Tour 5: Fall 2010, midwest/east

Halloween in Cincinnati

For Halloween, we dressed up as Pac-Man and two of the ghosts that chase him. These are home-made costumes (assembled in the coffee shop where we played, as well as in the van while driving to Cinci) and they are hilarious. Hooch’s Pac-Man is huge (I’m talking about the costume here people) and therefore hilarious. He couldn’t really even play bass in it. I just kept laughing in the middle of the first couple of songs.

The show was good. There was a decent crowd and the staff was very chill. A couple Rice friends were able to come out, and we played well. Sitwell’s is a chill place and surprisingly good venue for being a “coffee shop” – they also have a full bar.

Afterwards, we went to my old friend Neil Narayan’s house where we were staying and he was throwing a ridiculous Halloween Party. It was awesome – fully decorated up with spider webs and lights and fog machines and multiple story beer-bongs and strobe lights. Neil’s house is sweet and has an amazing view of the city. Most people may not think of Cincinnati this way, but the way i saw it was beautiful. He showed me the all the headquarters and famous historical sites from his balcony.

Also, the night before, the dusk light showered everything in orange. The shades stunned me. The clouds strung out across the sky like mandarin cotton candy, while the leaves shouted their allegiance to autumn. Even the buildings bricks hinted at Halloween’s hues. Truly terrific.

We’ll be back to Cincinnati for sure.

Crisis in Canada!

Oh man this is a story.

Friday: Toledo cancelled because of local bands backing out. Well, we always make the most of it, so we play at my best buddy Nick’s house party in Ann Arbor Michigan. It is sweet. A very fun show, with a ton of people dancing and enjoying the night. We start after the DJ at around 1AM and play until 3, when things begin to wind down. Pack up, and start the 14 hour drive to Providence RI at 4am. I know, ridiculous.

I check the route on my iPhone and it looks good. Then we plug the address into Garmin (GPS) and she shaves off an hour. Great! We’ll follow Garmin. Unfortunately, garmin doesn’t give you a macroscopic view, so I’m just following turn by turn and not thinking about where I’m going. Next thing I know I see a sign …

“Canada 7 Miles”

Canada! WTF! No way. Hooch double checks the route, and indeed it seems like Garmin is taking us into ANOTHER COUNTRY. Where is the setting which states, “no border crossings, please?”

Look at the map, and lo and behold there is an entire chain of GREAT LAKES blocking us from any other route. We’re an entire hour and a half from the other possibility which skirts south of the lakes. Backtracking at this point guarantees that we won’t make the show in time (at 7P the next day), so I tell Hooch we’ve got to try it. We don’t have passports.

Get to the border, and the Canadians are really cool about it. Yep, this is the fastest way, they tell us. Ryan, asleep in the back, has no clue what’s going on. Later he explains this is what he thought, “Man, that toll lady is really chatty!” Little did he know she was questioning our citizenship.

“Wake up Ry, time to get detained by the Canadian police.” We have to get out and go through customs while they search the car. A little delay, but relatively no prob considering its 530AM and we have no passports. I left my jacket in Ann Arbor, so I’m doing the whole ordeal wearing my halloween costume (a blue pancho-blanket with googly eyes, see the pic) to keep warm.

Our first time in Canada was relatively smooth sailing. I’m driving for three hours straight, jacked up on caffeine, energy drinks, and 5 hour energy. I think I also went through an entire bag of trail mix.

Anyway we stop for a photo shoot at Niagra Falls (badass), and then go through the US border crossing. Things are not so easy this time. For some reason an unmarked maroon van with three dirty, grungy, long haired 20 somethings wearing googly-eyed panchos and not porting passports raises suspicions.

We have to get out, hand over the keys, and are basically interrogated. They did everything short of a full body cavity search. They ripped apart the van, even going through Ryan’s boots and pouring out… yes, in the van… pouring out my oatmeal. They grill us in the interrogation room, all the while trying to intimidate us.

“I cant believe the Canadians let you through,” They repeat, over and over again. “You have all those CDs, that’s commercial merchandise you know?” Intimidation. We’ve done nothing wrong, I know, and we’re American citizens, so I’m laughing at the whole thing. They must have thought I was mocking them. It’s pretty comical, minus the hour + delay it puts on our trip.

Finally, they realize we’re not terrorists or drug runners, and they let us go. On the road again, just a little messier van. Oh Canada. Our first time on that foreign soil. Only the Americans gave us trouble.

The coup de grace is that after all of that (Exhausted from being up for at least 24 hours, I finally stopped driving and passed out in the back), we arrive at the venue in Providence about 30 minutes late.

Now we had corresponded by email, and the last one more or less said, “Get there by 7, show starts at 8, I’ll get back to you about lineup and play times.” (which they didn’t, of course).

So I assume if we get there at 7:30, before the show starts, we should be ok.

No.

The booking agent is waiting for us outside the club. He stops us, and delivers the final blow. “Sorry guys, you can’t play tonight. You’re here too late. Here’s some cash for your troubles.”

Seriously.

Gotta give them props for at least paying us. all in all it was just a fitting end to a hilarious trip.

Madison Two Times

So we had the pleasure of playing Madison twice over a few days time. Madison is a cool, little town and home to the University of Wisconsin. The first night we played at a place called The Frequency. It was a good show with several other local and touring bands. Unfortunately there were gale-force winds blowing outside, so it was hard to get people out, but my cousin and his friends hung out with us all night. The wind was incredible and while driving up to Madison we felt their full effect in the van: it was insane on the highway; you really had to grip the steering wheel. The next night in Madison, two days later, we played at a bar called The Inferno. We played really well and the crowd definitely dug our sound. We also met up with our friend Kat- a couchsurfer friend we had made in Durango on our last tour. Talk about random, she just happened to be in Madison at the same time as us as she travels across the US by bike. It was great seeing her and it was great playing in Madison. I also want to give a shout out to our Couchsurfer host Ben who was tremendous and hilarious all at once.

Chi-Town

Our show in Chicago was at the legendary Abbey Pub.  Many legendary acts have performed here including Pearl Jam (one of my favs).  Kurt booked two other bands to play the show with us and they canceled and told the bar the show was off without letting us know.Very unfortunate really. Our posters were on the wall saying that we were playing so it was pretty strange that they thought the show was canceled but hey whatever. Tom the bar manager was understanding and we played the show in the smaller lounge area for a group of our close friends. It was a fun and very intimate show. One of the perks of being on the road is that we get to spend time with friends we normally wouldn’t run into. So it was a good night thanks to our friends in Chicago. Gotta give a shout out to Amber and Chris thanks for hanging out guys! Hopefully next time we come through Chi-Town we can have some locals on the bill and play the Abbey again and really do it up. Until my next post Hooch is out!

Indianapolis with War Muffins

We spent a couple days in Indy, mostly relaxing. I don’t know where the time went.

-We tried to pick up a show one,
-we slept late
- I played some Pickup Ultimate Frisbee, which was awesome.
There a badass library (not quite as awesome as the one in Seattle, but still highly recommended)
- Very cool memorials downtown

The Melody Inn is a good bar, and we had fun playing for a few locals plus the other bands, The War Muffins, plus a guy named Dylan whose last name I can’t remember. The War Muffins played last so they were pretty drunk by the start of their show, but their music is creative and enjoyable.

Not too much more to say about Indianapolis. It seemed like a pretty cool city to me.

Late night in St. Louie

We spent the day shooting our video update http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOlOpLw-ir0 then it was about 7 pm so we headed to club. Turns out The Way Out Club is a pretty sweet venue.  At 7 we arrived at the club and were way too early…So, we headed to a vegan restaurant and waited way too long on some food that didn’t have to be cooked…  After our trip back to the club Stinkfoot had taken the stage and was rocking. There was a decent crowd and people just kept packing in. We were on after Stinkfoot and by that time a big crowd had formed in the bar. Our show was awesome. There was a great vibe in the club from all the people. It’s really a great feeling when you can make people who might not necessarily like your flavor of music dig it. That was definitely the case on this particular night. Such a great show. We made a ton of new fans and then The 7 Shot Screamers went on. They are a cool mix of punk rock and rockabilly and their bassist Chris rocks an upright which gives them big points in my book. They totally rocked the faces off of the crowd. It was really a great performance. After the show we headed to an after-party with the Screamers and mingled with their friends and fans. It was a good party. We got to the door and the door guy (yeah there was a door man at the party too) says it’s $3 to get in.   He explains that the $3 is for cleaning supplies to clean up after the party. Friggin’ hilarious… I’m talking to Chris outside and he’s like “oh Clownvis is about to start.” You may ask what is Clownvis like I did… Chris’s answer was “you’ll see.” He was right. Clownvis is a guy dressed up like Elvis with clown face paint…. It was the best performance I have ever seen through a lo-fi karaoke machine in a kitchen as you can see from the pics.  If you want to see a clip of Clownvis at his best check out this clip of him on America’s Got Talent http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwIJ6InjuiU What a crazy fun night. This was my first time to St. Louis and I wasn’t disappointed.. I’ve gotta thank the 7 Shot Screamers for making our night. The crowd and the after party were both amazing. Hooch over and out.

murfreesboro’s a cool joint

So it turned out the best part about playing in Nashville was playing with the band Dirty Proper. Their bass player, Trey, happened to manage a cool bar in Murfreesboro called Liquid Smoke, and he offered us a show for the next night. So after a wonderful home-cooked meal with our hosts and friends Shawn and Leanna, we headed out to play the show. Liquid smoke boasts a huge selection of beers, both on tap and in the bottle (but mostly bottle), and also caters to cigar-smokers. We decided to play 2 sets, and when we started there were probably about 15 people present. It was clear after maybe 3 songs that we had everyone’s attention. We were playing all of our funky-stuff and throwing in classic covers and just having a good time. We ended up meeting some cool people and making connections for next time. Murfreesboro is home to Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) and has a good music scene along with a ton of students–definitely a nice place for us to play around NashVegas. One other thing to note: Liquid Smoke had the coolest bathroom I’ve ever seen in a bar, possible ever. It was more like a home bath. No stalls, no urinals. It was well decorated with art, had a clear-glass sink, and a nice couch. So if you ever in the area, maybe just stop in to use the bathroom ’cause it’s worth it!

Video Update # 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOlOpLw-ir0

Nashville, 12th & Porter; more than meets the eye

Our nashville gig was an interesting one. We played very well, but by the time we got on stage as the closers, there were only about five people in the crowd. Luckily, we had a lot of fun! We got to play with Brent Baker, who some of yall remember as the guy who rocked the trumpet and flugelhorn at one of our Austin shows this past summer. He was already an amazing player, but somehow he improved even more. He also charted out a couple of our songs- for a full horn section! He’s a rockin’ dude.

We also know that sometimes things aren’t always as they seem, and sometimes a big crowd matters less than having the right person in the crowd.

One of the guys from Dirty Proper stayed until the very end, and was very impressed, so he invited us to come play in Murfreesboro the next day! We had the night off, and murfreesboro is a nice college town, so of course we accepted. The sound guy also really enjoyed the show and gave us the name of some bands that we could play with next time and guarantee a better crowd.

It was fun to play Nashville for the first time, to get to see if for the first time, but its not the ideal town for original, funk music. It caters to a different crowd. Most of the venues are “pay to play,” and even at 12th & Porter we had to run the door ourselves – even though there was a free showcase in the other room and you could watch the bands from the bar without paying to go into the room with the stage. We’ll work on building a crowd there over time, but its not a big destination anymore in my mind. Now, I’m excited about Madison. We’ll see if its all its cracked up to be

St. Louis tonight! (10/22/10)

Achachay! returns to St. Louis tonight! We’re playing at the Way Out Club with some great and historic local acts. The show will be high energy, tons of fun, and lots of good music. It’s 21+, costs $5, and might sell out so show up early. Door open at 8.
Lineup:
Dave Jordan is hosting the show and will play at the beginning & each intermission.
Stinkfoot 9:15 – 10 PM
Achachay! 10:20 – 11:20
7 Shot Screamers 11:45 – close

Kurt (the St. Louis booking agent) describes the bands:

Achachay!
“Dude, NOBODY is doing stuff like this that I’ve heard, this has such a Talking Heads feeling to it — I love how Achachay is mixing a funk/jam genre with these cool 80′s New Wave influences. Very unique. I’m proud to be booking for you guys, quite frankly.”

About the Screamers:
“7 Shot Screamers have been one of the only cool redeeming things about the St. Louis music scene in all my years as a part of it. … Very well known oldschool band. Great live show… this will be the first Screamers show in St. Louis since Mikey Von Ransom moved to California.”

Where:
so says Kurt:
“The club is honestly a lot of fun. Ask your Wash U. ladies not to be scared of the location, it’s worse on Delmar now (in U-City) than Jefferson.”

The Way Out Club
2525 S. Jefferson
St. Louis MO 63104

Looking to get booked – in St. Louis or on the road? Shoot Kurt an email at redseabooking@yahoo.com