DEFENDING GOOD TIMES THIRD TOUR BLOG

Nuggets, Speak Easies, and Ribs
Denver. A dark, wet city. The rain was falling en masse as we rode the Rockies. The venue Bar Bar was situated in the center of a pentagram. That night we sacrificed Ian’s virgin butt and devoured the meat of pigs in order to ensure a most righteous night of rocking. The dark lords heeded our call. MALAKAI started the night off with grim thunderous brutality. They were followed by WARHAWK who delivered a good straight up rock set and a Thin Lizzy cover to boot in our honor. Too bad we hate that band. Up next was us. We untapped the Rockies and added four bad asses to it’s mana pool. ICONOCAUST followed next and were stacked high in the metal realm. The Dark Lords once again granted us a mighty night of pure phantasmic pancreatic poop. It’s a good thing.

I Think I’m Going To Go Downstairs And, House Some Food
Lincoln, Nebraska. Home of the corn husker, which I think is some sort of sex thing, but we never found out for sure. Ian is their hometown hero and they welcomed him and the rest of Gypsy as nothing less. Good lord, they bought us a lot of drinks. And a bottle of Jack. The kids really dug into the tunes and showed us a bad ass time. And we came up with a new term: Dropping A Ron. If something expensive falls out of your hand while drunk on a balcony and it’s not yours you have officially Dropped A Ron. Not to be confused with Dropping An Ian, which is just taking a shit, whether off a balcony or otherwise.

This Mead Taste Awfully Pungent, Don’tcha Know, Bobby?
It was a little ghetto in St. Paul. The cashier at Jimmy John’s scared me when she yelled at me because she didn’t make my sandwich. But that had nothing to do with the awesome show we played that night. WITCHDEN was some heavy ass shit. RED DESERT closed out the night with some seriously rocking tunes. It was like being on a heated snake ridden highway to Havana blasting shotguns out the top of your convertible. We partied in the parking lot, then in the van on the way to Metal Bob’s house where I got an air mattress and Ian slept in a crib.

This Is The Best Christian Rock Band Ever… FOR ME TO POOP ON!
College towns are weird. Everyone in Madison is in their workout gear running around at night with iPod headphones in their faces like they’re not going to get raped. Some of them have 30 packs of Keystone on their shoulder. Aren’t these kids supposed to be looking over letters or working on their sums? However, cheese curds are fucking awesome. The green room downstairs was pretty rad because they had a TV that we watched the best of Triumph on while waiting to play. The Annex is a pretty cool venue. They found a really old photo to make a flyer that only had two current members in it so I deleted the myspace the next day. They’re fighting me tooth and nails to stay relevant like when M.C. Hammer signed to Death Row and went “gangsta”, but I’m not putting up with that bull shit. I know a dead duck when I step on one.

A Pizza, A Ticket, and A Flat Chested Mennonite Named Papi
THUNDERUNDERUS ruled. WIZARD CASTLE ruled. Check out both of those bands. They’re from Chicago just like Trouble and the Smashed Pumpkins. Chicago kids are totally out of control, too. Like a pack of wild red haired weasels chasing a cheese coated Oreo as it rolls down the sidewalk. Be careful out there. It’s anarchy.

DEFENDING GOOD TIMES SECOND TOUR BLOG

I Guess We’ll Just Go With Plan C, Then
Booking a show all by yourself in a city you’re not from can be like giving a starved cat a bath in ice water. Either the bands don’t get back to you, or they’re on tour, or their drummer is sick, or they’re opening for Holy Grail that week and simply don’t want to waste their time with you. You usually have to settle for the cream of the crap. Well, let me start off by saying that our show in Portland was not one of those shows. I can’t believe we got both CHRISTIAN MISTRESS and THE GUILD to play with us. Both these bands are hot shit, know how to party, and deserve at least a moment your time right fucking now. So stop reading this and go check them out. Also, a fine dining experience can be Chili-Mac and 2 Buck Chuck. If your awesome friend is a wine broker she’ll bring some good shit, too.

Is This Where Kurt Cobain Bought Four Loko?
I think the streets of Seattle were drawn up by a blind Eskimo, but whatever. We played at the Funhouse and it was a huge party. Asses shook, heads banged. THRONES killed it. Nothing really of note other than that it was a great show all around, well attended and fun. After some nice conversation with Joe Preston in the parking lot we booked it for Missoula.


This Song Is About Having A Session With Your Mom In A Cave While She’s Pregnant With Your Sister And Hyperventalates And Then You Choke Her up Against The Wall With Your Dog In The Room
Yippie-Yi-Yo-Kai-Yay, mother fucker. We played a kick ass basement show at The Lab in Missoula, Montana. Cramped like Ian’s sweet virgin ass, sweaty, sticky, mice ran about, but that’s where the roots are. However, I must insist in all seriousness to the kids out there that when in a small virgin basement butthole, despite how strong the urge to mosh is, please keep in mind that the band you’re watching needs the equipment their using to stay in one piece. It works less-well broken and there isn’t much time or cash for repairs when on the road. Just don’t push your friend as hard as you fucking can into the singer’s bass, capisce? Other than that mishap everyone was rad as hell and we had a killer time. Check out GREEN SICKNESS. They played after us, thank the Gods.



You Guys like Game Of Thrones, Physics, AND Magic The Gathering? Y’all Some Cracka Ass Crackas
Remember that movie SLC Punk? Remember the Mormons and all that shit about the golden underpants and the invisible tablets and inheriting your own planet when you die? Remember how their basketball team is called The Jazz in a city with no black people? (Even their all-time star player is a white guy.) Well, forget about all that crap for a minute. Our show in Salt Lake City was great, no question (unless you ask about the bass). The opening band VISIGOTH destroyed it and the Gods must be damned for putting them on before us. Eric’s bass kept cutting out during our set because it was broken from the incident in Missoula. The tour’s future was up in the air. Defending Good Times is a four man job and although it would be a valiant last stand with just three, it’s all or nothing. Luckily, Utah just opened it’s first D.O.G.T. chapter. Gypsyhawk was sick, but Jameson and the boys in Visigoth had the medicine. Beers, joints, and jams fixed the mood, solder fixed the bass. It was an especially good night.

Never Pee Indoors Again

We had a night off in Redding. Nothing happened there. But then we went to Arcata to play at the Alibi. Arcata is like a mix of the town square in Hill Valley and a Phish parking lot. But it’s also really cool and everyone working at the Alibi were really friendly and accommodating, the local record store dude at Missing Link was incredibly nice and hooked us up big time, and all the locals we met really enjoyed the show. We played predominantly a mix of B-sides including, but not limited to “Bokor’s Procession”, “Resentment City”, and “Rebellion On The Western Shore.” We drove through the red woods’ fog until we were too bedazzled to continue. The next morning Eric was accosted and then briefly detained for peeing in a bathroom. So what if it wasn’t his hotel room? Did they want him to pee on the bed? Dumb.

“Wanna Ride The Mini-Bike to the Bathroom?”

Lep, Lunchbox, et al fucking own Reno. That’s just how they do. We were once again honored to share in that big ass little city’s magic and this time we were all given our own Gandalf staffs. The show was huge. You could track Gypsyhawk’s growth as an operation by just documenting our Reno shows. It would be a crooked, blurry, staggering line, but it would be going up at a considerable rate.

Beat-downs, Break-ins, and Spilled Chicken Noodle Soup

We had two nights in San Francisco. One playing jams, one hunting clams. We had a wild night at a bar on Geary called the Buck Shot. The gun for their Big Buck Hunter machine was broken and so we stomped it. We saw a guy get punched in the face a bunch for knocking something over. Cops came and the puncher was just dancing. He might have had a DOG-T tattoo, but no one’s snitching. We have some great photobooths and we’ll put those up later. All in all it was a good night.

The next night was the show at Café Du Nord in the Castro. Fabulous! Brothers in Arms GLITTER WIZARD headlined bringing a ruckus rough rider style. Before them were HOT LUNCH. We had too many to count come up to tell us what a spectacular night of music this was. Smiles were streamed across faces. Beers flowed from glass like the radiation of a Japanese nuclear plant. There was rappin’ and sappin’, sappin’ and rappin’, and some guy called me Potato Chip for sitting on his stoop drinking beer. Our best show in SF yet. Rock n’ Roll is still alive and well.