Summer Tour 2007

We will be adding a video travel log of our summer tour of the east coast soon. Stay tuned!

Off the Road Again

To catch up from where I last left off…which was a long time ago…we made our way to Maryland. There we visited Levi’s mother, Carolyn, his two sisters, Emily and Audrey, and her quasi-boyfriend, Ed. We had a great time there. We went to the downs and bet on horses. I played the penny slots. You wont believe what happened! The second penny I put in the slot gave me $112! I cashed out and took the winnings home. Levi came out $30 on top. While in Maryland, Levi’s mother took me to her salon (she has been doing hair professionally since she was 16) and she dyed and cut my hair. It still looks really great. We had thanksgiving at the Old Country Buffet with Levi’s grandmother and all the rest of his family. Man, his family is SOO different than mine. They are crazy, but in a good way.

From Maryland we went to my home town--Philadelphia. Growing up, I spent every summer with my mother’s parents in Ventnor NJ (an hour and a half from S. Philly). While we stayed with my grandfather, we went back and forth from the shore to the city. We ate so well there. My moms side is all Italian--we ate GOOD. I got the chance to see family I haven’t seen in a while--hi Frankie!-and catch up with my grandfather. Two shows were cancelled on us in PA. They were supposed to be our big money makers too. When we got to the place-it was shut down!! Ugh some people.

From PA we went to West Virginia. I had such a hard time with my allergies in WV. I felt sick the whole time and almost drove Levi completely insane with the attitude that comes along with my being sick. We stayed with Levi’s close friend Ben in WV. Ben is really awesome. He is in a band called the Skinny Leonards. Go check them out on myspace when you get the chance. We helped Ben pick out an engagement ring for his girlfriend. He proposed to her on Christmas in Prague and she said YES! How romantic…..We played some great gigs in WV--thanks for hooking us up Ben!

From WV we went to Ohio and stayed with Levi’s brother and stepfather Brennen and Larry. We had a blast. Brennen is the coolest 12 year old around. We played a couple shows, played lots of poker with Brennen, ate lots of sandwiches (I’m the only one who can get Brennen to eat a sandwich with lunchmeat-roast beef and American cheese on white bread with a very small amount of mayo), went to an awesome science museum in Columbus called COSI, and played lots of football in Brennen’s backyard.

From Ohio we went Chicago and met up with Levi’s friend from childhood, Joey. We played a show at a really tiny place with great food and then spent the night at Joey’s apartment. Levi is so lucky to have kept so many good friends from so long ago. All of the friends that I had from grade school to college changed so much…I just don’t know who they are anymore.

From Chicago we got on our way to Kansas City. We stayed over night in Western Illinois. Keep in mind it’s December at this point---and freezing. We were going to stay at a motel (for like the only time ever…we try not to stay in motels in order to save money for gas and food) but we couldn’t get to the motel in time for our reservation. We wanted to cancel the reservation and find a hotel closer to where we already were, but the people told us that we couldn’t get our deposit from the reservation back. I was fuming. Its not like we screwed them over, we just couldn’t get there in time with traffic and whatever else slows drivers down! Anyway, I talked my way into us getting our money back, and we headed to a rest stop. We got through the night, but we were soooo cold.

When we woke up we got on the road to Kansas City. Kansas City is beautiful, but I gotta tell ya, I wonder if anyone really lives there! The streets were empty, and it was a Saturday! We played our gig and left to meet up with Levi’s brother, Andy, right outside of Oklahoma City.
Instead of paying for a hotel room or sleeping in the freezing cold again, we opted to stay in Andy’s remodeled travel trailer. Andy was on his way back to New Mexico from having done some work in Virginia, which was perfect timing for us. We slept comfortably and warmly through the night. When we woke up and left the trailer to go to the bathroom, we saw a very peculiar man dressed as a woman squatting under a semi truck. We could see that he had male genitalia, but he was squatting to pee. Not that we wanted to watch him pee, we just thought it was SO bizarre….he’s squatting under a semi in order to what? Get some privacy? Hide? I guess he didn’t realize that everyone around could see him seeing as how a semi is like four feet off the ground! To make matters worse, when he was finished, he wrapped his genitalia in toilet paper (why????), tucked it away, pulled his skirt down, and climbed in the semi.

We finally made it back to New Mexico and had a great Christmas and New Year. In early January we left NM and headed to Colorado to stay with my dad and step-mom in their new house. They are gracious enough to let us stay with them until the summer.

What a weird and terrific journey we had.

Right now we are working with Americana Media Pro on radio promotion, booking like crazy in the Denver metro area, and trying to get as much press as we possibly can.

Keep a look out for what happens next!

Tonsillitis

Tonsilitis
\Ton`sil*i"tis\, n. [NL. See Tonsil, and -itis.] (Med.) Inflammation of the tonsil; quinsy. [Written also, and more usually, tonsillitis.]

You guessed it. We have been absent from the travel log due to a very bad case (on both our parts) of the aforementioned affliction. But did we miss a gig? Nope, not-a-one.

Levi's throat looked worse than mine, but he didn't get the fever and chills, I did. I got up to 101 with my fever...it was terrible.

We arrived in Friendship VA at Cathy and Emery's house about 2am on Sunday October 29th. We were feeling weak but okay, we HAD just driven across the freakin' world, we were bound to feel a little bit off. The next day we just hung around and started to feel our throats getting sore. On Halloween, we played music for everyone at the party that Cathy and Emery threw. It was a great party with great food and lots of candy! We even made good money! People were buying our CD like hot cakes! But, the next day--I was out. Levi probably was too, but he is a man's man--a good 'ol boy--a non-belly-acher. So of course he went out and did stuff while I was bed ridden. I caught up on all my shows online. Thank you ABC and NBC for airing episodes for free!!!

On thursday we went to Blacksburg for our show at The Cellar. If it wasn't for our good friend Andrew, we (or I) would have probably dropped dead during that show. He not only brought a crowd, he played a bunch of songs with us and put us up at his place! We made great money that night and headed back to friendship to play an unexpected show in Abingdon VA at a place called Java J's. In this little town, at this small coffee shop is where we have made the most money yet! It's pretty cool when you can see where your type of music just gets eaten up. Yay Abingdon! Their memories of us probably consist of good music a good CD and us spraying our throats down with Chloraseptic spray everytime we went to utter a sound.

From there we headed to Floyd, VA to play a show at Oddfella's Cantina. I loved this place!!! The stage and sound were great, the food was delicious, and the atmosphere was really relaxing. It was here that I met Levi's ex, Sarah. I have to admit I was nervous, but I really liked her. I can see why she and Levi were together. Sarah and her friend Lane came to see us, but the rest of the place was packed on it's own. It feels so good to play a place where people already go to hear live music. Our show went great and we made great money.

We were supposed to stay with Andrew again, but we wound up just staying at Lane's awsome three story apt in Blacksburg.

Now we are at Kent's house in Fredericksburg, VA. Levi is working with his dad and brother doing drywall at a house in town. I am trying to get started on booking for the ski season in New Mexico and Colorado. Ugh, booking is SOO difficult sometimes, but if we didn't put the work in there, we'd get nowhere. God bless the booking agents out there--you people have one hell of a job. Wanna do some booking for us?

Arkansauce Farkansauce

Room 710 was a good show. The other bands were so great. They even forfited their share of the money we all made to us so we could have some extra cash to get to Nashville! Thanks Stickpony and Grub Dog and the Modestos!!! We made it to Nashville on that cash--

Well we made it to Tennessee, but not without driving through Arkansas making up crazy songs (to no music whatsoever) about men named Alexander who make a specialty Arkan"sauce". We won't, however, divulge their secret ingredient.

I have never driven across the United States before, and have never been to Arkansas. I knew we were out of Texas (that is a BIG state) when we hit Arkansas because Arkansas is so different and beautiful. We went from 90 degree hot, humid Austin to freezing cold Arkansas. It really felt like we were beginning to head East.

When we reached Tennessee I set eyes, for the first time, on the mighty Mississippi. Now I know why we call it that. It is awe inspiring. We were just driving by, so I didn't get to stop and rest and think on it, but we will see it again when we go through Illinois over to Missouri later on in our tour.

We had another mishap with sleeping arrangements--AGAIN. Luckily we have the BEST publicist EVER. We were supposed to stay with a friends sister, but because she started working an odd schedule, it wasn't convienient any longer for her to have us stay last night. We called our publicist and asked if she had any spare floor space for us to sleep on. She didn't but she did get us a really nice hotel room to stay in that is only 20 min away from Nashville! This is something we didn't expect, and that we don't expect, but that we will not forget! Thanks Laura!

We watched some crazy movie on TV, I practiced playing Anybody's Guess on our new Roland keyboard, and went to sleep. Bonnie chewed on her bone and crashed...I think she exhausted herself from all the sleeping she did on the way here.

We have a show tonight at Mega Used Books and Discs here in Nashville. It should be great. We are meeting with a booking agent after the show--we'll see how that goes!

We'll keep ya posted.

Station Wagons East!

Alright. I thought that it would be easy to keep our travel log updated while we've been out on the road. I was wrong! It has been difficult to get even a second to update everyone on how our tour is going. Between strep throat and a screwey wireless card, updating has been next to impossible.

We are healthy now, and our wireless card is too, so updating shouldn't be that
difficult. Being on tour and not yet having become a big name artist with a huge tour bus and comfy sleeping conditions can be very tiring. For the summer and west coast leg of our tour, we slept in our car in the national forest a lot. We have a station wagon that when the seats are put down, turns into a full bed. But, now it's getting to be fall and winter and we've had to make arrangements with family and friends for places to sleep. If we stayed we would wind up freezing to death, so would our little black lab/pomeranian and our instruments would crack into pieces and beg to be fire wood.

We started out going west and came back through New Mexico. In New Mexico, we stayed at Levi's sisters house (which was filled to the brim with screaming kids, a bird whos squacks are never ending, and a cat who perpetually lives on the counters--but very fun none-the-less). The night before last, we started out toward the east. First stop--Austin, TX. We left at 9:30pm and drove for about 6 hours before pulling off on the side of the road at the New Mexico/Texas border to sleep. We slept till about 8am and headed out again. We made it to Austin by around 3:45pm. We had to change our clothes and brush our teeth, so we did what anyone would do--we went to Albertsons supermarket! Levi was lucky because (and only god knows how this was possible) the men's restroom didn't smell like exploding bowels, but the women's bathroom did. So, while levi took his time smelling the sweet scent of that bathroom bubblegum spray they use everywhere and washing up thuroughly, I quickly changed clothes while standing on my shoes so that whatever brand of ecoli was floating around on the floor wouldn't soak in through my feet.

Mean while, outside it was pouring rain and extremely humid. When I travel my sinuses get home sick and pissed off about me leaving New Mexico, and almost always get infected. When we went to California last Christmas, I got a HORRIBLE sinus infection and was laid up in my sisters apartment for days. My dad told me that when I travel I should take a hot shower right when I get to where I'm going and take decongestants with out antihistamines along the way. So, we stopped at walmart before going over to End of an Ear records (where we played at 6pm last night) and while they didnt have a hot shower for me to take, they did have a good decongestant. After promising the pharmacist I wouldn't make meth with my sudafed, we were on our way. The down side of all of this was that when we were playing our set, the humididty was exhausting me and the decongestant was making my heart race. My guitar playing wasn't affected that much, but the set was a little subdued from the humidity. It didn't really matter though because there were only around five people who showed up. The rain makes it hard for a good crowd to show.

We were supposed to stay with Levi's friends that he did some landscaping work for in the summer, but through some mishaps with our cell phone(s) while traveling, we'd lost their number. We wrote them an email but they didn't get back to us until we were about to sleep in our car. We were at a place called Cafe Caffiene (we have played two shows at this coffee house) constantly checking our email to see if Levi's friends had written. A band came in to play a show, but no one came to see them (boy, that sounds familiar--End of an Ear anyone??). I told Levi that we should stay to watch them, that this had happened to us before and that it would be good karma for us to stay and watch their show. We stayed and listened, they were great, but I didn't catch their name otherwise I would plug them here. Our good karma was granted, and Levi's friends wrote back to us with their phone number and we got a hot shower, a hot meal to eat, and a warm bed to sleep in!

Right now we are getting ready for our gig tonight at room 710. If you are in Austin, please come out and see us!