Whooooa.. so where did I leave off? I can't remember. But one thing is for sure, we've got a lot of catching up to do.
Monday, July 5th
We had three days off in a row so we decided to drive down to New York City and check out what was going on down there. We stayed at my good friend Josh Itano's apartment in the Bronx, NY. After we parked the van, G, Nick, Troy, and I all took the subway down to Manhattan to check out Times Square. I had never been to NYC and neither had Nick, so we were pretty amped to see everything in person.
We bummed around Times Square for a while, grabbed some food, and headed back up to the Bronx to get some sleep for our recording session the next day.
Tuesday, July 6
So, it's 10:00am on Tuesday morning, we were all up until like 3:30am the night before, I'm the bad guy, waking everyone up.. and I start to realize how difficult it is going to be to get everyone and their gear down to the recording studio in Manhattan. We had set up a session for 12 noon at Skyline Studios, recommended by my former teacher, Peter Erskine,and it takes almost an hour to get from the subway station in the Bronx to where we need to go.
I'm thinking "ok, so we need to walk a mile to Fordham University to get the stuff out of the car, then walk a mile to the subway station with cymbals, snare, kick drum petal, a bass.. , then we need to walk from the subway station to the recording studio.. oh S#&*! It's 10:30 already?"
I figured out that there was no way we were going to make it on time so the only option was to get a cab. Josh, my friend who we were staying with, suggested we get a "gypsy" cab because they're more likely to just give you a flat rate that is usually lower than the yellow cabs in NYC. Sounded pretty sketchy to me, the guy didn't have a meter on the dash or anything, no papers.. they all just drive these lincoln town cars and you just ask them "how much"
Anyway, we made it to the studio just in time and got to work immediately. We recorded a bunch of new material that will be released on our next album.
That's all for now.. I will definitely write more later. Right now we are getting ready to go up to Boulder, CO to hand out some fliers on Pearl St. for our show tomorrow night at The Lazy Dog.
Wow, last time I wrote was back in Appleton, WI. Now we are in upstate New York at Patrick's house.. we have a lot of catching up to do. Here we go!
Friday, June 25th
We drove up to Neenah, WI and stopped at my mom's house for a quick bite to eat, a shower, and then it was off to Red and White for the gig. G, our singer, was kind of surprised at the venue because it isn't really a "venue" at all, mainly just a wine bar and a wine retail shop. So, it's kind of a weird place for us to play, but it always ends up getting crazy in there. It's like, you walk in and think that no one is going to want to hear anything loud, but by the second set, people were moving the tables to the side and opening up the dance floor. It was really fun to see family and friends gettin down.
Saturday, June 26th
We spent most of the day Saturday just resting and recuperating from our time on the road (and some heavy after-show partying!). We headed up to Green Bay for the next gig on the schedule at a bar called IQ's. It was actually my first time ever playing in Green Bay, which is the actually the city I was born in. We played a monster first set (around 2 and a half hours) and came on to do a later set to close out the night. We met a lot of great people up in GB and are already setting up gigs there for the future.
Sunday, June 27th
We had the day off on Sunday and Schroedes was flying back to Green Bay, so Troy and I decided to go over to Krolls, right across from Lambeau Field where the Packers play, to grab some cheeseburgers and a brewski before picking him up. Later on in the day, we had a BBQ over at my neighbor, Alex Moede's house.
Monday, June 28th
Monday wasn't really too exciting.. We drove down to Lafayette, IN to stay over at Troy's house and had a little party/ping pong tournament when we got down there. Troy's mom also had a huge feast of lasagna and spaghetti waiting for us right when we showed up. Definitely some of the best hospitality we've seen so far. We have been joking that the moms on this tour are going to start competing with each other for the best meals/hospitality of the tour. I'm still not sure who's in the lead, we've had some of the best accommodations on this tour so far.
Tuesday, June 29th
On Tuesday we went over to Troy's friend's house and set up our gear for the house party happening later that night. The places was right by Purdue University in West Lafayette. Troy's friend was a swimmer/diver and had a pool in his back yard. Here's a video of him jumping off his roof into the pool (like 4ft deep!).
The house party was fun and we met a lot of cool people who go to Purdue. One of Troy's friends came up to us, apparently he said he name was "Milf"(??).., and he kept on talking about this gift he was wanted to give us when we dropped him off later that night. When we got to his house he ran inside and brought out an American Music Award from 1990. It was Favorite Artist award for Guns and Roses in the Heavy Metal category. LOL.. WHAT?!? I guess he said it was for inspiration.. his uncle was once connected to G&R back in the day. Wow, talk about RANDOM!!
Wednesday, June 30th
The next morning we woke up to another amazing meal prepared by Troy's mom before taking off to Chicago, IL for the next show. When we got to Chi-town, we stopped at Schroedes' roommate's parent's house which was conveniently right near the venue and they treated us to some Chicago deep-dish pizza for dinner. It was G's first time ever eating Chicago deep-dish:
Da Bears.. Da Bulls..
Thursday, July 1st
On Thursday we woke up to yet another breakfast buffet feast at the Kovacs residence in Chicago before taking off for the next show. We headed off to Detroit, MI where we were staying with my old roommate at his parent's house in the suburbs outside the city.
When we got to the venue, the sound guy had pretty much no idea what he was doing, so Troy kind of took over and the guy eventually left. The first band (which was a local group), didn't really bring in any people which was kind of a bummer, but luckily my current roommate, Kyle Rambeau--who actually set up the gig for us, told a bunch of his friends to come out and we had a nice crowd for our 2 sets later in the evening.
Friday, July 2nd
The next day we drove down to Detroit and checked out downtown, then we headed over to Belle Isle and just relaxed by the water overlooking the Detroit skyline. After that, we packed up and headed out towards our next destination: New York!
By 4am we were finally to Buffalo, NY, but no one had any idea of where we were going to stay.. so of course I was the one who had to do the dirty work and find a hotel for us to stay at.. nice planning guys! I'm starting to realize that I can't really leave travel planning up to the band.. oops!! ;)
Saturday, July 3rd
On our way from Buffalo to Albany, we stopped at Niagara Falls to check out the scenery.. and WOW was it beautiful!
After Niagara we continued on to Patrick's house in Niskayuna, NY and stayed the night.
Sunday, July 4th
Happy 4th of July everyone! Just sitting at Patrick's house right now getting ready to head up to Lake George, NY for our show today. It looks like we'll be in New York City tomorrow and will stay until Thursday when we play in Boston at The Middle East Upstairs with the band Biscuits and Gravy.
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