THE BOUNCING SOULS- GOLD TOUR- FALL 2006

OCT 12TH, DRIVING #2 TO WASHINGTON DC FOR FIRST SHOW OF “THE GOLD TOUR”

So we are on our way to DC for the first show of tour. Stoked. Im really excited to see tonights show and all the other shows. Good times. We have in the back of this truck nothing but gear, more gear with merch and more merch. The white castle (truck #1/ #2 is truck #2… go figure) The white castle isn’t coming until tomorrow due to repairs so we are borrowing a friend of the souls bio-diesel van. THAT’S WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT!!! Traveling in style.
So the last couple days have been a hoot. I arrived in NYC about 3 days ago where I spent time with my bud james. We just pretty much cruised around and hung out for the first day. I love nyc but would never live there. The food the people watching and the cruising with headphones is good good times. Theres so much to see and check out.
The Bouncing Souls were playing one of the last cbgb’s shows ever with the original Bad Brains so I made my way down to the venue that day to meet up with everyone for the nights festivities and basically the next 4 weeks of festivities.
The show was completely completely packed and everyone was pumped. For the souls it was a pretty punk rock thing. They basically showed up with just their instruments got on stage and played. No soundcheck and using gear that wasn’t theirs. Punk. The first band to play the show I thought was pretty “not good”. Yeah. Im not even sure about their name but I just wasn’t feeling it at all. Then the souls took to the stage. Seriously as soon as they started playing I realized why I liked them as a band and why I wasn’t into the opening band. I got stoked and rocked out for the next 40 mins or so. I couldn’t really see any of the crowd due to where I was standing and it being so packed but the kids up front were pumped as hell.
After they were done rocking I cruised outside to chill out before the bad brains played. For the souls I was right up front but for the bad brains I stayed way in the back. Ha. The place was packed. The crowd was so incredibly pumped for these punk rock legends to come out and do their thing.
They came onto the stage all rasta’d out and the crowd gave them a warm of a welcome cheer. This was it. the original bad brains with the crazy (truly crazy) HR on vocals. Ha ha ha. The bad brains back in the day were known for their onstage insaneness and HR just going completely nuts on stage. Well I knew that wasn’t going to be the case now at all. I am sure everyone of them is at least 50 and theres no way a 50 year old is going to go too crazy on stage. So that element wasn’t there which was expected.
About 4 songs into it I got a call from james that I had left my book, and citizenship study guide at his house. Damn! So I had to take off and go meet up with him to go grab the rest of my things. Duh. But I can say this and don’t know if I want to. I missed the bad brains for America. Ouch!!! Ha ha ha. I got my things and whipped back to the venue to meet up with everyone and head down to new jersey with them to stay at kates to have a pre-production day.
Yesterday I spent most of the day at kates house getting together old tour leftovers and what not, and goin through boxes. The souls went to the bowling alley down the street from kates where they would be all day to practice, try out new things, and get everything dialed in. How cool eh? The local bowling alley let them come in all day to have practice. I bowled a couple rounds and actually got a strike the first ball I rolled. The streak ended their. Ha. After the rock was done we loaded up all the gear to load the truck for the first time. It was pouring outside but after some ingenious thinking we decided to pull the truck right up to the side walk and put the ramp right up to the steps minimizing our chances of getting soaked. Totally great idea and well worth the effort. We loaded the truck and finished with a beer before heading back to kates where wig was going to meet us for the merch shipment. The merch arrived so we got back into the truck and filled the rest of the space with boxes. We are LOADED down for sure but its for a reason which is good. That was pretty much all of yesterday. last night I went back to the bowling alley to grab a bbq tofu cheese steak (the big V of course) with some tater tots to fill thee ole belly and shoot some shit with anthony before heading off to kates to grab some sleep before our departure this morning.

This is the BOUNCING SOULS “GOLD TOUR”
Souls-Greg, Bryan, Pete, Mike
Plus William, Anthony, Bob, Montainne, Taze, Rodney, and myself.

Oct 18th, 2006 approx 12:02 am.

I am sitting here in my/ our hotel room in downtown Cleveland. Im getting over a little stuffiness/ cough so im deciding to take it easy while some of the others are downstairs at the bar. We had a day off today in which we got to sleep in some in Pittsburgh. We got ready, met in the lobby and got ourselves loaded in the trucks to being our day. The plans were. Eat, run errands @ your typical corporate store tour stops (target/ home depot/ guitar center) and then finally drive to Cleveland.
William had found a restaurant that both the veg heads and non veg heads would enjoy. I was a little behind most walking into the place so didn’t witness the event but it turns out the lady at the place was super rude upon us walking into the place. I guess since we had 10 people “we shouls have called earlier” etc etc. So everyone was very offended and decided they didn’t want to eat there which I backed and completely understood. By the dudes reactions I knew this lady sucked so…..Not good customer service……so we cruised to some other diner, filled our bellies and headed out to run our errands and hit the road.
After getting guitar supplies, keys made for myself, caulking for both trucks to fix the leaks we have, and some warm clothes from target we headed to Cleveland where we are currently.
We all went to eat at some sushie place across the street from our hotel and now some our drinking downstairs while others are jamming on the acoustic and some of us our doing laundry and typing on this here keyboard.

So the last 5 days have ruled. The souls rule it hard. Our team rules it hard. The kids at the shows are pumped and ruling I hard. Just all around good times. I have only actually seen 2 out of the 5 shows and one of them was last night in Pittsburgh. WHOA! Did the souls bring it. their set is amazing and they actually have they have added a couple things to bring the “live show” thing into play. My terminology of course. Yeah they actually have a great show and completely have blown me away those 2 nights. Stoked! I have said this many times and I will say this many more but by far one of the best punk rock bands of our time.
I didn’t mention this above and this is way of key but it just came to mind. I definitely saw a dead body the other day. Well actually not a full dead body but definitely the arm and hand of a dead body. Crazy. This was a first. On our way to the dc show an accident had just happened where a jeep had flipped a couple times and was upside down. Upon driving past it you could see a white sheet covering part of it so you knew there was going to be something knarly. Well when we came up to it I saw the arm/ and hand of thie person who didn’t make it through and the cops taking pics of the scene. Crazy.
Tomorrow or actually 12 hours later today we will load into the house of blues here in Cleveland for another rock show. Stoked again. Also every show has been completely packed and that’s just such an amazing thing to see and experience.
When you are on tour and every show is pakced with stoked kids who are loosing their minds there is nothing at all like it.
Anyhoo… rock it


OCT 21, 2006. AMBASSADOR HOTEL, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN

So this ambassador hotel is known for its guest some 10 + years ago by the name of Jeffery dalmer. Yeah the human eater. Ouch. Ive been to this hotel everytime passing through Milwaukee and that’s the only thing I think of and its always something that’s brought up by either someone else or myself. “jeffery dalmer used to live here”
Weird. The place is pretty weird and is still kinda has that sort of erie feeling. Last night I was trying to picture what it would have been like in the 80s. weird, the carpets are probably the same carpets they’ve had for decades seeing all the stains and cigarette burns. And then last night when we were coming into the lobby mcdermot mentioned for us to check out the vending machine room. Well the room was very big, had only 2 machines inside it, was lit very dim, and the one vending machine had maybe 1 item in it tops with the other 30 some rows empty. Erie.

So the last couple days have been pretty much the same. Fun fun fun. We played Detroit the other night and it was yet another example of why I feel the souls are the best there is at being a punk rock band. A cople songs into their set they actually invited a 14 yr old kid on stage to play “lean on sheena” with them and the kid pulled it through. Could you imagine what this kid was feeling playing in front of 600 kids who were pumped. A night he will never forget. Then a couple songs later they noticed a kid in the crowd who had been at the prior 3 shows so they invited him on stage, and then asked him what song he wanted them to play. The kid picked “argyle” and then greg said “you come sing the song” and gave the kid the mic while greg walked to the side of the stage. Amazing. Not many bands would do such a thing. Most are worried to much about image and “not fucking up” that they would dare even think of such a thing. Not the souls. Fuck it you know. Kids are pumped and that’s all that matters. Truly amazing.
Another cool thing that’s going to be happening on this tour is in a couple different cities we are playing 2 nights so the souls have decided that every 2nd night they will play the whole “manical laughter” record to stoke out the fans and add a little bonus action to the following night. A very very good call indeed. And still another amazing thing is is that the album is over 10 years old and they know every song off of it. not many would be able to pull such a thing off.
Tonights show should be fun. We are playing with some friends of ours known as smoke or fire who I know because they used to all live in Richmond. They are taking whole wheat breads place due to the bread being banned from the club we are playing tonight. Im also stoked due to getting to see mee ole friend bridey who I became friends with on this years evil warped tour.

Oct 23rd, driving somewhere in south Dakota.

So this morning was just like most other mornings on thus far. Not a bad thing at all. Its pretty cool actually in its routine. The phone rings early in the morning from William calling us to get us up. This morning it was 4:45. We leave our rooms, walk down to the trucks and start them up to get the juices flowing, and in truck #2 seeing how Anthony has been driving I will then hop in the back bunk and sleep. Wake up around 11 or so at some random truck stop. Get semi washed up and hit the road again.
Today has been great. Currently driving through the black hills of south Dakota. Amazing. Hands down beauty. Ive driven through these parts many parts before and it’s the same thing. The hills are amazing and keep going and going up and down up and down. Along the hills runs a slight tint of the black rock which is why im assuming they are named appropriately “the black hills”. The sky out here is also so huge. Wide open with miles and miles of semi level earth. The sun rise and sun sets out here must be incredible.
A little random note but while I was in Canada I saw this line of old combine machines and took a picture of it. weird yes. So on this drive I have been seeing a lot of old type farm machinery. Its cool to see them all ruseted up with actual water stains etc etc.

Oct 26th. On our way to boise, ID

Sitting here in the bunk of 32 with twan. Up front we have taze riding shot gun and ol Rodney driving. The last couple days have been interesting. We have been without the white castle for 2 days and were without twan for a day as well while he drove the castle from south Dakota to slc where we played last night.
We played rapid city, south Dakota 2 days ago which was an amazingly fun show and the kids were pumped as was expected. Rapid city I don’t think is a usual stop for bands so the kids seemed stoked. All kinds of people were at the show. Kids, adults and seeing how the show was at a local bar/ venue you had the local bar habitants as well. The show was a blast.
We then had the next day off which we originally had planned on driving all day to salt lake city. 11 hour drve but seeing how the castle had a major blow out the day before we waited for the sucker to get fixed. Let me back up some.
On our way to rapid city twan and myself got separated from the castle in a mad dash for vegan fare. When the castle pulled over we were actually ahead of them so decided to just drive straight to rapid city. Twan and I made it fine, loaded in and waited for everyone else. Turns out the castle and gang broke down with the sucker spewing smoke inside and outside near rapid city. So seeing how they broke down on the street were then pulled over and a k-9 dog walked around the outside of the truck. Sketch. Nothing happened and they were let go however the castle was still broken.
So yes we stayed in rapid city all day waiting for the castle until around 6 or so when we were told the dudes couldn’t quite fix the sucker in time but could finish it first thing in the morning.
So all of us except twan who would stay with the castle loaded up #2 w/ 4 people and rented a mini van for the rest of the gang. We drove punk style in #2 with 2 bryan and I laying down in the bunk in the back and mcdermot and Rodney up front driving/ navigating. We had an 11 hr drive ahead of us so off we went. We drove for around 7 hours pulled over for the night, woke up the next morning at 6 and drive the rest of the way to salt lake city.
The show last night was super cool. We played the venue ive been to countless times in slc named club sound/ in the venue. The (i)nc, hot hot heat, the hellacopters, have all played there and I have even seen Andrew w k there a couple years ago in the big room. Well it turns out the souls were playing the big room which was neat seeing how ive never actually worked a show in that room. The place was packed and I again the kids like every other night were pumped for the rock show. Twan and the castle drove all day (probably 15 hrs or so)straight and even got stuck in a couple snow storms which brought his speed down to 25 mph for the last leg of the trip. He arrived in slc around 4 in the morning I hear and is with us now.
I guess the castle still has problems so this morning Rodney, taze, twan, and myself loaded in #2 and are currently driving to boise, ID where we will load in. the others are renting another van which looks like we may be keeping for awhile until the castle gets fixed. Theres a chance we may just fix it and pick it up before the 2nd leg of the tour in Nov. who knows?
All in all we are still trucking, the shows are still rocking, and everyones is still shredding hard. That’s all that really matters eh!

OCT 29, seattle, Wa

Sitting here at the el Corazon here in the beautiful northwest city known as seattle.
Currently listening to the song “a new morning changing weather” by 4 dudes who live in a nordic land known as Sweden. Actually the first show of the last (i)nc tour was here at the el Corazon. Wish they were playing here tonight. A good dose of loud rock.
This morning I woke up in seattle after last nights show and a night of partying to catch a cab up to the capitol hill area to eat at the one and only globe where I get my usual buiscuits and gravy. After breakfast I caught a cab back to our hotel to meet up with montaine which then we were going to go to this bodies exhibit. Totally stoked. I missed it in nyc due to circumstances so I wasn’t missing it this time. Mind blowing this exhibit was. Completely mind blowing. When you come to the part of the exhibit where you see the nerves/ arteries which have been injected with a colored silicone type substance. Totally insane to see.

NOV 6TH, ramada somewhere in LA/ Hollywood

Sitting in my hotel room jamming some new tunes. Ha ha. I borrowed twans ipod and took some music off that sucker. Hes a big head automatic fan due to his friendship with those peeps so ive heard my share of them lately and im kinda into it so….. with a push of a button I now have it. stoked!!
I haven’t written much in awhile and theres so much that has passed. Lets see…. We were in seattle for 2 days of hanging and shows, we had an all day drive from the northwest down to san fran for another 2 shows/ nights of hanging. Plus it was Halloween night which was fun as well. After the san fran show we headed down south to a show in san luis, and the onto LA for a couple shows, down to san diego, and finally back to LA where I currently sit on day off #1 of #2. Ha ha. Fun fun.

So our 2 shows in San Fran. We played at slims and these were the shows it seemed everyone was looking forward to. Night number 1 was Halloween. Earlier twan, William and myself went to eat at a place named herbavore which Ive eaten at in the past and most likely in the future. Their basil/ pesto sun dried tomatoe toast is the shiznit. After lunch headed to a costume shop to get last minute accessories. I hadn’t any idea of what I was going to be so this would be the only time I had to find something. Classic!! What I came out with was a box of Kleenex. Basically my body was the box and I wore this white hat/ mask type thing which was white and supposed to be the Kleenex. On the box it said BLOW ME tissues. Kinda funny but also great for a last minute find…….


……okay im back. One reason I haven’t been writing lately is just because when I do have free time I try to hang out but seeing how its now 1:30 in the morning I thought I would put on the headphones, listen to some new tunes and do some writing. The first song to come on was “life support addiction” by refused. Yeah! I had songs to fan the flames way back in the day. In fact I had it a good little while before they released their “shape of punk to come album”. I own it but its been in storage for years and for some reason I don’t have it on my pod. Now I do and its great. Anyhoo….

So this evening I went out to eat with my friend mike who was in town from DC taking care of some things on the left coast. Pretty crazy actually. We knew each other were going to be in LA at this time and actually planned on hooking up today to head to a hockey game but we hadn’t set a time to meet up. Well I wake up in the morning and run some things out to the truck before we head out to lunch and while im walking through the parking lot back to my room I hear a “keebler!”. For a split second I thought it was William but then upon turning around I saw phyte. Crazy! Totally took me off guard.

After dinner we came back to the hotel and decided to hit the bar downstairs. Earlier in the evening I had checked this bar out to possibly watch a hockey game. I get downstairs and the bar was empty, dark, and a little erie. Well this evening when we returned and cruised downstairs the place had about 10 people in it and was a local standup comedy night. Yeah crazy. Whats crazier is we are now currently on our balcony hanging out with these dudes., good times. It’s a nice evening when you have a good dinner and then come back to the hotel to laugh your ass off the rest of the night.

Heres a little brutal story. I know im going everywhere with the writing but this just came to mind and im sharing it. So the other night the bass player of the street dogs saw and extremely horrific scene in which 2 people were killed. They were eating and upon leaving the restaurant saw this grrl who seemed to be intoxicated on the other side of the street try and cross the road but fell down. So this fellow (from what I heard could have been this grrls boyfriend) went into the street to pick her up and from out of nowhere were hit by a car at 60 miles an hour and instantly killed. From what I hear the bodies were in pieces. WOW!!! Something I hope I never have to go through.

I saw the movie BORAT today with everyone. A pretty amazing thing that movie is. Genious.

NOV 7- LOS ANGELES

There are way to many bands these days and not even kids. It sucks cause the bands that deserve the attention totally get drowned out by garbage. Bum deal. The almighty dollar is a factor in all of this as well. Bum deal.







NOV 24. Somewhere in the air just leaving Richmond, VA

So I sit here on yet another 2 winged aircraft where I am heading to dallas, tx and then onto my final destination to Denver, co where I will meet the rest of the souls peeps for round #2 of the gold tour. Fun fun fun
I just started reading a new book about 5 mins ago (didn’t get that far but will continue in a little bit) entitled “ENDGAME-the problem of civilization-volume 1” by the one and only derrick Jensen. Out of all books I have ever read I have read all of his books but one. The dude is very straight up. So far ive covered about 5 pages of the this book and I know its going to be a heavy one. STOKED! Then there is volume 2 which is entitled “resistance”.
Why im writing about this is because the lady beside me is reading a book which I cant completely make out the tittle but “HOPE” is part of the main title and then “the America dream” is also part of the same title.
2 totally different books and seeing that im sure 2 very different people with different outlooks. Ha ha ha. Classic.
The very first sentence of my book is
“civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true with industrialized civilization”
I wonder what the first sentence of her book is.
“a 3 bedroom house with a white picket fence, a nice car in the drive way, pool in the backyard, nice front yard with the perfect shade of green grass is….”
Yeah who knows.
Is it better to read a book about “hope” in this day in age or is it better to read a book about the “apocalypse.”
150 people killed in iraq, Russian ex- kgb man killed through poisoning yesterday, millions of birds slaughtered for our little celebration of our colonial/ industrialized/ capitalistic quest. This and many stories like it all took place in just 1 day which was yesterday. Then we have polluted waters, polluted air, polluted soil. On and on and on.
so “hope’?? hhmm, is “hope” just straight up denial?? Who knows? Im sure I could keep writing and writing but ill leave it here.
A quick side note. I was in Chicago this past weekend and ended up going to a AHL Chicago wolves hockey game. Go wolves. Anyhoo the bathrooms in the stadium all had blow hand dryers and each unti had a mini- tv screen on it which was spewing out advertisements. Not a fan of advertisements at all but I am a huge huge fan of blow hand dryers. It sucks going into most bathrooms and the only thing there is are these now automated paper dispensers. Quite sad. So I think these new machinces would be incentives for companies to invest in them etc etc and make that the standard. Just a thought.

In about 6 hours ill be in the mile high city known as Denver where we will be for a couple days due to 2 shows and possibly a day off there as well. Fun times. A good way to start off a tour actually by being in the same city for 3 days. YEAH.

Nov 27, Lawrence, Kansas

We just arrived here in Lawrence about 20 mins ago after a good 10 hour drive or so. 500 and some miles.
The last 3 days have been spent in the mile high city of Denver. Its kinda neat flying into Denver. The airport/ city are so high up that it doesn’t take forever to descend so your still real high in the air and then the pilot announces we will be on the ground in 20 mins. Fun.
We have on this leg of the tour Bob who usually does FOH for the souls but last run was out with rise against/ Thursday so its cool having him back, the dudes are pschyed as well, and from bobs end you can tell hes missed hanging with his boys. I would to you know with a good bunch of peeps. We have a new tech on this tour as well named aaron.
So our first night twan, willian, aaron, and myself went out to some thai restaurant right next to our hotel. WHOA! This place was beyond. The food was so so so amazing we ended up going back 2 days later. The peanut curry dish ruled.
After dinner that night twan and I went to see tenacious d. I have not seen a movie this funny in years. Seriously from sstart to finish I was laughing the whole time. It’s a pretty punk film as well in the sense that they produced it, made all the music, and had all their friends in it. amazing.
So both Denver shows were amazing. The first one obviously being the first was a good good time. We had 2 weeks off so seeing/ hearing the live show again was fun. The kids in Denver were pumped and I think people in Denver like to party. I just got that vibe. Hootin and hollering all night were the kids.
After the show we headed back to our hotel and some of us hung out in a room for a little while before calling it a night.
The second show was a nother maniacal laughter show in which the souls would play this whole album start to finish. Other times when they’ve done this they would play a couple songs, then all of manical, and then play some more to end the show. Well last night they played the whole album first and then finished with all the other classic. I thought it was a good decision and it had a good feel. Kids again last night were pumped again.

NOV 30..

Sitting #2 with Twan and Rodney following the castle to Oklahoma city. Outside there is a major major storm with temperatures in the 20’s. the highway outside is completely covered with ice as well as out entire truck. Every couple mintues or so we pass salt trucks dumping their load.
We knew we were heading into a storm and planned on it so its all good. Currently we sit in traffic where I looks like theres been a wreck ahead. Not the best conditions to be driving in if you don’t have to.

So I had a good conversation yesterday with this dude named chris who is touring with left alone. Chris wasn’t on the first leg so they had a fellow named travis who is still out with them as well. Both chris and travis are from outside of montreal where they live on the kahawnazakee Indian reservation. Chris and I talked yesterday for awhile which was rad. Chris is full blood Indian but thinks somewhere down the line hes had white blood in him. Seeing how they are around the same age as myself and they lived near montreal I asked him if he was around, and remembered the oka incident.


The Oka Incident was a situation between the Mohawk nation and basically the government of Canada. The situation arose from a proposed golf course getting built from 9 holes to 18 holes over ancient burial grounds. So due to it being native land (clearly stated in treaties) and the treaties being broken the Mohawk warrior society went into self defense mode (rightfully so) and had an armed stand off with the provincial police of quebec and the government of Canada, It was canada’s biggest military operation in history up to that point.

Well chris’s father was/ or became part of the warrior society and would disappear for weeks during that time/ struggle chris was saying. “he would go to the bush” is what chris said
This is the first time I have ever talked to some one at depth about this incident and finding out his father was actually part of the armed struggle. So interesting.
Chris’s was telling me that his reservation was actually the ones that blocked the main bridge in montreal. What had happened in that situation basically in the act of solidarity and ill add this-resistance the natives blocked the main bridge going into montreal for weeks. Seeing how montreal is an island this also screwed things up big time with the flow of the almighty dollar. Another statement.

Anyhoo….. it was a cool talk.

Well still here in the truck. The roads have gotten a lot worse and we are currently cruising at 35 mph on snow/ ice covered highway.

Dec 2nd driving to Austin, TX

So the last couple days have been pretty eventful.
We ran into that “knarly”(as some would call it storm in Oklahoma which wouldn’t couldn’t make it through so we ended up pulling over. Mother nature defeated us which is okay. The roads were so bad even doing 35 mph. Yes I think we could have made it but we would have been extremely late and who knows what would have been the status then. So….. we pulled the plug and pulled over north of Tulsa. It was 7:00 at that time and we still had 130 miles to go. Ha ha ha
So we found a hotel in some little town a couple miles off the highway. Everything was closed and everything had a good foot of snow on it so all we could do is chill in our rooms and drink the remainder beer we had in the trucks. Lets just say the winter chill definitely chills a beer very well. The night ended up being a pretty fun night hanging with everyone. We were all okay with the situation.
Yesterday morning we wake up at 8 ready to hit the road to dallas were we had to make up lost ground plus then the normal drive. Turns out the highways were closed. Yeah!! Outside there lay a good couple feet of snow covering everything. We are in Oklahoma so theres no way they are going to plow this anytime soon. Hell in some parts…. To the north…ha ha….thats life and they are ready. But we will say due to humans impact and global warming now any thing can happen anywhere.
Back to sleep I went until we got word that we were leaving. The word came around 11 and off we went. Lets just say this. For the first 2/3 rds of our drive to roads were not plowed and half of that was very bad conditions. It had to be done and we did it.
Arrived last night in dallas at 7 oclock right when doors were. no biggy though. Being stuck in a truck all day driving through the shit will make you just take it easy upon arrival. As long as the show goes on its no problem.
Once everything was set and the doors opened it ended up being a fun night. Dallas is a god time and the kids in dallas seem all very coo. Everytime I have been there I have had fun.

Dec 4th some gas station outside Lafayette, LA

Sitting here in the back bunk while we are filling thee ole trucks up before we head to some shops to pick up some things before our journey to New Orleans So ive never been to New Orleans before and am very very excited and interested. It’s a first.

So we played Austin 2 nights ago and Houston last night.
Austin is always a good time. Ive been there many times on tour and its always been at the some place. The 1 and only emos. That area of town where that venue is has many cool shops, restaurants, and other venues all near by.
It turns out I have an x girlfriend-jessica- now living in Austin with my good friend back in the day-mr. greg voneschen- which was very neat. Also my friend staci who used to live in rva moved here last year so she came out as well. The show was a late show so late load which was fine. After everything was set up I went out with staci to get some thai food. Good good times. It was a totally good meal seeing how the last couple days the food was pretty budget if there was any at all. Plus staci knowing where all the good eats are as well was cool. After food I cruised back to the venue just in time for doors and the rock show. From here on out the good times continued to roll and roll and roll. The kids were pumped, emos was packed and everyone was loosing their minds including me. Lonestar beer. Hey oh! The show ended very late due to the late start so afterwards it took for ever to load out due to the streets being packed and the other bands had their gear in front of us. When load out was finally done we cruised back into the club where there were some people hanging out. The thing was emos said they would stay open after the show for us and a little party of sorts. So when we cruised into this room we were told to cruise out for a bit so they can quickly “close up shop” and for us to cruise back in 10 mins so we could hang. So we cruised to another bar in which Darren (street dogs FOH) knew people who would hook us up with drinks. When we came up to the place they were definitely shut down, closed, and didn’t seem to stoked on letting us in but they did anyhow. We all had a quick shot and then we criuised back to emos to finish the night.
The next morning we headed to a place named “mothers garden” for the breakfast and as you can probably tell from the name this place was an all natural foods café. YEEHAAW!! I think one of my favorite things in life is food. Ha ha. Then music. So as you can tell tour is a good time for meeself. So yes…. Good food is amazing. Truly amazing. Knowing its super healthy and super good. I couldn’t imagine not appreciating food and im assuming this is quite the norm. I me I know everyone loves food. We got too or else that person has got a huge problem which might the be the best thing in life.
Anyhoo before I get too carried away when you eat heathly theres nothing that can top that feeling. So after breakfast- in which I had the migas- (black beans, tofu with a dressing and potatoes) we got back in the truck and headed to Houston.

Complete side note on this one. I forgot to mention that when we were driving to Austin we stopped off at willie nelsons bio-diesel station however the thing was going through a major over haul and getting completely restorated. So the station down the next exit was carrying the fuel in the meantime so that’s where we headed. The place was just your typical petrol station except ontop of the pumps there was an advertisement/ bio of willies “bio diesel”.
Anything that helps. But upon reading the facts about the stuff it turns out only 20% of it was actual bio dieself and 80% was fuel. So….. are we actually helping out the cause or just think we are because we have been fed these numbers which look good but over all the problem is going to continue at those ratios. Is it the lesser of 2 evils with an 80/20%?
My opinion…. Yes….over all it may…..add one extra year on this very old, very polluted planet. We can drive cars on grease from restaurants. So….. I may ask…. Hey ol willie. “why not oil from the restaurants?”. You may get heard a little more with those numbers.

Played housston last night which was okay. There wasn’t a huge turnout which will also effect peoples “pumpness” etc etc. over all the show was good and I watched the crowd all night and the amounts of fists getting pumped in the air proved the kids were having fun so…… rock on.
The fellow who did the show was a dude ive met in the past named ryan. Ryan is/ and has been a diy promoter in Houston for years and im sure every show ive ever been through in that area he has somewhat done/ or help do. When ive passed through witht the (i)nc he always takes us out to get some food from a place named mias. So last night twan, bob, and myself order food from there which was the salt fried tofu. From what someone told me last night “houstons finest tofu dish” and I can see whay. The shit was good. Turns out ryan now also plays drums for the smoking popes. Yeah he told me the story. His old band toured with them in the past and then a little while later he was going to tour manage, and sound for them however I week before that tour they asked him if he could play the songs on drums and if so would he. Ha ha ha. Now…. Hes in the smoking popes.

Dec 9th, driving up alligator alley in FL to st. sugustine

The last couple days have been very very fun filled with some pretty cray times.
We played New Orleans which was also my first time being ever being in that city. I was looking forward to it for many different reasons. That city went through a major major disaster and as I would find out later its really really effected everyone.
Our show was at the house of blues in the French quarter. The room we played was a small room compared to most house of blues. Turns our this band that is somewhat big at the moment named fall out boy ha ha was playing in the big room.
The show was very good and kids were extremely stoked. We ended up sneaking 2 kids into the show due to at the last moment hob making the show 18 +. Yeah bum deal. The guy and girl actually brought the old flyer to the show which said all ages and then I guess due to the fall out boy show being all ages they made the souls show 18+. So we said they were gregs cousins and they got to enjoy the show.
After the show I was invited to some bar next door so upon packing up and loading the truck I went to the bar everyone was hanging just to chill for a bit then off to this other bar. My night consisted doing some major hanging with the locals. This is pretty shitty and extremely sad but from what I saw people in new Orleans are fucked. You can tell that most have gone through some sort of psychological trauma due to “the storm”. You can tell that there was one way of life before the storm and now theres another way which is a complete opposite. Totally weird and sad. I had a good good night which ended promptly at 8:30 in the morning. Fun times.

After New Orleans we played a college show in Pensacola at a college. College shows are always super super weird which was the case here as well. The show was inside a student union building with carpet on the floors and just in general the whole building had a very “institutional” feel to it. Not a good place for a punk show. Well turns out the “institutional” aspect of things wasn’t to strong and the show went very well.

Next we made our way for Orlando were we would play 2 nights both at the social which is an amazing club in a cool like area of town. Everytime I have ever been to Orlando ive had a blast.
The social is a small venue in which half the floor is an actual it pit and then there is the upper level at the bar. I think the place holds maybe 500 kids and with that many kids in there the place is jammed pack as it was at both shows. I met so many cool people that night and also got to see some friends in the new mexican disaster squad.
Another good thing about Orlando is the food. 2 blocks down the street is this amazing amazing thai restaurant in which both nights I went to a got the “spiciest” red curry they had. Wow!! Theres nothing like a spicy red curry. The mornings are always interesting but during the moment that food is beyond. Then outside of the venue we have the infamous vegan hot dog cart. Ill say this. Theres nothing of the sort that can compare to this sucker. For $3 you get a vegan dog loaded with mushrooms, chilli, sauerkraut, onions, spinach, and vegan cheese over top. The best dogs ive ever had to be honest. If the cart was in Richmond I would probably eat hot dogs very very often.