Bulldog and the one-man band

When we got to Athens we walked around a little before eating Thai food, meeting the band Marriage and then going to the Little Kings Shuffle Club to play. There was a wedding taking place before the rock show.

Downtown Athens is a lively, cute little place. I can see why it generates more indie than metal, like the black winterlands of Norway and Sweden. For example look at the statue of the bulldog mascot of nearby University of Georgia. It is cute, not mean and menacing.

Opening for us and Marriage was Matt Kurz one the one-man band. He was playing about four instruments at once and singing. Wow!

Mileage

Yep, that's right. 4,340 miles.

Old school gas station in West Virginia

This is the greyhound truck from 1933 on a drive through the Appalachians.

Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

We couldn't bring cameras inside so we only got limited photos of the R&R Hall of Fame. This is us with the giant guitars and out front, too. The guys have more pictures.

Some stats about the trip

Blogging while everyone gets ready to go...

In the car yesterday we counted how many states we will have driven through once we get back to Texas. Fifteen. We've gone more than 3,000 miles, filled up about 8 times, stayed in 8 houses of people we didn't know before, 1 hotel room, and 2 houses of people we did know.

Some of the bands we played with and listened to in the van are: BOTD, Colossus, Suzukiton, Red Collar, Kylesa and Goliathon. I can't find the CDs I got in Michigan right now but they are in my stuff somewhere. I'm hoping one has the rap songs on it.

Other stuff we've been listening to: Mastodon (new album), Queen, The Advantage, Tomahawk, Flaming Lips, Bill Hicks and David Cross comedy, Megadeth, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy Space Out, B-52s, Pink Floyd, Led Zep, Rush, various other classic rock and metal such as Sir Lord Baltimore and Sledgehammer. That's all I can think of right now but much has been played in the 40 hours or so we've been in the van so far.

Here we are our last night on the tour. We played Athens Georgia last night and Hattiesburg Mississippi tonight. Huge turnout for a Sunday night so we were happy. We're at Chips from the Horselords house, talking about recording and shredding.

Tired....

Ready for home.....

North Carolina

This is Margaret writing from (my sister) Mary Beth's house in Durham, North Carolina. Last night in Charlottesville was really fun. We got to see two great bands - Suzukiton and Kylesa just off their tour with Mastodon.

The drive through the Appalachians to Virginia was beautiful, and we found a gas station with an old greyhound from 1933 at a stop off the highway.

Our show was at Outback Lodge. Afterwards I convinced the guys to stay in a hotel. It was our first hotel stay of the tour. I was getting a cold and feeling weak and exhausted. In the morning we saw Kylesa walk in to the Waffle House where we were eating multiple helpings of covered hash browns. I guess Spencer is right about the reputation of that place being some type of touring band heaven.

We play with the great Colossus tonight at the Reservoir, and a band called Gollum that we haven't seen yet. Should be fun.

Cleveland rocks?

We got to Now That's Class but no one was in there, so Spencer and Domenic went next door to a gay bar called The Hawk and met some of the locals. Our bar was in the "gayborhood" they said. We didn't realize there was such a scene in Cleveland but apparently it rivals San Francisco's.

Anyway, our show kind of sucked. Not many people, an aloof soundperson, the worst merch sales we've had since we started. But it was a Tuesday. We spent the night drinking Cleveland beer in the basement with the other band, Album (awesome band) and Domenic and Michael practiced boxing on a big punching bag.

We were saved at at the end by a young woman named Bobbi who let us stay at her house, since the arrangements we had made through the Better than the Van website were 40 minutes away. We are headed off right now to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and then playing Columbus tonight.

Pictures: quarter pipe inside bar, michael and domenic box, us with owner of NTC Paul. He was great.

Historic Vollrath

We are in Cleveland sitting at the bar of Now That's Class, reflecting on last night's show. Vollrath Tavern in Indianapolis is a historic bar.

It used to be a speakeasy and brothel, and has numbered rooms in its labyrinthine basement. (Photos are of us exploring the basement, including bricks stamped with a 1920s date.)

Our show there was really fun. Am I saying that about every show? Because we haven't had a boring one yet. We didn't expect much on a Monday night but the response was great.

Indianapolis Graffiti

Night Moves

Domenic demonstrates his martial arts prowess at 5 a.m. in the front yard of Zuul's house

Mac's Bar crowd in Lansing

Here is Lansing. Us in front of the bar, the chair throwing during Harbinger's set, and an impromptu (was it? not sure) rap song by Harbinger and company. Hilarious.

Soon enough we will see Satyrasis, not pictured, in Austin when they come down during their enormous 24 show tour. phew!

Sand Dunes

Michigan and other

Yesterday we drove into Lansing, not before stopping to see the dunes near Lake Michigan.

When we got to Lansing we only had time to go straight to Mac's. The bar wasn't very crowded, but then we soon enough met the other bands Satyrasis and Harbinger and some of the people there to see us. They all were funny and really into metal.

In fact, the crowd in Lansing was the most enthusiastic and engaged (sorry other cities) that we have run into so far. When Michael said I was in a Queen tribute band the whole crowd (about two dozen?) started singing the middle of the Prophet Song at us. We were all like "what the hell!" Despite the conditions of the bar, evidence of a shitty economy with all the taps empty and only Pabst in cans, they were yelling jokes, screwing around, rocking out to each other's bands, rocking out to us, and then dancing, throwing chairs and drinking more Pabst--in general enjoying themselves and making their own fun.

We will have Lansing on our list if we ever go back up this far north.

Pictures later.

-- Margaret

Windy City

We started feeling the weather change yesterday when we got out of the van for the first time after a few hours of driving. The wind was blowing like crazy.

So we got in our long sleeves and got ready for our Chicago stay. 

Greg from Bible met us when we got there, and we went to the rehearsal space and met some of the rest of the guys before going to Quencher's, a historic Chicago bar with good pizza and 300 beers!

Here we are with Greg outside Quencher's.

Michael and Domenic outside Greg's

Us at Quencher's bar about to get food. It was good!
Domenic and Margaret at the rehearsal space

More Zuul at PK's

Zuul in Carbondale

Here we are last night at PK's (formerly Pizza King). Zuul performs, we rock out.

How to eat on tour

We've been saving money by not eating out. We have an ice chest with lunch meat and other goodies, and stop at rest areas. Here's a common scene for us (taken in Forest City Arkansas)

Buy Megaforte on CD Baby

Carbondale theft and destruction

Domenic has been posting one-line comments on our progress, such as that we lost a laptop in Carbondale, which is true. It wasn't the van, but the house we were staying in that was burgled while we were there. Most of the stuff stolen belonged to the residents. We still have our gear so we are still moving on.

Carbondale experienced winds of up to 100 mph last week and a lot of destruction was evident. We got there in time for the power to be back on.

Besides the negatives of our first day we still had a great show and met some interesting people. Today we are driving to Chicago to play with Zuul and BOTD.

Photos coming later when we get a chance.

- Margaret (now signing entries so you can tell who is posting)

Lost a laptop in Carbondale but the show went great.

Missouri is flat.

Just drove through Little Rock.

We are out of Texas!

Dallas

Show in Dallas was great! Just kidding. But we did stop there to see Domenic's dad on the way to Texarkana, where we are now. And we stopped to get kolaches.

Fwd: We are on the road!

The three-eyed owl king poster

This flyer was created by an artist in Michigan for our Mac's bar show. His name is Craig from the band Cavalcade. We're playing with Satyrasis there, too, who will come down to Austin in June and do another show with us at our beloved dive Headhunters.

This poster, in case you haven't noticed, is totally awesome. It has the owl king from Snow Chalice on it and a skull, and the smoke coming out of the skull's eyes says Blackholicus. Do I need to describe it further here or are you getting how awesome it is?