Sorry for the huge gap in our tour blog but it turned out that the wonders of the super veggie bus were short lived and after our first show it conked out on us and is now sitting in a service yard without an engine. The start of the tour involved a lot of moving equipment from the bus into a rental car, back onto the bus, back into the car, into people's houses, onto a UFO, finally into the rental car again.
This has meant that there's a huge amount of catching up to do with the blog so I've compiled some lists for each show meaning you don't have to read loads of useless blithering about things I can't really remember.
April 30th - Gordon College, Wenham
1) A big pile of snow
2) A town that looks like Twin Peaks
3) A 5 man circle pit!
4) We're not allowed to drink on campus so we have a completely sober show
5) A 5 hour drive back to New York with the bus falling apart around us and the inside getting full of veggie oil fumes! We still smell a bit like chips (sorry, fries).
May 1st - Pianos, New York
1) We play at a comedy show where Ben gets insulted
2) MARGHERITAS!
3) Tom gets kidnapped by the druggists
4) Josh and Bruce (ex-Ladycop) rip a sicky with their new band Freakowls
5) We scared a rat on the subway (and he scared us a bit)
May 2nd - We didn't have a gig so we spent all our dollars in thrift stores on shoes that smelt so much we had to bin them.
May 3rd - Fire, Philadelphia
1) We did the Rocky steps
2) We got a cheese steak at Jim's and contemplated the 13 in an hour record
3) The Phillies win meaning no ones comes to our show
4) Anne gets stuck in her jumper mid-song
5) Ladycop get experimental and pull out an AWESOME improv MAN!
May 4th - Bar, New Haven
1) The venue has a room made of sofas, best thing about America so far
2) Mashed potato pizzas, second best thing about America so far
3) Kimono Draggin's last show is the first time we've seen them and they're great! Shame.
4) We stay in the most insane house in the world, I couldn't sleep, there was too much to look at
5) We have our first IHOP, it's not great (I'm in the minority with this opinion, but I'm writing this blog making it FACT)
May 5th - Sierra Grill, Northampton
1) Record stores ahoy! Any remaining bucks we had go on a load of music.
2) We play in a restaurant, how bizarre.
3) Reggae night is rubbish
4) C jams on out of tune instruments are great
5) We accidentally smash a 12 string guitar which belongs to the band we're staying with, we're really sorry about that. Especially because they're excellent (check them out, they're called Sore Eros).
May 6th - Geno's, Portland
1) Portland is happening, everyone's on the streets making art
2) "You're wickedgood" thanks
3) More mashed potato pizza, plus butternut squash, cranberry and ricotta pizza!
4) Wesley Hartley introduces us to some ace country music
5) Doug eats an entire live lobster
May 7th - HiFi Music Festival, Durham
1) It's almost rained off but somehow they pulled it off, well done HiFi kids.
2) Ben plays baseball with Julien Koster and then gets all fan boy
3) Saw lessons on the pavement
4) We try and swap accents with Ladycop for the evening, it doesn't last long.
5) Kolby gets so drunk he has to be dragged from the festival because he won't leave
May 8th - We're currently chilling out in a motel having spent the day mucking about in Portsmouth, pretending we fit in to the Cheers-like bar we managed to find. Now we're watching ice hockey and taking it in turn in the bath, that's rock 'n' roll kids.
I'll have an update on how our fishing trip goes.
Bencat and the cats x
