Tour Diary

Photos : Vegas, Phoenix, Drive day through the desert, Norman.

Hello friends,

Much has happened since we last spoke. We played a show in Visalia, California : a weird town that sneaks up on you. After driving through empty fields for an hour there was a Target and a Guitar Center and a sign that said welcome to Visalia. We played a rock show at a wine bar called the Cellar Door. The security guards there wear earpieces – because it’s serious.

The people of Visalia were great, as was the Cellar Door, but our hotel (The Lamp Liter Inn) while nice felt like the set of a 1970’s zombie movie. Not a reccomendation.

Next we drove to Santa Barbara, a town full of people with lots and lots of money, and home to Jeff Bridges, who finally won his first Academy Award for best actor while we were in town. We celebrated by quoting the Big Lebowski all night  – that is to say, it was a night like any other. SOhO is a nice venue, and the crowd (though they seemed a little Sunday) was big and appreciative.

I write to you now from Alex’s Bar in Long Beach, California. Home to NWA, pretty good Mexican food, and the ghetto. Alex’s Bar was apparently the bar where a bunch of scenes from the television show True Blood was shot. I wouldn’t know, because Vampires are for the birds. Lots of people here, they’re buying lots of merch, cheering really loud, and generally being cool. Tomorrow we drive to Las Vegas, where it will be my birthday after load-out It’s going to be a good day.

Photos : Blake’s inconveniently huge bag, Please Baby Please harmony practice in Long Beach, The Presidio Motel in Santa Barbara, Bazan w/ his painted look-alike.

Here are some pictures from our last two days on tour :

Places (in order of appearance) : The Blue Lamp (Sacramento, CA), In-n-Out in Redding, Mountains along I-5, Richard Swifts envy-enducing home studio, Sam Bonds Garage (Eugene OR), The side of the interstate (somewhere in Oregon, out of gas,)

Goodnight.

Mar 3, 2010 : Salem OR – Ike Box

Hello again,

Caleb here, Merch seller & Tour Manager. We hope you’ve been good since we saw you last way back in late 2009. Tour has begun, and there’s some photographic proof up there.

I flew into Seattle two nights ago, Bazan picked me up and we headed to Casey Foubert’s house for some last-minute amp repair. Yesterday consisted of tour prep and the final band rehersal – my fingers are sore from folding t-shirts and Bazan’s are sore from building pedal boards. Also, yesterday we went to Paseo, undoubtedly the best sandwiches available for consumption anywhere in North America.

After a shockingly-on-time start this morning, we arrived at the first show on time, something that Bazan claims has never happened on a tour he’s been involved in.

We picked the dudes up, got some coffee, and headed for the interstate, waving goodbye to the majestic mountain-and-sea landscape of Washington and saying hello to the majestic mountain-and-sea landscape of Oregon. After a stop for lunch in Portland at Elephant’s (OMG) we pulled into Salem with time to spare.

The fine folks at the Ike Box treated us well, and aided us in putting on a great show. They have an icee machine there. We ate at a mexican restaurant in a weird, Epcot Center-esque open-air market type place in Downtown Salem.

Make sure to check the dates for this tour to see if we’re stopping by your ‘hood. The band is a 4-piece this time, and everyone agrees that such a setup makes for a way more exciting rock-and-roll show. Lots of Pedro the Lion jams are being played, and also most of C your B’s. See you soon.

A Blake Wescott Look-a-like. (Photo by Andy Fitts)

October 27, 2009 : High Noon Saloon : Madison, WI

After a 14-hour day at Electrical Audio, we hailed a couple of cabs and retired to our rented rooms at the Days Inn on Deversey – a surprisingly awesome hotel, with a lot of it’s 1930’s charm still in tact. Some really cool stuff went to tape at Electrical Audio, and I had a lot of freak out’s centered around realizing the history of the room we were in. Several of my most treasured records were made here – Songs : Ohia’s “Didn’t it Rain,” Smog’s “Rain On Lens,” Shellac’s “At Action Park,” and tons of others – so I did what anyone would do and stole a blank track sheet to frame and hang up somewhere.

The High Noon Saloon in Madison is a pretty great room – big, with a nice backstage area, an upstairs for people who want to talk, and some good food in walking distance (the California Chicken Sandwich at Brass Ring will effect your day). The show was, unfortunately, the most poorly attended and also really early (7 and 8 pm set times with a hard 9:15 curfew). Despite this, the crowd was fine, and everyone had a fine time.

Dave’s friend Ben lives in town and came to hang out at the hotel afterwards where we had some good pizza and watched South Park.

October 28, 2009 : MPR, Turf Club : Minneapolis / St. Paul, MN

We left Madison early in order to make it to the MPR studios in time for an in-station for their excellent program, The Current. MPR has a pretty immaculate setup in downtown Minneapolis, and their live room is nicer than lots of professional recording studio’s – a rare thing for radio performances. The set will air sometime next week, and it sounded pretty great. The band played “Heavy Breath,” “Please Baby, Please,” and “When We Fell.”

I write to you now from the Turf Club – a really cool venue with really friendly staff, and an amazing Ethiopian restaurant across the street, at which I recently finished overeating. Wye Oak played first of three tonight, one of only four opening bands on this tour (not counting Say Hi, of course) and they were fantastic. I can’t say enough great things about them, you should check out their record called “The Knot” which came out on Merge a few months ago.

Tonight’s show was another sellout, a nice change from last night’s show, and both Say Hi and BAZAN totally brought the ruckus to the twin cities.  In terms of audience quality tonight was one of, if not the best, and the Turf Club is an amazing place to play. Act like you know.

Well, I left my Macbook charger in Toronto, so tour blogging has gotten significantly more difficult, but I promise to keep at it. The easiest way to catch up is a quick recap with some photos:

Toronto was amazing, the crowd was one of the best yet, Canadian money is really pretty, we had some great thai food, I bought socks and shirts at Honest Ed’s, and Lee’s Palace sounded great. I can’t believe how smoothly the border crossings went – Vancouver will surely be a nightmare, because we got over the border in fifteen minutes, and back to the states in ten. Thanks for being so awesome, Toronto.

Pontiac was uh, it was pretty good. Michigan doesn’t have an indoor smoking ban, which is a bummer, and the staff at the Pike Room / Crofoot (an awesome venue) is not exactly big on hospitality. As Barnhart put it, “it’s a great place to have a terrible show.”

Chicago, as always, was fantastic. Lincoln Hall overtook the Bowery as the most excellent venue of this tour. It was only their fourth show, and the venue is big, pristine, and sounds incredible. The hospitality staff at Lincoln Hall gets a special shout-out for being, without doubt, the most kind, helpful, and accommodating bunch of folks we’ve dealt with this trip. The Schuba’s dudes run this place, so they know a thing or two about putting on a rock show – not exactly a lightweight.

It was nice to be in Champaign and hang out with Bob and Adam, we also got to eat Papa Del’s, my favorite pizza in the world, and watch some Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Now we’re in Chicago at Electrical Audio, and I’m freaking out because some of my most favorite records were made here. I can’t tell you exactly what we’re doing here, but you’ll know soon enough, and you’ll be psyched about it. Here are some pictures Bob took, click on them to make them bigger.

October 20, 2009 : TTThe Bear’s : Cambridge, MA

TW Walsh, whom you most likely know if you’re reading the David Bazan tour blog, came down for the New York show and rode down to Boston with us. On the way down we played some fun van games, ate some bad fast food, and generally hung out.

Today, the 20th, was a day off in Boston/Cambridge until our 6:00 pm load-in at TT The Bear’s in Cambridge. Alex, Matt, and I decided to wander around Cambridge, the rest of the dudes hung out at TW’s for the afternoon. After a delicious lunch, Alex dissapeared, so Matt & I hit up the super-excellent Twisted Village Records, where we both found a handful of stuff we were psyched about, and then the MIT Press Bookstore where I saw about thirty books I wanted to purchase. However, being poor, I decided to get just one, which was on sale. A Bazan fan was working the register, a fact he had established with Matt through small talk, asking why we were in town. I was hoping for a sweet discount since we were rockognized and all, but no such luck.

The Soft Drugs played first of three for this show, and it was an incredible treat. TW writes amazing songs, and he has an amazing band, of which he’s probably the most impressive member. Anyone who can drum that well and sing songs has something figured out.

October 21, 2009 : The New York Thruway, New York

Today was a “day off” (Drive day). We drove the entirety of the New York thurway, stopping at five “service areas” which all looked eerily similar, prompting a running groundhog day joke. When we got to the hotel we all met in Bazan’s room to watch “The Hangover,” which was on HBO. Bazan decided to order some nasty/awesome hotel bar chicken wings, fries, and onion rings for us (what a great boss) and set up a pretty amazing hotel room bar that was comprised of ice filled trash cans, left-over rider beer, and a half-empty bottle of tequila – a regular Martha Stewart, that one.

Photo by TW Walsh

October 17, 2009 : Kungfu Necktie : Philadelphia, PA

I was skeptical when we arrived at Kungfu Necktie – skeptical of a lot of things. Skeptical that it could hold 150 people like we were told (it couldn’t), skeptical that loading in through a door that an average-sized adult male had to turn slightly sideways to fit through would be much fun (It wasn’t), and skeptical that the bar, who told us doors were at 8, would actually be adhering to that, since there were some patrons already bellied-up to the bar when we arrived (they didn’t).

Remember that load-in door that an average-sized adult male had to turn slightly sideways to fit through? Well, we’re average-sized adult males, for the most part, but we have keyboards, drums, guitars, merch bins, audio racks, and the like to lug in, so load-in wasn’t much fun. I hurt my back picking things up, which made me feel weird and old, and we had to store our stuff in the basement, down two flights of stairs, because the stage was so tiny.

Now, I should interrupt long enough to say that the bar was cool, the staff was cool, and the show went fine. But the mechanics? The dirty, behind-the-scenes operations that The Bottletree makes so smooth for bands? Those were horrible.

After load-in we got what was undoubtedly the best sandwich I’ve ever put in my mouth from a place down the street called Paisano’s. I’m still thinking about it and feeling happy. I also got to hang out with my friend Chris from the fantastic philly band Pattern is Movement, which was a nice Philly surprise.

After the show, load-out proved to be even worse than load-in. Same narrow door, but add a dance party, complete with DJ, that started AS SOON as Bazan finished playing. No one had mentioned that this would be going down to any of us, so I was pretty stoked to be carrying 100 pounds of merch up stairs, around a pinball machine, and through 20 drunk people dancing to bad remixes.

October 18, 2009 : New York, NY : Bowery Ballroom

We arrived at the Bowery about an hour early for load-in, so we did what anyone would do – we went to find pizza. We didn’t have to look far as Lombardi’s was a scant two blocks away. While there I had the best white pizza I’ve ever eaten (this might as well be a food blog) and a lively 25-minute debate took place about the appropriate piano-tone for “Hard to Be”

BAZAN played their best set of the tour to an almost sold-out Bowery Ballroom, and it felt really good. The nice thing about the Bowery is that it’s a Ballroom, not a rock club. The bar is hidden downstairs, there’s a proper balcony, great sightlines, the best sounding P.A. of the tour, and arguably the best sounding room of the tour. It was great, and somehow I’m not sick of seeing this thing after 19 nights in a row.

Today was a day off in NYC, until a 6 pm van call in Brooklyn. Everyone recalled their day off fondly, as if it were a distant memory when we met back up at the van, alot like when you went back to school after summer break in grade school. Tour is a real time warp like that. After that we walked a few blocks to get some (apparently) world famous, really-expensive, and totally-worth-it Red Velvet cake from a place called “Cake Man Raven” (google the dude) which I won’t even try to explain. It blew my mind.

Next, we hit the road to Boston, but didn’t get all that far before being pulled over on a Connecticut parkway for illegally towing a trailer on the parkway (who knew?). Unfortunately, there was some miscommunication between Bazan’s insurance folks, so although the van was insured, it wasn’t yet listed on his card, and the officer wasn’t too thrilled when he thought we were illegally towing a trailer on an uninsured 15-passenger death trap down his parkway. He was nice enough to let us exit at the next exit (after writing two tickets) to an Econo Lodge where Bazan got a card faxed over and we were back on our way in no time.

We stopped for bad fast food and played fun van games with TW Walsh, who came down for the New York show and rode back to Boston with us tonight where his fantastic band, The Soft Drugs, will play 1st of 3 tomorrow at TT The Bear’s. I’m pretty stoked to see that.