Day 23 - The End: We Leave The South, We Do New York, We Zig West, Then South, And West Again. A Hobbit's Tale.

I'll make this quick.

Richmond, VA: Partied all night with the Merciless Souls motorcycle club. Not unlike Judas Priest's "Rock Hard, Ride Free".

Brooklyn, NY: Two nights. Rain and Defense. Rockin' and Sockin'. Dinosaurs and 2 Bit Whores.

Lexington, KY: Always a Classic.

Columbus, OH: Secret cache of O.G. Four Loko. Heaven to some.

Cincinnati, OH: Or Covington, KY, depending on who you ask.

Detroit, MI: There's a good reason its name is often followed by "Rock City". Live video with great sound on our facebook page.

Chicago, IL: Da Bears.

St. Paul, MN: Free Pabst swag. Cool montage of clips from our set on the Pabst facebook page. Wannabe hair metal band, I think.

Des Moines, IA: Playing Six Strings. Housing On Things. Eric Harris Sings. Hogwashings.

Wichita, KS: To be continued....

Amarillo, TX: Strippers.

Albuquerque, NM: Super Giants in the sky, ping pong tables all night (and no, no beer pong), and Jesse Pinkman brought the good shit.

Phoenix, AZ: We stopped here for a night and just had at it. Thanks, DiTina.

L.A., CA: We'll let our good friend Dave Attell sum this one up: "You should have hung out, maaaan." "What happened???" "OHHhhhhh.... 10 minutes after you left. The Dixie Chicks showed up and fucked everybody. Even the fat boy with asthma wearing the Babylon 5 t-shirt got a hand job. And it's never going to happen again."

I hope I didn't forget anything. Then again, maybe I do.

So what did we learn? Ian will never run out of nicknames. The Alamo is a great place for a defensive position against bad times. Huntress is unstoppable. Detroit actually has a lot of money stashed away in it. The south's weather is fantastic in the last half of September. Barack Obama loves ribs in North Carolina. Denver will never stop partying. Some people think trees and rivers are lame, should be covered in cement, and replaced with Wal-Marts and Guitar Centers, and the best time and place to vent such feelings is when driving the van and others are trying to sleep but can't because they're having a laugh attack. Strippers are always the best time killer, c-sections or not. The Megalocerous just might be the First Deer. When comparing two things it's appropriate to say that one is "morer" than the other, but totally wrong to say "morerer". Family is the finest tool you have on the road. Stephen King's The Dark Tower involves lots of naps and man-boy love. Never get out of the fucking boat. Hogwashing is a totally ok way of bathing your junk. If the day does not require an AK, then it is good. Houston has the hottest girls. Stuff should also come out of men's nip nips, don't you think think? Always buy a bottle of bourbon before the show, but don't let Ron Houser know until it's almost all empty. O.G. Four Loko truly tastes far better than white people Four Loko. Don't fill up your laptop with Simpsons and Porn; it will crash. Whipped Cream flavored vodka is delicious. Blue Berry moonshine is delicious. Waffle House isn't alway delicious. Reno wins. L.A. is a dying animal. And Gypsyhawk can pull it together for 40 days and 40 nights without killing each other. At least once.

Day 22: Andrew Johnson City

Andrew Johnson is arguably the worst president in U.S. history. Basically everything Lincoln and the North brought about to help blacks was quickly undone under his administration as though nothing had happened. On the same note, Johnson City was arguably the worst show of the tour. So far, of course.

Conversely, Ron and I housed an entire bottle of 103 proof Fighting Cock whiskey and woke up with nary a hang over. Good stuff!

Day 21: Ashevillians

I asked Kristin, who put on the show, and played guitar in ZOMBIE QUEEN, what I should include in this blog post. This is what she said:

mmmm..let's see, hogzilla, shiner, upside down dri patch, busch lite blaze orange cammo can
satanic faith healing you gave me on my forehead
(didn't work btw.."E" for effort
though)
Zombie Queen Shout Out
(cuz we luv yuh)

Me: is that all?

Kristin: i'm thinkin... the night was a little hazy!
oh Yeah! BiGGGG WEINEZ!!!!



Yeah, that pretty much sums it right up.

Day 20: Dancing the Charleston

PARTY! Totally made up for Birmingham. Isn't Sabbath from Birmingham? Anyway, super special thanks to Cam Bowman. We couldn't have asked for a better dude to put on a show. It was fun, we got Jack and Pizza, and even though there were scary bugs crawling up my pants legs we stood upon flying buttresses and defended the good times.

Day 19: Greenbow, Alabama

No local support. No fucking show. This is why I delay writing these things because sometimes there's just nothing to write about. We literally played for just the other band, who was on tour from Kansas City, the staff, and two people Eric knew. Everyone was nice and cool and all, but, shit, if you're not going to find any local bands let me know and even though I hate having to do it I'd rather spend a few hours combing through droll, unbearable myspace pages to find something decent than look like an asshole headbanging for the sound guy.

Day 18: New Orleans, left.

I stayed up all day
From Houston to Lafayette
Puked in van next day.
- Ancient, Ancient Haiku

Day 17: HOUSEton

Surprisingly, no photos or videos or money shots from the Houston date. That really makes no sense. We had a great time. VENOMOUS MAXIMUS had a great time. Everyone had a great time. Even the midget chained to my feet acting obedient under the assumption I had 3 dead lollipop guild under my house had a pretty good time. I beat him with a stick. You ask, why is none of this on camera? Because. We were having too much fun hanging out in Houston.

Day 16: South By South I'm the Best Man, I Deeed It

Keep it short and sleep. Fantastic show at Red 7. As you know, Mother Ship are very much our good best bros. Scorpion Child are now officially too. Let's let the pics speak for themselves.

Day 14: Texarkana... I got nothin

You know when you're in a Southern road house in Arkansas, and all the locals look at you like you're Patrick Swayze taking a dump, and the promoter welcomes you in like you're his brother just returning from his third tour in Afghanistan, and then you play an awesome set for a shit ton of people, and one dude who works there named Something Rad gives you a jar of home made BBQ sauce, and then you go to a bar and meet a bunch of rad new friends, and then you time travel around town for a few hours, then it goes on and on, getting more and more awesome, and you get a bunch of free M:tG cards, and you eat bbq, and your life just rules, and rules, and rules for 3 days? Well, that's Texarkana.


There's lots of photos you can't see, but here's a few we think you should.

Actual Day 12: Oklahoma City Slang

These Muther Fuckers know how to party!!! Our fourth time here and it was like being at a North Korea Orwell Celebration Day party.

Day 12: Kansas City. Kansas City, where you at?

Well, it could have been worse. Hopefully the seed has been germinated, hooked up to some hydroponic system, and will be budding next time we're there. Judging by the excitement of those there, though, we'll be stoned in no time.

Day 11: Rincorn Continentar

Lincoln is a groovy little city with lots to offer visiting bands and anyone who like the shit out of Husker Football. We took it pretty easy this night, but that's because the city has a way of letting things get out of hand if you don't watch your cornhole.

Oh and we also ran into Carl from Huntress. Turns out he plays drums in indie rock bands too.

Day 10: Denveriation On A Theme

Huh. Who’d have thought Denver would be the best show yet on the tour?

Day X+3: Salt Lake Deez Nuts

Well, it was the final show of the tour with Huntress. What a bunch of assholes. I mean, seriously, do you really need that much cocaine up your vein? It’s like they’re using the Motley Crue biography as a road map. Dudes and chick, this isn’t 1982. It’s 2011. Kids don’t think partying is cool unless you take photos and then superimpose cats and “FAIL” on top. This day in age, you need to act professional at all times. Word to the wise: do what we did, which is pretty much suck as many balls as you can while fingering any lingering poop hole. It worked for Steve Carell, and it will work for you too.

Day X+2: Boise Dem Hippies??

Some stripper at the strip club called us hippies and then gave Ian the “Houna Hou, Bra” Chaka thumb and pinkie thing. He just shook his head and gave her the maloik. Her 19 year old daughter was supposed to bring us drugs later at the show, but they must have had a fight because she never came. However, we did discover Gypsyhawk’s new brand of choice: Georgia Moon Corn Whiskey: For When You’re Just Not Ready For That To Go Up Your Cornhole. $11.00 a 1/5 and smooth as a floater. We got 2. No Thanks to Huntress for drinking it all. At least that’s what Ron Funkhouser said happened to it.

Day X+1: Rattle In Seattle

We played with the homie Darwin’s band Ayahuasca Travelers so that was cool enough. Then, it turned out the closing band Brokaw has a dude from Burning Witch so THAT was especially cool. Ian thinks one of the dudes from Soundgarden was there too, but I said I think it was the dude from that band that did the song about walking 5,000 miles. The Pretenders, or something. We also saw a lot of crippled people walking around. We figured with Seattle’s not-so-inspiring weather all year long that these people were most likely botched dives off the Space Needle.

Day X: Portland Tail Chazers

Yeah. PDX. A city that didn’t have anything cooler than an airport to inspire a nickname. How about TriCano? There’s three bad ass volcanoes covered in snow all year round surrounding the city and that’s not used as a major selling point? I guess I can see why. We call Pasadena the PSD, but it sounds cool (see: Ice Cube’s verse in “Fuck Tha Police”). “X” is like, rollerblade competitions and nu-metal. But, we scored some magic cards and drank whiskey on the Sandy River during the day, so not all was lost.

One funny thing, when the liquor store clerk in the Red Fang shirt asked what we sound like I said, “Kinda like Red Fang so you might be down,” he replied, “nah. I don’t really like Red Fang.” He didn’t come. Maybe he’s like that homeless guy at the 7-11 in Highland park wearing a “Gippie Hawk” shirt because some teenagers gave it to him in exchange for buying them beer.

Day Four: Fuck Beano, Just Give Me RENO!

You've heard it all before. You know how we do in this town. This was no exception.Ron Houser was getting a quarter pound Big Bite at the 7-11 around 6 in the moorning when he met a stripper in her pajamas who invited him back to drink beer, smoke weed, and watch Twilight. Breakfast with Lepp (which is some sort of food and lots of drinks) before getting DOG-T tattoos. On a negative note, it was the last show of tour with Glitter Wizard. But we're determined to get them on a full proper tour one day.