TOUR BLOG WEEK FIVE: West Virgina loves us... Cincinnati not so much

Wow, time sure does fly when you're on the road! (that's my weak excuse for not writing this blog sooner. Just go with it.)

I believe you avid readers were left wondering what happened to us in Pittsburgh, PA. We showed up to the club, only to find out that we were booked on Open Mic Night. Sweet. So we did our thing, and watched some people do Pink Floyd and Dave Matthews covers. Afterwards, a guy liked us so much that he opened his home to us and bought us snacks. Also, he proposed to his girlfriend right in front of us. Seriously. We left that house with a bunch of Pittsburgh gear.

The next day we drove allllll the way across Pennsylvania to get to Philadelphia. I was excited about this one. Our friends Bearings are from Philly and were gonna play the show. Awesome. Even cooler, Hunter's dad Jess happened to be in the area, and he came and bought us dinner before the show. Things were looking up. 10 pm rolls around at Fergies. We are supposed to start the show, but Bearings has yet to show up. We eventually play to an upstairs bar with one guy in it. Bearings never showed up. I later was told it was a miscommunication with the booking. Ohwellz.

Since Philly was oh-so-cold, we did one of our patented overnight drives to Louisville, KY. The first thing we did when we got there was eat at KFC. Honestly, it wasn't any better than California's fast food chicken chains.

Now, this venue takes the lead as my favorite venue of the tour. The Phoenix Hill Tavern is this giant mansion of a venue, with 2 stories, like 5 different themed bars, and a few really nice stages. We got a tour of the place before we played. They told us it was haunted, but I didn't really get that feeling. The building itself is really old though, and i wish I had more time to wander in it. The southern graveyard located 10 feet away from the venue was a nice touch.

We've been rocking pretty hard lately, and this night was no exception. We got so into it that on our closing song (Better), Zeke threw down his Gibson SG...and snapped the neck. I believe there is also a cable Jack going through the back of the guitar. Oops. It looked really badass though.

That night, a girl named Kristin let us stay on her couch. She was super cool to us and the next day we watched a series of Christmas movies and ate a ton of pizza. You could tell we were back in the south because of that classic hospitality.

From there we drove to Cincinnati Ohio, to play at the Blue Rock Tavern. Nobody really showed up except some super drunk dude. He had a Misfits back patch on his jacket, so Zeke decided to play "skulls" for him. Well, the drunk dude wanted to sing it, and it turned into some weird karaoke thing. Afterward, he grabbed Zeke's guitar and played "cemetary gates" by Pantera. In it's entirety. On a clean telecaster. By himself. Drunk.

West Virginia was sort of a weird day for us. Our friend Brian Lutz came to the show from North Carolina, and his mom got us a motel room! The first one on the tour. When we called the Rock It Club that night to get some directions, I got a womans cell phone (we later found out that "it was either have bands or have a phone at this bar"… she chose the bands) the directions to get to the club were, "okay you're gunna drive down this here road, an it's gonna git REAL dark fir a while, then you'll probably see a big ol' white light, an it's gunna be flashing, that's the club."

We show up. It's a shack in the rural woods of WV. We are the only band that isn't metal. We are the only band without face paint on. We are the only band not missing our front teeth (not an exaggeration). The immediate decision is that we need to rock super hard. So we do that. Those people in that little bar had never even heard music like this before, so they were in total shock to see some California band rocking that hard to music without double bass drums and sweep arpeggios. And they loved it. The crowd was sooo into it. I think this show was the bands overall "WTF I didn't expect that night to be so good" show.

Since we had a huuuge drive ahead of us, we got up super early ( I didn't get to shower and was pretty upset about it). The drive to Michigan was a long one, but we had all day. Well, we thought we did. Until we realized that the main road that goes that way was down to one lane. Everyone in that lane was going 25mph due to ice on the road. We had load in at 8 that night.

Did we make it to the show?? What happened? Read the next blog I write to find out. That's right, I'm leaving this at a cliffhanger of sorts. Hope all is well with you loyal readers. We still love all of you. <3

-Jordan

End Transmission

TOUR BLOG WEEK FOUR: Beer Tours and Broken Vans

Oh hey! Didn't see you there. Come in, I'll tell you about week four of the End Transmission tour.

I believe I left off in Brooklyn. Well, Goodbye Blue Monday was a really interesting club. We played an outdoor stage that kinda resembled a tent in a junkyard. It was cool. Dave and Margo, the people who actually booked this entire tour, came out to see us. It was awesome finally getting to meet them.

The next day was Manhattan! We were all really excited for this one. Arlene's Grocery on a Saturday night. I will say though, driving through Manhattan on a Saturday, in the rain, pulling a trailer, with no horn is a pretty intense experience. It had to take at least a year off my life. We got to the venue and made friends with a band called Dandelion Snow. We were talking to them for a while when they told us that they were actually former members of the punk band The Code, who were a pretty big deal. The show itself: well, we blew it. Straight up. It was one of the worst shows we've ever played. Broken tuners, slowing tempos, and starting songs in the wrong key is NOT the way to impress manhattan.

So we drove to Cleveland that night. Now, this was one of the more interesting shows on this tour. The Hi-Fi double booked their night with a comedy troupe. Instead of sending people home, we all shared the night and had 5 comedians open up for us. We played after 2 other bands. The only people who stuck around that late were the head comedian and one of his friends. We gave that show our all, and played the fuck out of that club. We even did an Encore. We threw guitars. It was gnarly.

After that we drove to Wisconsin and really, really, really needed a shower. I was turned down by every rec center and YMCA in Madison. So we went to a gym and faked taking an hour long yoga class, in order to use their locker rooms. Showers are amazing. Don't take them for granted. Mr. Roberts was cool. We had fun playing pool.

The next day we went to the Mall of America. That place rules. I've never seen a mall with a theme park in it. Most everything else in the Midwest was a bit boring. Lots of driving.

Oh! We went back to Milwaukee and took a 10:30 am tour of the Miller Brewery. Free beer before noon is pretty rad. It was very informative and I highly recommend it. That night we played Club Garabaldi. The show went well, and our friends Veritas were in town. We played a show with them back in Ventura, so we hung out and had fun.

Now, after this is when it all went wrong. Our loving van, The Ultimate Warrior, started getting warm. Very warm. At night. We pulled over and slept. When we woke up, we had a lot of fun watching it smoke through the hood. After finding a repair shop on Sunday (an impressive feat in itself), we had our heater hose replaced. And we were back on our way.

Today is Pittsburgh, and I'm in a McDonalds drinking coffee. Next week I'm sure we will have some fun stories for you. For now, I'm gonna stop typing. My thumbs hurt. Love you guys, for realz.

-Jordan

End Transmission

TOUR BLOG WEEK THREE: We Actually Miss the South

Okay, onto week 3! We headed out of the south, which was the biggest mistake of the tour. I'm just gonna say it; the south was great to us and I miss it.

Driving out of North Carolina, we went to Richmond, Virginia. Fuck Virginia. That's all they even get written about them.

From there, we spent 2 days in Washington DC. It wouldve been awesome if we didn't only have 2 hours to see all the sites. Parking a van with a trailer there is literally impossible.

If the cold weather wasn't enough, the worst part of the area was lack of 24 hour Wal Marts. I seriously miss them. The wal marts in the North are super shitty and can't hold a candle to the gloriousness that is a southern WM. By the way, peopleofWalMart.com brings back wonderful memories.

From Washington, we drove up to New York. Jersey is scummy and I cannot believe how much toll roads cost for vans with a trailer.

New York has been...interesting. We did Lindenhurst last night, and Brooklyn today. Brooklyn is pretty much exactly how Grand Theft Auto portrays it, except I haven't seen any rocket launchers or turf wars...yet. I'm patienty awaiting it.


As we drove into NY, we saw a sign for Montauk and had to blast Bayside really loud.

I think tomorrow is NYC. Hope this wasn't too boring. I'm sure week 4 will have lots of fun shit happening. Love you!

-Jordan
End Transmission

TOUR BLOG WEEK TWO: Floods and Friends

Hey everyone! Since we've been having so much fun on the road, I've been neglecting the tour blog. My apologies to the 4 people reading it.

Let's see, where to pick up? Ah yes. Alabama. I'm gonna be honest, I was scared when we pulled up for our 2 night stay. But the people inside were pretty rad. We met a guy named "Big Dave" who wanted us to stay at his mansion, complete with golf driving range, and rooms for everyone. Oh, he used to go on the road with Metallica. And play pro football. And his wife is a eurosurgeon.
Yeah.....we stayed with the sound guy instead. (thanks, victor!)

We hit Atlanta next, which hit us right back with the worst storm they've had in 100 YEARS. Floods everywhere. 4 people dead. Let's just say that show wasn't sold out.

My favorite part of the tour came next, when we went to Tennessee. We spent time with our good buddies and labelmates Josh and Brandon Manis of the band Gamenight. They fucking rule and their mom makes great spaghetti. We played at Patrick Sullivans in Knoxville. Steve (The Shape/Mouth Movements) showed up and bought many drinks for us. Then he climbed into our van and broke some stuff. Don't tell him that though. It was funny.

Next we headed into North Carolina, where Zeke had lived for a few years. He saw lots of old friends and we played 3 shows. Luckily, superfan Brian Lutz opened his home to us, and we crashed on his floor. NC was awesome. I miss it already.

That's about it for week 2! Week 3 is (obviously) next. Miss you guys!

-Jordan
End Transmission