amanda

Touring from the female perspective:

Hi, I’m Amanda, the merch girl. Slash designated dancer slash unofficial band photographer slash freelance designer slash self-proclaimed wild card. I’ve been on the road with these guys for a good four weeks, so I feel I have a pretty good understanding of the touring thing.
Honestly, I had no real expectations for this trip. I knew it would be an adventure of sorts, I’d travel to new destinations, perhaps go a day or two without a shower, eat cheap food, sleep on many couches, basically journey the ways of the traveling musician pursuing recognition and success. I understand that to most women, my mom especially, this sounds like a miserable way to spend 2 months of a summer. But it has really been quite an experience. Every day we explore a new town or city in which we meet interesting people who share an interest in music or traveling or other interesting people. We do as the natives do. We hike their mountains, drink their beer, stay in their homes. And really, we’re not that dirty. Really.
Besides being able to dance like a maniac every night to awesome funky jams with the comfort of knowing that I don’t live here and you can’t judge me, I’ve fallen in love with many cities, new friends have taught me new perspectives and philosophies, and I’ve rock climbed and camped in multiple national parks. I’ve also had the time and opportunity to pick up some old hobbies: reading, graphic designing, writing, jewelry making, photography, Netflixing…
Also, these aren’t the most difficult guys to spend 24 hours a day with; they’re actually usually quite pleasant. And they treat me like one of the guys, no holds barred… most of the time… which I can appreciate… most of the time.
I’m sure I’ll find something girly to complain about in the next few weeks; it may be getting close to that time when I can no longer stand these guys, but maybe not. So I guess the female perspective is just a perspective, from a newcomer. Did I mention the sweet funky jams?

Tour: Night 1!

Hello all of my Achachillians! I write to you from a lovely coffee shop in sunny El Paso. Last night was the first night of the tour and it was a great start to our 2nd west coast (western US) tour. Our first show was at the Deadhorse Saloon in San Angelo, Texas. It was our second time playing there and we were happy/excited to be back. We opened up for a popular local band called Bugota. There were a few familiar faces in the crowd from the last time we played (which is always nice) and we ripped through a 70 minute set. It felt nice to be back on stage after not playing together for about 3 weeks.

So after the show it was time to find a place to sleep. We typically can get away with couchsurfing in most places we play, but unfortunately San Angelo doesn’t have a couchsurfer community, so we were forced to ask around at the bar. This time around we couldn’t find any takers– the most popular response being “my old-lady is really strict about that sort of thing…”. So it was up to us to find some where to sleep. Luckily Jordan brought two tents with him this time, and everyone was game to find a camp ground for the night. After driving through some fairly spooky terrain outside of San Angelo we came across a state park. We decided the safest thing to do would be camping out right in front of the welcome center, so as to not piss any park rangers or other authority figures off. It was clearly a permit only situation, but at 3:00 am we couldn’t give two shits.

I should take this moment to introduce the newest addition to our group: Amanda the merch-girl. That’s right, the three road warriors have welcomed a new member to the fold for this tour. Her name is Amanda Shaftel, and she is a friend of the band who volunteered to come on the road to help us sell merchandise. She’s a trooper as on her first night with us, she was subjected to a night sleeping in a hot tent (and yes it was FUCKING HOT).

Anyways we all tried to sleep the best we could, all of us expecting to be accosted by some random vagabond or park ranger/cop at any second. Personally I slept for possibly a grand total of 90 minutes, finding the heat and my own paranoia unbearable. We managed to make it until about 8:45 am before a stereotypical mustached and southern-drawled park ranger asked us for our camping permits. Luckily we explained that we had arrived too late to register, and he didn’t give us any gruff as long as we would leave or register.

Hell of a first night! I’m running on a ton of caffeine and a giant Mexican torta right now, but I know I’ll be crashing at some point. The fun part is we don’t have a place lined up to sleep tonight either! Yeah! Well, until next time folks…