crowd, but because i had just seen three of my friends play possibly the best sets i had seen them ever have.... okay. so tyson always bugs me to play whatcom falls, which thankfully i "can't" do with the whole four-string 1985 set-up, but i realized that i had never played the song at all for him and that i should so i started my set off with the song, using tysons guitar, having not even played it in over a year and a half at least. ironically, i was able to remember the lyrics better than i usually do (usually i forget the fuck out them even though this was the first song i ever wrote). good times. in the set, i also decided to try the racetrack-esque cover of "way things are here" which felt really good to play. i really like the progression and have decided to use it (a wholey different meoldy and progression than racetracks version) couple with a somewhat like-sounding vocal melody and some of the track lyrics to make the song about the inaugeration. "whats it worth, these half-filled streets, where we push our way(s), our own beliefs, while they lead that downfall, on the districts(/DC) green mall." hopefully the track wont get mad. it sounds a lot different.... anyways, the set was fun and better than the night before, but still not feeling wholly there the way sets should after 20 days of touring and 8 years of show playing... i dunno, good times. sold a couple cds. gave a couple away... oh wait, yeha, and purrbot played after me and nathans music was shit. such good pop tunes. he accompanied his awesome vocal melodies in turn with a keyboard, a gutar and a backpack guitar. he was a nice dude to boot, which is always a bonus. i need to get this cat to come to bellingham. after the show, we kind of had to bust out of there early cause tyson had nightwatch duty at one of the dorms. i was really tired so i decided to go with tyson and jenn and jenns friend rather than rock it out with tony and nathan and crew. we headed back tot he dorms and milled around a bit by the front desk tyson was anchored, too. i had been pretty exhausted since during nathans set (i wish i could put him on my nightstand like a wind-up and have him sing me to sleep everynight) so i said my goodbyes to tyson and jen and jens friend and peter (whom it was good to see and i was glad he came to our show after his bands -my pal ghosty- set at one of the other all-ages shows). so i went to bed at tysons dorm room and woke to the presley phone call int he morning. him and nathan came by to pick me and all our shit up and then we headed to the greyhound station. the guys had stayed up all-night hanging out with friends and scheming their upcoming tour (don't ask me what one of the names they came up with was)... nathan dropped us off we said our goodbyes and then waited for our relatively short ride to pasco to come...

(3) comments
:: brs 8:35 AM [+] ::
...

I don’t know what it is about northern Ohio, but fuck it all if we don’t always miss our connecting busses. We came in form DC today through a pretty heavy snowstorm and with a driver who was worrying about his breaks freezing up, to arrive in Pittsburgh an hour later than our connecting bus left. Now we are stranded for four more hours and won’t make it to Akron till 9pm. The show we have in Kent (seven miles away) is a house party/show and it is Saturday night so hopefully that won’t be an issue. We will see… this is only the second journal entry that I am writing on time, so anything you read older than this I have likely wrote today, here, sitting in the oranges and reds of the wood-walled greyhound restaurant…

(0) comments
:: brs 2:19 PM [+] ::
...

Friday Jan 21st (DC & Sterling, VA)

So last night was supposed to be our show with Herbie in Philadelphia, but it turns out (I guess from what Tony says) that Herbie arrived back from tour to find that his housemates didn’t want to do the show. We found this early on the night of the 20th. So, I arrived back from my adventures out at the inauguration to Brandons house and soon began trying to find a show we could get on somewhere within bussing distance of DC. Instead of trying to email bands and find shows at thousands of venues, I got the idea to do a myspace show search for the 21st for shows within 100 miles of DC. about 200 shows were listed and I begin messaging the bands with shows listed. by the end of the night, about 3-4am, I had messaged about 120 bands or so. and by the end of the night we had already gotten 4 phone calls (all after one am) of people willing to help us. that was amazing. I would like to thank all those bands, if any of them are reading this. so by morning time, we had to decide between 5-7 shows that we were all 95% confirmed to be able to play. some shows were in Philly, others in PA. we decided that a show in Sterling, VA would be a good bet because it was close enough that Brandon could go to it and we were gonna try and do an impromptu Jimes set. both the bands whom we chatted with on myspace (one of which called us), Off Transmission and The Manual Hand, were very interesting, moody, often ambient rock bands and they were very nice enough to offer us an opening slot on the bill. So after eating dinner with Brandon and Katherine at a deli/convenient store in the heart of glorious Silver Springs (with all its new tall buildings and bright white lights), the three of us (sans Katherine) headed out to VA. The drive was quicker than we thought it would be and tony proved his title as the trip navigator by maneuvering us through mis-listed streets on our yahoo map directions into the strip mall that the Barefoot Pelican Grill and Pub was at. The place was a typical strip mall bar, with the prerequisite pool tables and sloppy joes and dozen or so TV screens. turns out that there was a third band on the bill, Pelesara, which we were told was a “bar band� and a “cover band.� we decided I should play first since it seemed that tonys guitar style fit better with the two bands we had heard and plus I was acoustic. after about a half hour of the bands loading in and setting up, I took the small stage and played a short set (eulogy, the leash, olive, november, blue-purple failure). some of the band members paid attention nicely and perhaps a few others out there were trying to listen. though the pa was big, there were no monitors and I could barely hear myself over the crowd. rarely has it happened, but even when I was belting at the top of my lungs (and off the mic a bit) on olive, I was drowned out and it felt like nothing was coming from my mouth. what a weird feeling. anyways, the guitarist for Off Transmission, who was a nice guy and who went on to play some amazing guitar during their set, complimented me about my tunes and asked me if I had heard much granddaddy. I told him I was a fan of software slump and we talked about some indie bands that we both liked. he gave me one of there cd’s and then later I forgot to give him one of ours and didn’t see him the rest of the night. and yeah, Off Transmission really impressed me overall. the rhythm section was really tight and stood out and the guitar leads were ambient and chaotic and driving all at once. the one thing thart stuck out was the lead singers voice, which bellowed a lot and was a bit off key, but for some reason it worked fairly well with the music. the leader singer/guitarist also happened to be the back-up vocalist and bassist for The Manual Hand and the band seemed to share the same gear. I didn’t like The Manual Hand as much, but they were still very interesting often mixing some DC punk vocal styles with some hot retro rock riffs and that cool indie keyboard sound that everyone seems to be going for these days. me and tony had a few drinks before realizing that there was no discount or deal for bands on drinks, which was perfectly okay, but tony was a little upset at the end of the night that he had spent 20 bucks on whiskey sours. we continued to butt heads at the show, and I was trying to postpone discussing any issues we had until we were both sober. Our head butting was not the main attraction, though, as two ladies got in a shoving match during The Manual Hand. one of the ladies was kicked out but returned ten minutes later to muscle herself around the nicely dressed bouncer and pursue her opponent, tackling like 6 people in the course of a minute and breaking at least 5 or six glasses. all of this happened in front of the owner, an older nicely dressed dude who was sitting with a similar couple, who was there for the show that night. turns out that pretty much everyone in the bar, whether muscle jock playing pool, overweight hesher wearing flannel, or indie rock kid with black-rimmed glasses, pretty much went to high school together. the average age seemed about 27. the owner, right before we left while our waitress was sitting for a second chatting with tony while he signed his bill, decided to ream her right in front of us for sitting down which pissed all three of us off. I hate that shit. that is the single most disrespectful thing a manager can do, to discipline an employee in front of their customers. douche. anyways, we decided, after I was convinced to leave my punk principles behind, to leave a song into to the last band, as it was getting late and we had to be to the bus station at 5am. I tried to say goodbye to as much of the band dudes as possible, and my last goodbye was to the really nice bassist of OT. he, obviously, was surprised we were leaving and said that the bands hadn’t gotten paid yet (we weren’t expecting to get any money) and then he tried successfully to give me 30 bucks out of his own pocket. I felt like such a fucking asshole. I decided to share the conversation I had had with him with a drunk tony and brandon as we were walking out the door and that became a heated discussion between me and tony halfway home, until he passed out in the backseat. oh, I forgot. when leaving the house earlier in the day we discovered what appeared to be a bag of mary jane sitting on the stone ledge outside the apartment complex main entrance. we discussed picking it up and bringing it to Patrick Elkins, who was dealing with a bad back injury, several times as we passed it through out the day. but it wasn’t until that night, as it STILL sat there in plain view, that we, well Brandon, decided to snag it. it came to the show with us and back to brandons house. and there we left her this morning as we ran out the door, late again. enjoy the reef, Brandon, but watch out for the sharp corrals, man…

oh, and before i forget, i would like to give a shout out to Wheeling, VA. which, on the morning we bussed into DC as the sun was rising bright int he misty fogs and on the snowy madness, looked absolutely stunning and classic and beautiful with its big river and its bridges and its older stone highrises... wow.

(0) comments
:: brs 9:24 AM [+] ::
...

we arrived in little rock Are-Kansas around 6pm. it was cold and brisk and the air is wet. we planned on walking the mile or so to the venue and quickly set out. we had about an hour to get there and our firast hurdle was crossing the Arkansas river. this was notable to me since this river, over a thousand miles upstream was the same river me and jonny were traveling along through the Colorado canyon when we hit the rockslide a few years back. the river here, though, is probably twice as wide as even the canyon we were following there. it is a nice bride and little rock I found to be pretty nice looking and seemed to have some money in it. I make the case that it seems to have some liberal character to it, which is a point of contention for most everyone the whole evening. after a struggled walk (it is fucking cold and some of our goods don’t sit well for walking), we make it to Blank Generation, a rather big whole in the wall of a record store and punk mecca in the heart of white-lighted downtown little rock. Sean and Shoni are the owners of the venue and they live in the back and upstairs with their two kids, who were adorable and rather sharp for a couple of half pints. national lampoons Christmas vacation is playing when we arrive but it is soon replaced with pacman. I look through the records, many pretty independent, including a mt gigantic album I almost pick up for five bucks. it is a monday night so there is not much hope for an exceptional crowd and after a while Blair Harris, who is performing that night, shows up with her friend Steven. me and tony order some hot slices, well a whole round pie of them, and about a half hour (prior to pizza arrival) tony sets up and begins the night. the place is rather huge and it seems well-worn with past punk shows and a banged up PA. there is a leak in the 24 foot ceiling that drips throughout the night about ten feet from where we all stood. a handful and some of blairs friends show up before and as tony begins his set. it sounds good in the room after tony’s set Blair sets up with her electric guitar. she has a nice, mellow stage presence which fits her songs which soon pretty much floor me. good stuff in the line of a early cat power or S and other somber songstresses. I quickly conclude that I would love it if she released something on MASA. after Blair plays I set up and try and play a short set. me and tony sell/give away a few cd’s, and people stick around for a bit to chat. our bus was set to leave a few hours later and tony convince Blair and Steven to hang out for a bit. we trek all the way across town just to hang out at an IHOP in their neck of the woods. good times were had, strawberry syrup was consumed, not enough coffee was consumed, coffeepots were destroyed and stories were shared. and then we made our way back to the busstop, having learned that we just spent what could be considered an “exciting little rock experience� with the kids. I really loved the blank generation and Anthony and Randi and talk to them a bit about having MASA goods there in the future. I really want to find the coolest of cool record stores in various towns and only work with one store per city. blank generation would be perfect. um… then we left town for Lexington, Kt. another long bus ride overnight...

(0) comments
:: brs 11:32 PM [+] ::
...

I realized now, as I try to remember what happened just a short week ago on this tour, that it is the bus rides that blend together the most. most our rides have been pretty tame, so I suppose you might not be missing much by me leaving such details out, but there were some sights and some cities that I hope I am able to recall as this diary thing progresses… so we headed south and east from Denver and things surprisingly never got much warming. in fact, denton was in the late 20’s most of the time we were there. the greyhound station in denton was a small cubicle-like office of an operation and was embedded in TA travel station. we would come to know this station well. we called Joshua when we got into to town and tony had somewhat of a time trying to tell where exactly in denton we were, but about 20 minutesa later Joshua’s arrived and we made our way back into the townier part of town. this was my first time in texas. it pretty much looked the same as everywhere, america in the night with all the corporate neon lights filling the intersections and nameless streets cross-stiching the suffocated and buried earth beneath the concrete. this is a troubling thing to me, that it is true that denton looks like little rock looks like federal way looks like corvalis looks like Spokane. it is especially true in these flat cities, where there are no outstanding hills to mark the horizon with natural features and attributes. we went to Joshua’s house quickly and met his mom and hung out for ten minutes. they both were very nice and we were offered a place to stay, but sadly tonight was another night were our bus left too early after midnight to warrant trying to spend a few hours sleeping at someones house. we said goodbye to Joshua’s mom and then made our way to mable peabody’s beauty parlor and chainsaw repair. the club, dentons only queer-run music venue, was hidden at the dark end of a small, older strip mall behind a chevron and surrounded by broken down cars. the brown and brittle earth siding was complimented by various adornments of the rainbow on the outside and a big sign which announced the false identity of the place. though a lot of beauty, there was no parlor, and though a few fake cardboard cut-out chainsaws, there was no repairperson. there was the owner, whom though I never officially met, seemed nice and had a good report with her clientele. the bands were both there, tough we wouldn’t really meet them till after the show, and we wondered if people would come out for a sunday night show. I decided to go get some food at the chevron and came back with one of those pickles in a sack (first time ever) and some of those dorrito’s brand jalapeno crackers. love the crackers. don’t love the pickle. we still had some time before show time and though we smiled a lot at what appeared to be band members, still no go on the chatting it up. which was weird. I decided to work on some merch and finally put together the dozen or so “dawn treading� covers I had frantically printed out in the few minutes before leaving home. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the 30 copies of “from penrose to montrose� I had brought, though I had enough soft-sleeves and boxing tape to do something. by this time the place was actually filling up nicely with people, aka friends of the bands. me and tony were schedule to go between the first and last band. the night was funny as both me and tony use band names, though we are solo, and the first band sounded like a solo project (sara reddington) and the last band, a solo project, sounded (a child-like fear) like some Christian emo band. anyways, sara reddington, a four piece with drums, bass, keys/vox and lead by guit/vox, began their set and I immediately thought of Dame Dulce. this band would go perfect with Dame Dulce if they ever came to Bellingham, though they had less back-up vocals and were a little more constrained than my favorite bham slop-pop band. after sara reddington, I took the stage. Joshua, the self-proclaimed “promo-homo� was achored as the doorman and occasionally the bartender, so we really didn’t talk with him at all till 2am. after sara reddington played first (a condition they gave Joshua to play the show, as some member lived kind of far away for a sunday night show) the 15 or so of their family and friends left pretty hastily, so by the time I started my first song (as tony manned the PA –DIY or die!-) there were about 7 people outside of the 12 or so regulars. ouch. but I don’t mind such things and I played a set of tunes (for the most part the sets have been some combination of Eulogy, Pier 57, November, Olive, Blue-Purple Failure, The Leash, Bow Interrupted and occasionally All Is Sun). then tony took the stage and had a lady or two dancing to the jewish hymn. sara reddington was loading out a bit in front of tony and we were both kind of surprised/frustrated that 2/3 of the people in the bar had just left in the course of a minute or two. luckily, and kindly, almost all the members of sara reddington stuck around for the rest of the show and they were pretty nice dudes to talk to. I went to the bathroom right after tony’s set and when I came back out, a child like fear had taken control over a table and was sitting on top of it with his acoustic guitar. he was doing “that whole thing� and followed the formula by asking people to come sit closer. so there we were, all 6-8 of us sitting around trying to hear ACLF over the noise of the increasingly intoxicated regulars, a few of which had to walk right in front of our parade in order to get to the cheering pool tables. ACLF was awesome, sounding a lot like what you would expect from a modern day kid asking people to scoot in and going sans PA. after his set we chatted it up and thankfully he was not of that annoying socially-awkward sect of such performers who always inevitably wind-up sounding stuck on themselves. the dude was nice, me and tony got some t-shirt action (though I wish that he had had a recording moreso)… then the drama began….

we had Joshua take us to the bus station and we were gonna sit in the diner for a couple hours putting together some more cd’s and and merch stuffs and then catch our 6am bus to little rock. so we sit there. and then tony went to sit and hang out elsewhere and I continued making covers for “from penrose to Montrose� (which I decided would just be various portions of the maps from the atlas I had in my bag that was falling apart, laminated with boxing tape (initially it was supposed to be just the map of Colorado with penrose and montrose and the death highway joining them). so I got amped up on coffee for a couple more hours and then went and joined tony. and then our bus pulls up at 6am, me and tony go out to line up. it is cold. we are the only two people boarding. we show the dude our ameripasses and he gives us the no go. turns out this was a private line (Jefferson) and with private lines you need to have an actual ticket printed out, which I knew. whole thing is, though, that the greyhound office there didn’t open up for another two hours. we pleaded with the guy (since this was our only bus that would get us to little rock on time) but no go. we are pissed and frantic. we start scheming and try figuring out if there are any city buses (no) or trains (no) that could get us to dallas before our connecting bus left at 10:30am. we contemplate hitching with one of the dozens of trucks parked outside and tony briefly tries to convince a few drivers near the gas pumps. we realize that one of our only chances might be to call Joshua and beg him for a ride to dallas (40 minutes away). we were not looking forward to that notion. our other option was to convince the officeperson (once they got there) to comp us some taxi rides and we craft a story about how we and our passes have been unjustly treated. nothing at the station said the bus was a private line and we called the 800 number as well and nothing said it then. so I assume control of the spokesperson and we get riled up to try our diplomacy. the office lady comes in, we let her settle in for ten minutes and then I make the case. she gives us the dallas number (she doesn’t have the authority) and discovers that the morning bus was supposed to be a greyhound bus not a private bus. I call the dallas station with our info and the new, convincing info about it not supposed to be a private line and I get a lady who is pretty nice. she puts me on a hold a couple of times (seeming like she might be able to help us) and after five more minutes of holding (and tying up the phone line for the office lady) I realize I have been transered to a national representative, who happens to quickly make herself known as a bitch. she questions whether the bus was really a private line (since they had a greyhound one scheduled) and nearly calls me a liar and treats me like shit from her corporate office somewhere in anywhere, America and then puts me on hold. after 7 or so minutes of hold, I do what she obviously wanted me to do and give in and hang up. at this time, Joshua, whom we had called earlier to see if him and his mom could be our backup plan, shows up. we have a ride and only 45 minutes to make the 40 minute drive. me and tony are exceptionally thankful and grateful as we head out. it is MLK day and the traffic is relatively bad. we try to make small talks, both feeling like assholes for having these nice people get up early and spend 2 hours driving us to where we need to go. we get to the station on time, thank them again, I toss them a 20 dollar bill on top of the ten we gave them and tell them to please go get a nice lunch. a few minutes at the Dallas depot and we are off, set to arrive at little rock at 6pm…

(0) comments
:: brs 1:34 AM [+] ::
...

we got up with Stephanie at 5 something in the morning and quickly made our way to the downtown greyhound terminal. we said good bye to Stephanie and prepared for our first, long bus ride together. we were to get into to Denver at 6pm or so, which was good timing for us to make it (via a ride from Alicia, whose house it was) to the house for the house show. Alicia picked us up with her mustached friend david and we were on our way. their house was in a cool/nice part of nearly downtown and I was surprised that rent wasn’t more expensive. the main room (dining plus living) was long and wood-floored, which seemed perfect. we hung out for about an hour and a half and there was a liquor run and a few drinks were had. finally, we decided that though there was only five of us hanging out, we would start the music and that Alicia’s roommate, Dustin, would start the night of and then finish the night off (that way his girlfriend, who was out trying to hook up with their coke dealer, could see some of his stuff). tony encouraged him to do ryan adams covers, which he handled well, though I wish he would have played a few more originals. finally, a few people started trickling in. tony took the stage and his set sounded good on the narrow, hardwood floor. I was in the other room with internet access and a glas of wine for the first two songs. there was now about ten people. tony finished up his set, one of what would come to be characteristically short sets, by my standards, though that is the way that tony likes to work it. I tuned up and such and then played like five or so songs, by this point there were probably 12 people. Alicia had been expecting more, especially since it was a party. Dustin who was watching the mic levels (which were going through an amp of his) sat to stage right and actually did several lines of coke during both mine and tony’s set, which was fucking hilarious. coke and sparks, man, coke and sparks. though there wasn’t that many people we had a greta time hanging out and chatting it up and then playing a few songs. the thing that sucked the most was that our fucking bus out of town left at 11pm. so basically we were in Denver with some cool folk for about 4 hours. I felt like an ass because of it. Alicia and one of her friends, whom were all over each other dancing and hugging and sometimes kissing (oh, the tone of sexual exploration!), made a last ditch effort to try and get tony to decide to stay the night. I, unfairly and dishonestly, said that I would love to but that tony had set up our show the next day and it was up to him if he wanted to skip it. the ladies pulled tony aside and used some intoxicating tactics to try and convince the presley, but the presley was not convinced. david, the only somber one of the bunch, than drove us with Alicia back down to the greyhound station. and that was our four hour trip/layover in Denver. we got back on the bus with a lot of the same people who were trekking from SLC and began our 20 hour busride to Denton texas, home of the legendary Grant Cross and, well, some other shit.

(0) comments
:: brs 11:36 PM [+] ::
...

hearing:
tony presley's traditional jewish song

we are in denver, in a predominately jewish household of drunken coke-fiends. honestly though, they are great. really nice folks. i wish we could stay past 11. we got here at 6. fuck. not much time to type.... talk more soon? tomorrow, the home of grant cross.

(0) comments
:: brs 8:25 PM [+] ::
...

Jan 14th (Salt Lake City, UT)

the family took me to the seattle greyhound station around 7pm last night after a sleepless and hectic couple of days of trying to tie things up on the work and home front and trying to get things ready for the tour. I wound up not being successful enough at all that and will have some home-work to do from the road. as far as merch things. I did not get stickers made. I was able to burn about 25 copies of Dawn Treading and I brought about 30 copies of the A Sandcastle Still album “From Penrose To Montrose,� which I had just been sitting on. Neither of the album cases/design were done for the records, minus like 10 Dawn Treading albums. gonna have to do that from the road as well. got to the bus station, said goodbye to the fam and got in line for a 21 hour bus ride to Salt Lake City. I was set to arrive at 6pm. the ride was long, obviously, and I wound up sitting to this interesting lady from Arkansas named Jacqueline. we didn’t really get to talking until the morning time, and see was a chatter mouth the whole way out. we first talked about her health, as she was a 50 year old lady who had 2 to 3 brain aneurisms and whom the doctors, after riskily poking and prodding at her brain for a few year, had told that she could die at any time. she had the type of aneurisms that are almost always fatal. she also had two boys who were a little less than my age and we were soon talking at length about her feisty upbringing and her family and husbands and such. she was still a smoker. she had her shoulders reconstructed. and many more details. I was not much in the talking mood most of the time, but we wound up being friends and as we approached Utah she began to slide in religion to the mix. though not tide down to one church, she belongs to the “end of times� crowd and considers herself a devout student of the bible. she is against abortion and against gay marriage, though one of her sons is gay. as we stumbled through our held beliefs and passions, I discovered that she was pretty open mind about things and adhered to the “god is the only judge� slash “it is not for me to say� crowd. she was surprised, due to how silent I had been I guess, at how much I myself was a student of the bible, though in a different school, and about my political and religious beliefs in general. Jacqueline wants to be cremated and, though she’s a bush supporter, wishes me luck in DC. she gave me her address and said to contact her if I get stuck in jail. she would not be the only one to be bringing up the end of times. it seems to be on the minds of a good many greyhounding folk these days, in part due to the recent tsunami. I myself, realized (and was surprised I hadn’t come across it in my religious studies, since it is not a new idea) that it seems fitting that if one is to admit a symbolic chronology to the creation narratives (ie, seven days is not seven days, etc) than one would have to admit that the the end of times narratives most likely had symbolic chronologies as well. perhaps the apocalypse started a few thousand years ago…

tony was there to meet my late bus and it was good to see him. we were on our way. he had already stopped by Kilby Court. we got in his car, which apparently needed a break job due to the screeching breaks, that was okay though, it was a good backdrop to my introduction to Joanna Newsom whom Tony had become obsessed with. I could see why. she was very refreshing. fucking brilliant. I knew that she would be the soundtrack to our tour. Kilby is not that far from the temple and the bus station, and we parked on the main street outside the Kilby alley. what an amazing alley it is too, tucked away in a small industrial part of SLC. who would think that a bunch of quaint little houses with small yards and lazy old dogs and old wooden garages with orange light glowing out would be down the road. it felt good there, especially as we approached Kilby court. I had no idea what to expect, really, and it is probably in my top two all-ages venues I have ever known aesthetically. with its courtyard and fire pit and nice, rustic fencing. the only thing I knew to expect was the green-lit backdrop on the stage, which turned out to be that wavy green fiberglass stuff that people use for make-shift roofing, lit behind with fluorescent office lights. the night was set to be busy, as there were four acts outside of us. drew danburry, one of the nicest dudes out there, had set the show up and built the bill and did an excellent job overseeing the whole affair. he played first with his charisma and his breathy alto croon. good songs, good man. next up was The Glendale Rabashaw, which was actually just one dude whose name happened to not be glen or Glendale. his songs were really good, breathy alt-country singed folkpop. he was a nice chap to boot. the next band was The Annuals, who were a five piece with drums, bas, guitar, keyboards and slide guitar. It was hard to pinn down exactly what they sounded like, as each new verse or choruses seemed to remind me of another indie act I liked and respected. in the end, that lead to them basically just sounding like themselves and they were really good at the indie pop with a country tinge and prog-chicago style and on and on. I went on next and bust through four or five songs horribly. simply horribly. later I said it was my worst show in a couple months, but it was probably my worst show in a year. which sucked cause there were lots of kids there and some of my older Utah friends and I wanted to have a good set for drew.

I guess I should mention here, that my rib has been fucked up. I fucked it up while loading my shit into Tyson and Jenn’s car after our show together the week before at Stuarts. basically, I slipped hard on the snow and my left ribs landed right on the corner of my suitcase. it took my breathe away for a minute and worried me pretty quickly. the next couple of days I took small doses of some leftover pain killers and it seemed to be getting better, though it hurt to breathe in deeply, to sneeze/cough, to laugh hard and to stretch. turns out though, that when I decided to not take the painkillers for a day that the pain came back even worse. I decided I would bring some painkillers with me. so I have been taking them a bit, but it is hard to belt it out and to sing loudly, at the Kilby show I was running out of breathe towards the end of such lines.

anyways, my set sucked, but the show and the kids and the bands were rad. drew was able to give us 120 bucks, which was a great start financially to the tour, and my share doubled all the money I had (to my name). afterwards we went to this pizza place with the kids in the annuals and ate some pizza had a few beers. me and tony had been really worried where we were gonna stay that night cause our bus left at 6am in the morning and karl in provo was the only one to offer a house up, but that was too far away to get to the station in the morning. we asked around a bit before the show and then asked drew and he quickly asked his friend Stephanie and she agreed, without knowing us or having heard us, to let us crash and to get up butt-fucking early to drive us to the station AND to left tony park his car outside her house for three weeks (tony is coming back through town at the end of the tour). nice lady, that Stephanie. so, yeah. we crashed for a couple hours in her basement with a dog she was sitting and washed up and at 6am we were on the road again. these four hours were to be the only time till DC that we crashed at someones house. the greyhound was our home now…

(0) comments
:: brs 5:38 AM [+] ::
...

hey everybody. so tony is on the road and i leave in a few hours. if you are near any of the places we are playing you should come out and say hi and hang out with us. tony will be on tour longer than myself, but we are touring these 21 days together on a greyhound to go visit the president elect as he recieves a royal ass kissing from some other rich dudes on the 20th. we have some songs up at our websites and at myspace. come say hi! (sorry we don't have more complete details yet)....

1985 & Tony Presley Hounding the Auger Tour:

F 1.14 | Salt Lake City, UT @ KILBY COURT (7:30pm, all-ages) with:
Jessica Something Jewish, The Annuals, The Glendale Rabashaw, Drew Danbury
S 1.15 | Denver, CO @ TBA
S 1.16 | Denton, TX @ MABLE PEABODYs (10pm) with:
A Childlike Fear, Sarah Reddington
M 1.17 | Little Rock, AR @ BLANK GENERATION (7pm, all-ages) with:
Blair Harris
T 1.18 | X Marks The Spot Lexington, KT (758 Maple Avenue)
W 1.19 | travel day
T 1.20 | WASHINGTON DC FOR INAUGERATION DAY
F 1.21 | Philadelphia, PA @ TBA
S 1.22 | Kent, OH @ House Show
S 1.23 | Ann Arbor, MI @ Totally Awesome House
M 1.24 | Madison, WI @ Gods Garage (1109 Jennifer)
T 1.25 | Appleton, WI @ The Monkeywrench
W 1.26 | Iowa City, IA @ The Whoa! Boat
T 1.27 | travel day
F 1.28 | Helena, MT @ Pattern House (7pm, all-ages) with:
Rusty Guns, Old Shoes, Annie J & The Radiant Murmur
S 1.29 | Missoula, MT @ Area 5 (8pm, all-ages) with:
Purrbot, Old Shoes, Annie J & The Radiant Murmur
S 1.30 | Walla Walla, WA @ Gilligan’s Island Halfway House (all-ages)
M 1.31 | Portland, OR @ Dunes (9pm) with:
The Solvents
T 2.01 | Port Townsend, WA @ The Boiler Room (8pm, all-ages) with:
The Solvents
W 2.02 | Olympia, WA @ House (all-ages) with:
Palisades, The Solvents
T 2.03 | Bellingham, WA @ Stuarts Coffeehouse (8pm, all-ages) with:
A Heartless Solution, The Solvents

1985: http://www.myspace.com/1985 or http://www.masarecords.com/mr_1985.html
tony: http://www.myspace.com/tonypresleyreallivetigers or http://www.tonypresley.com

(0) comments
:: brs 4:20 PM [+] ::
...

sweet! so serene joins the mix. awesome. sorry i haven't called you back serene, shit has been hella busy in prep for the 1985 tour. but we talked right about getting the album on cd in time for the sleater kinney show? oh, and if i am still on the wagon at that point i would love to be your date in the stairwell....

hey, also. any of you masa folks: please let me know what sort of links and stuff you want added to the left of this text, and i will add them. i am sure i am missing a lot, so.... okay. rock. oh, and all that early shit on here is the tour journal for 1985/cots/goldstar... look here for updates ont he current 1985 tour to DC and back.... i will try and post dates beofre i leave today....

(0) comments
:: brs 1:16 PM [+] ::
...