Santa Rosa to San Jose

View Larger MapThe drive to san jose isn't so bad, so we chilled at Jef's and watched the first half of JAWS... or up until they get the first barrel on the shark. classic.
san jose was a house show at the Texas Toast house. there is a little well-constructed shed / guest room in the backyard where they play shows, and when i first stepped in, i thought that there was no way we'd all fit in there... but we set up tight and the house was PACKED with peeps, full of energy and pumped! I had soooo much fun playing this one! got it on tape too, so once I can edit a song out I'll be posting! Thanks SOOOOOOO much to texas toasters for making us pasta and a beautiful salad, it made my night.
we drove to san francisco and stayed with Nathan on 16th... Jef from litany drove with us, which was awesome. we look forward to seeing all the santa rosa crew again tomorrow at GILMAN ST!!!!

Portland to Santa Rosa

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finally, reunited with Litany for the Whale, our best buddies from santa rosa california! It was, as always, great to see everyone from the crew & it lifted our spirits and put big smiles on our faces.
we chilled at the flying goat for a while and drank coffee by the train tracks, and then loaded in at the arlene francis theater, which was a gorgeous big brick space. we played a great show under blue xmas lights and then had the pleasure of watching Litany rock the house... probably the best litany performance I've seen - the new tracks were strong!
Thanks to Jef & Rochelle for putting us up!

Seattle - Jewelbox Theater

We played at the jewelbox inside rendezvous, its a cute lil' theater with olive green fancy wallpaper and movie seats and a projector room. It looked like the perfect little place for us to play, but the room had a killer buzz that we could not kill, thus threatening to kill our buzz.
strings broke, the monitors buzzed, vocals fed back, but we persisted and had our bodies bathed in a wacky colorful lightshow courtesy of the lighting guy whose name escapes me from the projector booth!
all in all, we did our best, and I still enjoyed performing as per usual. -gonna try to post a song from the show if I can masterfully edit out some trip-ups. (coming soon)
***Bryce posted a couple of youtube vids of the first two songs...
no no no no no
i never left my head

Seattle to Portland

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We left our gracious hosts Conor and Julie on Wednesday and hit the road for Portland, OR. We got a serious view of Mt. Rainier hanging over the horizon... its absurd that this made me think of some NES game backdrop, maybe ninja gaiden... I'd simply never seen anything like it in real life!
We arrived in portland in the early evening, showed up at the Garfield house and went to grab some food on NE Alberta st.
\\\la bonita mexican... had a great show in the garfield basement & then stayed with Sarah, whose job, among other things, is to rid portland of bedbugs like a true entomologist... I sincerely enjoyed all of her insights and anecdotes and frozen specimens!

I awoke the next morning to a brilliant breakfast with fresh beet+apple+celery+kale juice goin' in the kitchen.

oh, and I think I'm getting a little cold, so I've been zinc-ing, juicing, and resting.

Seattle

We reached seattle and got in touch with Conor and Julie, who were absolute angels and let us crash at their beautiful huge apartment for three days. We settled in and made our way up 15th ave to volunteer park. Mt. Rainier was just barely visible from the observation deck of the water tower there, which is supposedly rare for october. there were spiders everywhere in seattle, one specific species Araneus Diademadus, or the Cross Spider, had dibs on every lush vegetal corner of the city.
We found our fav thai restaurant, In the Bowl, and requested 2-star heat as opposed to the 3 stars that made me hallucinate in 2008. We were in town durning mid november in '08, and the difference was amazing... every day here was sunny and beautiful.

I spent most of my time at Victrola coffee house finishing my ink work for Nick's comic back in brooklyn. Conor did take brandon and I out for a real fancy-pants coffee experience which we were all 'bout. Try this on:
Espresso Vivace... the type of place that has signs up explaining how you can best enjoy the cup of coffee you just bought. I had a cappuccino with what I swore was a bosch painting in my milk.

Ghastly hits the West Coast!

We made it safely form lincoln to boise and arrived at the visual arts collective space, which kinda blew us away.
Huge, clean, pro sound, & a very sweet staff. We played with Red Hands Black Feet (whose drummer is a bad-ass) and Housefire, who had almost as much equipment as we do and really grabbed our attention.

We decided to leave later that night in order to enjoy three full days in Seattle. I fell asleep in the van and woke up to the smell of burning rubber. We had burnt our brakes during a steep descent down an Oregon mountain. We stopped the van to let the brakes cool, and after I emptied my bladder and took a peek off the mountainside I was kinda blown away. It was silent and absolutely breathtaking out there, you could hear crickets and a falcon screeching every now and then. The landscape looked unreal, like a painting.

Cutting through the cascades was amazing, I might have taken too many photos.

Held over in Denver...

and loving it. I've been parking my ass at the yellow feather coffee shop every morning, drawing, blogging, & uploading photos.
Denver is sunny & beautiful this week. We ate at Illegal pete's and sputnik's, and are playing another show at 3 kings tonight! Two in a row!

Tonight (right after the show :( )we make a crazy drive from denver to boise ID for a show tomorrow night at the Garden City Visual Arts Collective Promenade Music Festival!… driving all night and day. wish us luck, we'll be breaking some mountain passes and stuff. I'm hoping I can sleep through the night and take the day shift tomorrow!
CB just changed our oil and made sure the ol' van is in tip top shape for the trip.

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I miss all my friends & fam and wish you all the best… next post will be from Idaho.

xo
m