Mike’s Tour Blog: Vol. II Issue I

Back in August this dude Thom added us on myspace and he had one of our jams on his page. He looked familiar, I knew I had seen him somewhere. Anyways, we chatted and he was a nice dude and we had the same attitude about music. You find something cool, something you dig, it is your duty as a lover of good things to share that good thing with your friends. We are both men of duty.

Anyways Thom is in the band called the Elms. I had their last cd, the Chess Hotel. My buddy (and yours) Daniel Berry would always play it while we were driving around in his old white pickup that later blew up on the way back from St. Pete but thats another story all together. “I think you’d really like them” Daniel would say and he was right. Their last cd has all this kinda blues rock kind of stuff and then all these new tracks started popping up with this wide open sound that I think suitted them much better. Really solid tracks. And like that, I’m a fan of the Elms.

So Thom and I chatted back and forth about maybe getting together on some dates, in all truth it probably wasn’t what we should have been focusing on: finishing the record. We’re working our way up to being the spectacle that I’ve got in my head, I need to play live. So instead of waiting around for someone else to do it we booked this one ourselves. Only eight shows, nothing big, but it was the best time we’ve had on the road so far.

We had a couple dates in Florida before heading out, that part didn’t feel like “tour”. Me and Jacob rolled around comfortably running up bar tabs and eating quality food. We stayed with my family in St. Pete, we have a jacussi, we didn’t even come close to “roughing” it. I drank sake bombs with my mom at our show in St. Pete, an old friend from High School came out, there weren’t many people at those first two shows but we had a good time.  Jacob stumbled out of the back of the club in St. Pete, “See you weirdos in Orlando!”. Let’s get rollin.

We picked up the brothers Hearne, Travis and Cannon, the next morning at a Citgo. Gas was $2.07. A trucker was grabbing some shade while sitting under his tanker while it filled the station, he looked comfy. Goodbye girlfriends and we’re off. Cannon and Travis had played guitar and drums with us on a previous show but we hadn’t had the chance to really hang out with them for an extended period of time.

Smoke break #1.

The brothers Hearne smoke more damn cigarettes than anyone I’ve ever met. It reminded me of the back porch at my grandmas old place. It was covered with that bright green astro turf, huge trash bins were filled to the top with crushed cans of miller lite and everyone was always smoking. That is a happy memory by the way. Travis is a very smart guy, we would talk about music a lot. Whenever I’m riding with someone new I like to show them my favorite guilty pleasure: European Power Pop. It’s a style that is impossible to deny even with its overt homosexual overtones. Just watch this video:

When Cannon would sit up front it would be a little smokestack comedy revue. Cannon is a funny guy with the distinct habit of replacing curse words with their first letter. i.e. “Holy esS, we’re out of cigarettes, what the efF?” What made is so great was that he would basically curse like a sailor, effs and esses left and right but he would never say the actual word as he had found the loophole of cursing and exploited it to its full potential.

Orlando treated the Elms well, that made me happy. It was an odd night though, it’s almost always too loud in the Backbooth, that’s probably our fault but if you can’t hear vocals, you got nothing. I checked out a couple shows as part of the Anti-pop festival, Ben Prestage was cool. Orlando’s indie rock elite we’re hanging out in a little underground bar. Some of the guys from Butcher’s band, a Believer here and there. It was about as cold as it gets in Orlando. I talked to Justin Beckler about trying to find a saxophone player… and an 12 string rickenbaker… and a big lady soul singer… he had info on a good sax player and that was enough for me.

The next morning we slept in for a bit, well the brothers did at least. I woke up early, a by product of having a 9-5 that I don’t necessarily enjoy but find useful nonetheless. Strings and a capo were about all I could afford but thankfully were about all I needed. The first full “packing” of the van is always intense. You just gotta hope everything finds its place like a completely un-fun (yes un-fun) game of tetris. We had plenty of room for the four of us, even places to strech out and lay down. I checked the mailbox before we left. I got a letter from chick-fila.

Sidebar: I’m a man who values justice. When something is amiss, I’ve reminded myself to speak up and make my voice heard. Kind of like Batman… actually… EXACTLY like Batman. But more like a Batman that writes polite form letters to companies encouragingly informing said businesses of their missteps while maintaining that I have always enjoyed/respected their product/service and hope to enjoy the same commitment to quality in the future. Like I said, exactly like Batman. So anyways, on Election Day chickfila had this “FREE CHICKEN SANDWICH” if you voted thing going on, long story short, they didn’t come through and I let them know how upset I was about my chicken sandwich mishap.

Chickfila made right.

1 Free Chicken Sandwich & 1 Free Peppermint Chocolate Chip Medium Milk Shake.

Now we are ready to tour.