fresno, california

the drive from LA to fresno was one of the most gorgeous drives we've ever had on tour. on top of the mountain pass there was a lake; and at the lake's rest stop there was a museum all about the water system surrounding the lake. we had a good time with the exhibits.
this last picture looks like a painting. amazing landscape, so many windmills.

riverside, california

nothing else happened in riverside.

LA/long beach, california

drove into LA as the sun was setting, observed it through a bug splattered windshield. met up with friends i hadn't seen since high school, and fans who had been bugging us to get to california for years. on our day off we visited Amoeba records, AKA THE BIGGEST FUCKING RECORD STORE i've ever seen in my life. sheesh. this picture only shows ONE ROOM of the place. note: jeff is holding a copy of Southland Tales. he is determined to make everyone we stay with (and probably everyone he meets for the rest of his life) watch this movie.
drove out to claremont to see an afternoon fest-- ate some cotton candy, saw Bad Dudes and Health.
scott saw the pacific ocean for the first time. and met legendary Mike Watt after playing a show together. WOO!

phoenix, arizona/more I-10

met up with the valley arena in phoenix. played in phoenix. stayed in tempe. partied in tempe. left tempe. left phoenix. drove into california, found the famous cabazon dinosaurs that have been in such films as PeeWee's Big Adventure and the Wizard. the dinosaur also claims to be "the largest gift shop inside a dinosaur" HA!

westbound I-10

drove ten hours and somehow we were still inside texas borders. nearly ran out of gas in between fort stockton and el paso. yikes.

after crossing the border into arizona we started seeing billboards for "the THING". not too many, like "TOPLESS TOPLESS TOPLESS" in north georgia, or "SOUTH OF THE BORDER" in south carolina, but just enough billboards to make us interested. 235 miles or so later, we stopped, paid our $1 admission fee, and found out what the THING was. i was sworn to secrecy, so i can't actually tell you what the THING is or was, but i CAN tell you that the wood monsters were my favorite part. cute. i mean, scary.

austin, texas

played at an art space in front of a movie screen. as per usual we broke things, made people uncomfortable & confused, which then led to the overanalyzation of our purpose in music and on the road. typical. thanks molly for taking pictures and finding us a place to sleep! the artist had this interactive board posted, where you could 'add a confession'. jeff's was my favorite. and. scott was in rare form. excellent.

san antonio, texas

left new orleans around eight am, arrived in san antonio at five-thirty. we were supposed to be there at four. oops. so we drove straight to the radio station at Trinity College (www.ktru.org), loaded our stuff up the utility elevator (yay, no stairs!), and set up. once again, everyone was super nice and excited to have us there. they interviewed us after every few songs, and shot some footage for their youTube program, both of which will be aired in the near future.

after that, we had just enough time to grab some food and head over to the record store we were also playing that night. what an action packed day. after mentioning puppies probably too many times during our set, our radio station host, matt, disappeared momentarily and returned with Mr. Zubbie. he had a mohawk. i don't mean to keep mentioning puppies, but we really like them. i mean, who doesn't like them? 

i keep forgetting to have someone take pictures of us actually playing music. now that i think about it, we might actually hang out with dogs more than we play music...

new orleans, louisiana

we played a decent show in new orleans at a place called the Dragon's Den, caught up with our good friends Jace and Erin, then woke up the next morning with a full day off to enjoy the city. being the early riser of the bunch, i headed out on foot in search of coffee, and stumbled into this:

a huge art festival in the middle of the french quarter. so many people, so many tourists, so many people with daiquiris. and art EVERYWHERE. interesting. the weather was perfect, so i walked around, feeling like i could be as strange as i wanted and no one would notice. i tried to take pictures of myself, but they all ended up looking the same (see above; me in bottom corner, landmark behind), so i put away my camera and bought some voodoo dolls. seriously.

a few kids who missed us play the night before asked us to play at their house instead of having the night off, and of course we said yes. what started off as a mildly awkward event ended up being a successful and fun show (meaning, no cops) surrounded by genuinely nice and kind people. yes!

woke up bright and early, eager to plow through a nine hour drive. when i'm not driving, and i turn around, i see this:

birmingham, alabama

so i thought that by starting a blog i'd have a lot of fun and interesting things to say, but so far i just feel kind of cheesy. i'll let the pictures talk instead--

you know tour is going to be good when there are puppies. PUPPIES! 

i'm in new orleans right now, perhaps i'll go find something more interesting to blog about.

so this is blog.

hello blog.