Oh shit! I shirked my responsibilties as your blogger there for a couple of days. Sorry about that! Those of you who have been on tour before know exactly what a black hole the road can be. SO without further ado, this is what's been going on the last few days:
The morning after the AWESOME show at Thee Parkside, 2 simultaneous adventures occurred: Tay, went to meet with our new friend Paul Jansen of www.paulcity.com to get fitted for a really sweet custom leather guitar strap. Paul is an up and coming leather smith in San Francisco and wanted to show his love for the band. Tay spent the day playing guitar, drinkin ' good beer and tearing around the streets of San Franciso in a Volkswagen Thing with Paul. At the same time, Tony, Ty and myself (Aaron btw) went looking for a good place to eat. I found a Chicken and Waffles joint on Yelp which sounded pretty sweet so we got directions and began the one mile trek through a little neighborhood called Hunters Point. As we walked, we came across a baptist church and heard Organs, Drums and singing coming out. "We gotta check this out"
We walk into the church, sit down in the back row and get greeted by everyone around us. Those folks were JAMMING! It was probably one of the most uplifting experiences of our lives, despite the fact that NONE of us are the slightest bit religeous. Roughly 20 minutes later having had our fill of the holy spirit, we continued our our journey. We finally made it to Auntie April's Chicken and Waffles. Oh my god this place was sweet! Huge portions, great price and all the soul food you could desire. We went with Chicken, Waffles, Eggs, Collared Greens and Yams. With full bellies, we made our way back to Phil's place.
When we got back, we told the story to Phil.
"You guys went to Hunters Point?"
"Yeah"
"Why?"
"For Chicken and Waffles"
"That place is one of the most dangerous areas in the country, I've been mugged there myself. Seriously, there's shootings all the time"
"Oh. Well, you should check out Auntie April's. That place rules"
"I'll have to check it out"
Fast forward. Went out to Kimo's near Polk to play an early set (Thanks to Scott for tossing us on btw). Crowd was surprisingly good for 7:00 on a Sunday! We rocked, hung out for a bit and then went to meet the Flexx Bronco dudes at Butter for Karaoke. Line was long, but drinks were flowing so we got too drunk to sing anyway. Our buddy Robnoxious had been drinkin with us all night and he suggested we take the party back to his place in Oakland. Had some more beers there and called it a night. We spent memorial day drinkin' beer, writing songs and eating AMAZING food prepared by Rob and his wife Siobahn. Seriously. Awesome. We love you guys so so much.
Next day, made the drive to Arcata, CA. Picked up a copy of Savage Henry Magazine and laughed our asses off. We emailed em just to invite them to our show that night and to tell em how rad their magazine was. Within an hour, I got an email back asking if we wanted to come do a podcast interview with them. It was a TON of fun. Show at Jambalaya was a great time, mad props to Andrew and Suzi for gettin loud! After the show, all 9 of the combined members from Flexx Bronco and MF Ruckus shacked up in a single hotel room. It was cozy to say the least.
Breakfast. Gas. Drive
Stopped at Trees of Mystery Park in Klamath, CA. Talked to Paul Bunyan, giggled at Babe the Big Blue Ox's Big Blue Balls. Decided $14 wasn't worth a "Mysterious" Nature hike. Instead, we followed a trail head near the giant gift shop until we got to one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It's called hidden beach. There's no trash, at the time there were no people a no sound except to ocean crashing on the giant rocks. It looked like one of those places Alt/folk/acoustic/jam/reggae/pop/indie/college/cheese-dick bands take their press photos, only with our filthy little asses instead. It was truly gorgeous.
Drive.Gas.Drive.Piss. Drive
Arrived at Johnny B's in Medford Oregon. Awesome awesome awesome bar, great people, good times. Johnny B himself is one of the nicest human beings we've ever met. The set went fantastic! I mean ELECTRIC!
Drink.Shake Hands.Pat Backs.24 hour Mexican food.Crash for a few hours.Head for Seattle.
Ok... I think that covers it.
I'll try and be better about this in the future!
Guess who broke his promise?
Yeah yeah yeah...unfortunately, sometimes tour just sucks you in and leaves little time for playing around in the internet realm. So here's how the rest of the tour went:
We drove to Portland, picked up Tony's childhood friend Gunner, who had agreed to work merch for us and finish out the tour in exchange for a ride to Denver. From there, we drove up to Seattle, met up with our good buddies ALL BETS ON DEATH, loaded their gear into our trailer and headed as a group to Everett, WA. Our good buddy Timmy who works the door had cooked us up a delicious pork-butt which we broke up into sandwiches and managed to feed all three bands. The show was awesome! Tony V in one of the coolest dudes you'll ever meet, Jenn the bartender always takes good care of us and the crowd at Tony V's is always quite a colorful bunch. As a matter of fact, some guy got kicked out of the show, went up the street to Subway, cut his wrists in the lobby and proceeded to stab himself in the hand repeatedly. Of course, at the time, we were unaware of these details. All we saw was cops with assault rifles running into Subway.
But I digress..
Flexx Bronco, All Bets on Death and us all put on great sets. Flexx and All Bets headed back to Seattle, while we went and partied til the god damn break of dawn
Sleep. Coffee. Breakfast. MEXICAN BBQ AT KARLA'S HOUSE!!!!!
Man that was good.
Carne Asada, homemade salsas, a keg of rolling rock and some good conversation with Flexx Bronco and a couple of the guys from Zero Down.
Drive to The Comet.
Capitol Hill is bustling with people. We arrived and loaded in quickly so as to set up right away. There were 4 bands on the bill this evening: All Bets on Death, Zero Down, Flexx Bronco and MF Ruckus. We were first of 4. Even going on first, we had an awesome crowd! Like packed! Even though Hell's Belles had a show right across the street, the girls took the time to come say hi and catch our set. What a bunch of sweetie pies!
This show. Was. Epic.
Flexx Bronco: Killer as always. Zero Down: Where the fuck did these guys come from? Seriously, one of our new favorite bands. All Bets on Death: One of our personal favorites. Me, Logan and Eroc from Flexx Bronco even got up to sing "All my Heros are in Hell". Took a great big family photo at the end of the night where we were joined by Jules, Alex and Jake from Spittin' Cobras. There's no way for words to describe how awesome this night was. Some day, people are going to lie about being at this show.
Load out was insane! 4 bands with half-stacks, bass cabs, drum kits and more moving out en masse. We all chipped in though and cleared out in no time. Took the all bets gear back to their space where we discovered that some asshole had tagged the side of the trailer. Now I'm all for grafitti, but #1 Bad Grafitti Sucks and #2 Vandalizing a band's shit is just plain uncool. Whoever you are, you suck and your "art" was removed as quickly as you put it up.
Goodbyes. Sleep. KILLER BREAKFAST! Drive to Portland.
I love Portland, but that place is a planet unto itself. It's one of those places that's just a little "too free", know what I mean? Most of all though, Portland is home to some of the nicest god damn people we know. Went to East Side Deli to visit our good budy Smiley and eat some of the best sandwiches around. Loaded in a Plan B where FINALLY, they had some pinball machine (including Medieval Madness...fuck yes). Plan B is a rad club. I highly recommend it! Played with locals Knox Harrington (awesome...Phil from Flexx did guest vocals on "Squealer" by AC/DC). And a 2 piece blues band called Hopeless Jack and the Handsome Devil. They were sick. We did our set. Tore the Godamn roof off! Flexx finished out the night with what I thought to be their best show of the trip. They pulled out all the stops and managed to start right as a bus tour full of drunks stopped at Plan B.
Sleep. Visit with Omar from Rendered Useless. BBQ with Guil from My New Vice, his Wife Summer, our old friends Amanda, James and Lisa and new friend Brenda. Special guest appearance by Timmy and Jenn from Everett and Syd from Ashland.
Cold Beers. Sidewalk Chalk. Little Kids. Good Times.
Free tattoo. Ground Kontrol. Burnside. Cab Ride. Drinks and Karaoke with My New Vice at Da' Hui. Strip Club. Hotel. Pass the fuck out.
Wake Up. Drive. Drive. Drive to Boise.
Ah the last night of the tour. Went to see our friend J Wood at Donnie Mac's Trailer Park Cuisine and got our MF grub on. From there we spent the remainder of the night at Liquid for Punk Monday. Rusty Godamn feat. members of Trigger Itch played a short set to open things up. We played a very very funny and lighthearted set before turning over the stage to Wilt Chamberlain's Baby. They laid down Punk Rock while we got smashed....except Tay who drove of course. Much love to 1332 Records and our dearly beloved Levi.
And then....Drive. Pull over. Sleep a few hours. Drive. DRIVE. DRIVE!!!!! Pull over. Clean out van. Say goodbye.
Well it wasn't the most well maintained blog damn it, but I tried. Overall, I'd say what made this tour so awesome was the friendship we experienced in literally every city we went to. Those kind of experiences are hard to convery.
Anyway, thanks everybody.
We love you all
Aaron Howell
MF Ruckus
The morning after the AWESOME show at Thee Parkside, 2 simultaneous adventures occurred: Tay, went to meet with our new friend Paul Jansen of www.paulcity.com to get fitted for a really sweet custom leather guitar strap. Paul is an up and coming leather smith in San Francisco and wanted to show his love for the band. Tay spent the day playing guitar, drinkin ' good beer and tearing around the streets of San Franciso in a Volkswagen Thing with Paul. At the same time, Tony, Ty and myself (Aaron btw) went looking for a good place to eat. I found a Chicken and Waffles joint on Yelp which sounded pretty sweet so we got directions and began the one mile trek through a little neighborhood called Hunters Point. As we walked, we came across a baptist church and heard Organs, Drums and singing coming out. "We gotta check this out"
We walk into the church, sit down in the back row and get greeted by everyone around us. Those folks were JAMMING! It was probably one of the most uplifting experiences of our lives, despite the fact that NONE of us are the slightest bit religeous. Roughly 20 minutes later having had our fill of the holy spirit, we continued our our journey. We finally made it to Auntie April's Chicken and Waffles. Oh my god this place was sweet! Huge portions, great price and all the soul food you could desire. We went with Chicken, Waffles, Eggs, Collared Greens and Yams. With full bellies, we made our way back to Phil's place.
When we got back, we told the story to Phil.
"You guys went to Hunters Point?"
"Yeah"
"Why?"
"For Chicken and Waffles"
"That place is one of the most dangerous areas in the country, I've been mugged there myself. Seriously, there's shootings all the time"
"Oh. Well, you should check out Auntie April's. That place rules"
"I'll have to check it out"
Fast forward. Went out to Kimo's near Polk to play an early set (Thanks to Scott for tossing us on btw). Crowd was surprisingly good for 7:00 on a Sunday! We rocked, hung out for a bit and then went to meet the Flexx Bronco dudes at Butter for Karaoke. Line was long, but drinks were flowing so we got too drunk to sing anyway. Our buddy Robnoxious had been drinkin with us all night and he suggested we take the party back to his place in Oakland. Had some more beers there and called it a night. We spent memorial day drinkin' beer, writing songs and eating AMAZING food prepared by Rob and his wife Siobahn. Seriously. Awesome. We love you guys so so much.
Next day, made the drive to Arcata, CA. Picked up a copy of Savage Henry Magazine and laughed our asses off. We emailed em just to invite them to our show that night and to tell em how rad their magazine was. Within an hour, I got an email back asking if we wanted to come do a podcast interview with them. It was a TON of fun. Show at Jambalaya was a great time, mad props to Andrew and Suzi for gettin loud! After the show, all 9 of the combined members from Flexx Bronco and MF Ruckus shacked up in a single hotel room. It was cozy to say the least.
Breakfast. Gas. Drive
Stopped at Trees of Mystery Park in Klamath, CA. Talked to Paul Bunyan, giggled at Babe the Big Blue Ox's Big Blue Balls. Decided $14 wasn't worth a "Mysterious" Nature hike. Instead, we followed a trail head near the giant gift shop until we got to one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It's called hidden beach. There's no trash, at the time there were no people a no sound except to ocean crashing on the giant rocks. It looked like one of those places Alt/folk/acoustic/jam/reggae/pop/indie/college/cheese-dick bands take their press photos, only with our filthy little asses instead. It was truly gorgeous.
Drive.Gas.Drive.Piss. Drive
Arrived at Johnny B's in Medford Oregon. Awesome awesome awesome bar, great people, good times. Johnny B himself is one of the nicest human beings we've ever met. The set went fantastic! I mean ELECTRIC!
Drink.Shake Hands.Pat Backs.24 hour Mexican food.Crash for a few hours.Head for Seattle.
Ok... I think that covers it.
I'll try and be better about this in the future!
Guess who broke his promise?
Yeah yeah yeah...unfortunately, sometimes tour just sucks you in and leaves little time for playing around in the internet realm. So here's how the rest of the tour went:
We drove to Portland, picked up Tony's childhood friend Gunner, who had agreed to work merch for us and finish out the tour in exchange for a ride to Denver. From there, we drove up to Seattle, met up with our good buddies ALL BETS ON DEATH, loaded their gear into our trailer and headed as a group to Everett, WA. Our good buddy Timmy who works the door had cooked us up a delicious pork-butt which we broke up into sandwiches and managed to feed all three bands. The show was awesome! Tony V in one of the coolest dudes you'll ever meet, Jenn the bartender always takes good care of us and the crowd at Tony V's is always quite a colorful bunch. As a matter of fact, some guy got kicked out of the show, went up the street to Subway, cut his wrists in the lobby and proceeded to stab himself in the hand repeatedly. Of course, at the time, we were unaware of these details. All we saw was cops with assault rifles running into Subway.
But I digress..
Flexx Bronco, All Bets on Death and us all put on great sets. Flexx and All Bets headed back to Seattle, while we went and partied til the god damn break of dawn
Sleep. Coffee. Breakfast. MEXICAN BBQ AT KARLA'S HOUSE!!!!!
Man that was good.
Carne Asada, homemade salsas, a keg of rolling rock and some good conversation with Flexx Bronco and a couple of the guys from Zero Down.
Drive to The Comet.
Capitol Hill is bustling with people. We arrived and loaded in quickly so as to set up right away. There were 4 bands on the bill this evening: All Bets on Death, Zero Down, Flexx Bronco and MF Ruckus. We were first of 4. Even going on first, we had an awesome crowd! Like packed! Even though Hell's Belles had a show right across the street, the girls took the time to come say hi and catch our set. What a bunch of sweetie pies!
This show. Was. Epic.
Flexx Bronco: Killer as always. Zero Down: Where the fuck did these guys come from? Seriously, one of our new favorite bands. All Bets on Death: One of our personal favorites. Me, Logan and Eroc from Flexx Bronco even got up to sing "All my Heros are in Hell". Took a great big family photo at the end of the night where we were joined by Jules, Alex and Jake from Spittin' Cobras. There's no way for words to describe how awesome this night was. Some day, people are going to lie about being at this show.
Load out was insane! 4 bands with half-stacks, bass cabs, drum kits and more moving out en masse. We all chipped in though and cleared out in no time. Took the all bets gear back to their space where we discovered that some asshole had tagged the side of the trailer. Now I'm all for grafitti, but #1 Bad Grafitti Sucks and #2 Vandalizing a band's shit is just plain uncool. Whoever you are, you suck and your "art" was removed as quickly as you put it up.
Goodbyes. Sleep. KILLER BREAKFAST! Drive to Portland.
I love Portland, but that place is a planet unto itself. It's one of those places that's just a little "too free", know what I mean? Most of all though, Portland is home to some of the nicest god damn people we know. Went to East Side Deli to visit our good budy Smiley and eat some of the best sandwiches around. Loaded in a Plan B where FINALLY, they had some pinball machine (including Medieval Madness...fuck yes). Plan B is a rad club. I highly recommend it! Played with locals Knox Harrington (awesome...Phil from Flexx did guest vocals on "Squealer" by AC/DC). And a 2 piece blues band called Hopeless Jack and the Handsome Devil. They were sick. We did our set. Tore the Godamn roof off! Flexx finished out the night with what I thought to be their best show of the trip. They pulled out all the stops and managed to start right as a bus tour full of drunks stopped at Plan B.
Sleep. Visit with Omar from Rendered Useless. BBQ with Guil from My New Vice, his Wife Summer, our old friends Amanda, James and Lisa and new friend Brenda. Special guest appearance by Timmy and Jenn from Everett and Syd from Ashland.
Cold Beers. Sidewalk Chalk. Little Kids. Good Times.
Free tattoo. Ground Kontrol. Burnside. Cab Ride. Drinks and Karaoke with My New Vice at Da' Hui. Strip Club. Hotel. Pass the fuck out.
Wake Up. Drive. Drive. Drive to Boise.
Ah the last night of the tour. Went to see our friend J Wood at Donnie Mac's Trailer Park Cuisine and got our MF grub on. From there we spent the remainder of the night at Liquid for Punk Monday. Rusty Godamn feat. members of Trigger Itch played a short set to open things up. We played a very very funny and lighthearted set before turning over the stage to Wilt Chamberlain's Baby. They laid down Punk Rock while we got smashed....except Tay who drove of course. Much love to 1332 Records and our dearly beloved Levi.
And then....Drive. Pull over. Sleep a few hours. Drive. DRIVE. DRIVE!!!!! Pull over. Clean out van. Say goodbye.
Well it wasn't the most well maintained blog damn it, but I tried. Overall, I'd say what made this tour so awesome was the friendship we experienced in literally every city we went to. Those kind of experiences are hard to convery.
Anyway, thanks everybody.
We love you all
Aaron Howell
MF Ruckus