tour begins.

friday, i stayed late at work, signing the various generator prints, until jason came to pick me up. we drove out to near ohare, and rented a 15 passenger chevy van from our favorite low-budget rental service. i drove the van home, jason drove to his house.

diana was finishing watching a french movie while i arrived, and i started packing. turned over the compost pile, collected my laundry, dug through the attic mess in the dining room until i found my lightweight sleeping bag and mat pad.

watched some of 'gone baby gone' with di, and couldn't fall asleep until 1am.

to buffalo:

woke at 5:30 saturday morning, and bathed, shaved, and dressed in the clothes i had set out for myself. despite waking up extra early, i was still 15 minutes late for picking jason up at 6:30, but i got to see the twins for a bit. they sat behind the wheel as jason and i took the rear seats out of the van, and left them in his garage.

we stopped by TBM to pick up the merch, then headed down skokie blvd, lincoln to kimball, and to kip's. collected him, and the equipment stephanie had left at his house, and stopped by starbucks on logan blvd, before picking up the main body of our gear at the practice space. we got on the road around 8:30, and flew east.

the van drove really well, the ipods worked and the GPS was on. 9 hours across indiana, ohio, pennsylvania and up lake erie to buffalo. loaded into big orbit's sound lab, and called mark and beth from hero design, who came to get us after we finished soundchecking. we went to the place which invented the "buffalo wing", where we had a 50-piece order of wings, a cheese pizza, and some drinks, while a thunderstorm came through the area.

back to the club, people were showing up. tony zanni, from rochester, came and ended up hanging with the hero folks the whole time. gordon pelligrinetti came, since we saw him in champaign a few weeks ago. a car load of dianogah fans came four hours from upstate, and got very drunk. one of them, who works as a bellhop, took me down the street to show me a nearby louis sullivan building from 1893.

red tag rummage sale played, with one cello and one hammer-on les paul, the young couple singing rather intimately. the second band was a flurry of guitars, keyboards and cello. i can't think of their name, but i enjoyed their set.

we played well, very loose, loud and fun. people shouted at us a bit more than usual, and we played an unusually long 12 songs. i sang on sprinter, and did a breaks b by myself.

the fellow who had shown me the sullivan building was quite drunk when we finished, and passed out face down on our merch table. after his friends propped him up, i pulled up his sleeve and drew on his arm, then returned his sleeve. hung out for a bit, and sold a good amount of merch.

back to mark & beth's house, we got to visit with the three cats and derby, the dog. i forget the name of the breed, but derby is the "spuds mackenzie" model of dog. super sweet and cuddly. she was so cute. i slept on the couch, jason and kip took the bedroom upstairs.

buffalo to boston:

woke pretty early, confused. got up to pee, then found my way back to the couch, somehow. pretty big disorientation. slept a few more hours. eventually everyone was up, and we headed out to get breakfast at some good/bad diner, where jason, kip and i each got a "louie omelette", featuring three eggs, some cheese, and two hot dogs. quick stop for a chai for me, and we went to see the hero retail store, which was awesome, filled with vinyl figures and prints. new york-style, it was packed pretty tight, with thier design office and print shop rounding out the 650 square foot space. everything within reach.

onto the highway just a bit late, we flew along the erie canal to albany, then looped south and cut across mass to boston. arrived at the great scott to find sean and tine macarthy of helms outside, loading in. we took their spot, loaded in, and line checked before walking down to a burrito place. veggie burrito = awesome.

stephanie arrived with her friends, and we got her up to speed.

the first band, piles, were really surprisingly good, and set a nice tone for the night. the second band, ba-na-nas, featured paul, formerly of our old friends, lynx, as well as his younger brother justin. hi-lar-ious. they playe really well, but the two brothers, on bass and guitar, respectively, danced around their drummer, had wonderful little 'moves', and were very fun to watch.

helms kicked ass, as always. they had some new songs which seemed a bit more flowey to me, less mathematical. i still love sean's guitar playing - always very inventive, playing with his jawline, tapping very tastefully.

we were a disaster, as jason's amp went to a blown-out sound during the first song, and he stopped playing after the second. we thought it was his cabinet, but it was his head, so we borrowed time's amp for the remainder of the set. we sort of got back on rack, but never really got comfortable for the rest of the set. we did fine, but wished it could have been 100%. the crowd was into it, though: we sold a bunch of records.

loaded out to the van, and followed the helmses back to tina and seans' beautiful top-floor condo in an old small building. we met the cats, and handsome mr. dwight, the greyhound. dwight is seth's cousin, via seth's grandfather (dwight's great-grandfather) named HB's COMMANDER. dan and sean and i took dwight out around the block, then headed back and sat on the deck with jason, kip, stephanie and tina. i drank orange juice, and soon called out for my sleeping bag.