I really don't want to throw up...

We're leaving for Australia in almost a week, I can't really believe that its so soon from now. Its been a crazy last few months for me and its only going to get more crazy. However there are no complaints, its good to be busy. These next few months Im going to be traveling to some new places i've never been before, and a lot of familiar places that I am excited to revisit.

We start the trek flying down to L.A. to catch a plan to Sydney Australia for the Soundwave Festival tour. If there is one place I have always wanted to go to and haven't yet, it's Australia. Now mind you getting there is going to be a bit of a struggle for me but it's got to happen. The last time I flew I made the wrong choice of eating a cheesburger from Mcdonalds right before boarding the plane. Only to find myself in a world of trouble. I ralphed all over Steve our drummer two hours into the flight. I then spent the remainder of the flight in the bathroom, violently vomiting and laughing from the events that took place. I spent those first few days of the tour with nothing but the feeling of regret and utter sadness at the choices I made. But nonetheless I felt better after the flight, ferry ride over the channel, van breakdown, van switch, practice, and first festival show. It was a rough start to an awesome tour, but lets hope history doesn't repeat itself.

I plan on bringing a camera or two to try and document these next few months as much as I can. Right after Australia we land in L.A. and start a six week long tour with Bad Religion and Against Me! Two amazing bands, and it will be great to share the stage with them from city to city.

I think I am just about done downloading these Henry Rollins radio shows featuring Jimi Hendrix bootlegs in mono and stereo amongst other great music. For any nerds out there who are looking for bootlegs or to hear stuff you have probably never heard before, check out his radio show.

http://www.rollins-archive.com

Oh an below is a list of all the shows we have coming up. I only posted them really for my own eyes to see just how insane this really is. I probably can go ahead and delete this now...

Feb 23 Soundwave Festival, Brisbane, Australia
Feb 24 Soundwave Festival, Sydney, Australia
Feb 25 w/ All Time Low The Factory Sydney, Australia
Feb 27 w/ All Time Low The Auditorium, Brisbane, Australia
Mar 01 Soundwave Festival, Melbourne, Australia
Mar 02 Soundwave Festival, Adelaide, Australia
Mar 04 Soundwave Festival, Perth, Australia

w/ Bad Religion & Against Me!
Mar 09 Soma, San Diego, CA
Mar 12 Backstage Live, San Antonio, TX
Mar 13 House of Blues, Houston, TX
Mar 14 House of Blues, Dallas, TX
Mar 16 The Ritz Ybor, Tampa, FL
Mar 17 House of Blues, Lake Buena Vista, FL
Mar 19 The Masquerade, Atlanta, GA
Mar 20 War Memorial Auditorium, Nashville, TN
Mar 22 930 Club, Washington, DC
Mar 23 The Wellmont Theatre, Montclair, NJ
Mar 24 Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA
Mar 26 Terminal 5, New York, NY
Mar 28 House of Blues, Boston, MA
Mar 29 State Theatre, Portland, ME
Mar 30 Metropolis, Montreal, Canada
Mar 31 Kool Haus, Toronto, Canada
Apr 02 St. Andrew's Hall, Detroit, MI
Apr 04 Newport Music Hall, Columbus, OH
Apr 05 Congress Theater, Chicago, IL
Apr 06 Pop's Nightclub, Saint Louis, MO
Apr 08 Granada Theater, Lawrence, KS
Apr 10 The Fillmore, Denver, CO
Apr 11 In the Venue, Salt Lake City, UT
Apr 13 Vogue Theatre, Vancouver, Canada
Apr 14 Roseland Theatre, Portland, OR
Apr 15 Showbox SODO, Seattle, WA
Apr 18 Hollywood Palladium, Hollywood, CA

Mar 10 Scottsdale, AZ @ Pub Rock Live
Mar 18 Jacksonville, FL @ Roc Bar
Mar 27 Clifton Park, NY @ Upstate Concert Hall
Apr 1 Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom w/ Pentimento
Apr 3 Bowling Green, OH @ Howards Club H
Apr 7 Omaha, NE @ The Slowdown

*w/ The Flatlienrs, Masked Intruder
Apr 26 MONSTER BASH FESTIVAL, Munich, Germany
Apr 27 MONSTER BASH FESTIVAL, Berlin, Germany
Apr 28 Groezrock Festival, Meerhout, Belgium RSVP
Apr 29 Kleiner Club Garage, Saarbrucken, Germany
Apr 30 Sputnik Cafe, Münster, Germany
May 01 Werk 2, Leipzig, Germany
May 02 Hafenklang, Hamburg, Germany
May 03 FZW Visions Party, Dortmund, Germany

w/ Me vs. Hero & Landscapes
May 25 Leeds, UK @ Slam Dunk Festival
May 26 Hatfield, UK @ Slam Dunk Festival
May 27 Wolverhampton, UK @ Slam Dunk Festival
May 28 Leicester, UK @ Firebug
May 29 Glasgow, UK @ Ivory Blacks
May 30 Newcastle, UK @ Trillians
May 31 Manchester, UK @ Sound Control
Jun1 London, UK @ Underworld

Texas Is The Reason @ Irving Plaza NYC

I must say that I had no real expectations upon going to this show. I love Texas Is The Reason and always have. Im not an old guy so I had prior interaction to compare them to. I think I had the mentality that every band is getting back together, so the show will most likely be special and sound good. However, this was not the case. All of the bands prior to Texas played mediocre at best, which is probably another reason behind my attitude and why I didn't expect much.

The lights dimed along with the house music, "Do You Know Who You Are" crept over the loudspeakers. A few moments passed and the band enters the stage and wait until the music stops. They dive right into "Back And To The Left" as if they couldn't have picked a better way to open the set. The room was pure nonstop energy from the moment that song struck until the house  music came back on after their set.

It was probably hands down one of the best performances of any band that I have seen in a long time, if not for sure on my top 5 list. And im not saying this as a huge texas is the reason fan because Im not. I love that band but I wouldn't call them obsession like Quicksand in that essence. The best part of the experience would have to be seeing their guitarist Norman Brannon at the Laundromat the next day. We both were their for the same reason, washing a few sweaty, dingy garments from the previous night.

Norwich, England

UK TOUR August 26th - Reading, England

I feel that there are moments in life that you can relive by just looking at one image and this was one of those. We had played one of the side stages at Reading festival earlier that day. The whole time all I could think about was "how am I going to get on stage to watch the foo fighters". For most instances you would just show security your tour laminent and be on your way, but things were a little different this time around as I knew they would be.

I ate catering, packed up our rental equipment and moseyed along my way. The campgrounds where the event was taking place was bigger than I could have ever imagined. Finding my way to the main stage through the general population of fest goers was no easy task on the eyes or feet. These brave music lovers were all boosed up, drugged up, and fucked up. I saw one heavy set woman take a shit against the wall while her friend watched to see if any of the 50,000 people in attendance that day were looking (the odds obviously not in my favor that day). Then as we crept closer to the main stage I saw several men and woman passed out; as one girl was being pulled away by a medical team who did not look like she had an ounce of life in her.

It made me wonder that these people will literally risk everything, comfort, health, cleanliness and even death in some instances to watch some of their favorite bands. Even bands they couldn't give two shits about, they just want to get fucked up and go crazy. Also not to mention the mud was intense, I looked like a fool not walking around in the traditional wellies that day. I finally made it to the main stage, tried to swoop my way past the security guard only to find that I needed a special Foo Fighters laminent to get onto the stage during their set. I was bummed but I understood why, I wouldn't want a bunch of people I didn't know on the side of the stage getting in the way of people actually doing real work.

So I retrieved back to our van to think up of a new plan to get a good spot. I found Jimmy by our dressing room and we got to talking about the scenario. Eventually it came to our attention that the roof of our dressing room (which is outdoors) is not to tall and somewhat manageable to climb. So, few minutes go by of us struggling to climb the roof by stacking chairs and metal beams to finding ourselves on top of the dressing rooms. To put it into perpective the dressing room area was shared by all of the bands that played our stage that day and each trailer was connect so we had a lot of space to roam about.

As we were up there we found ourselves with a perfect few of the main stage. We were still a ways back and it looked like little ants were on the stage playing but it was probably the best spot to watch watch, away from the muddy freak show below us. Eventually Jimmy and I couldn't go unnoticed so people started to join us. Eventually it was the Flatliners and Polar Bear Club up on the roof of our dressing room, sharing a beautiful moment by watching one of the best bands in Rock n Roll (while Me First In The Gimme Gimmies were playing the stage directly behind us). Ill never forget that night of tour, and this picture pretty much sums up what a great day that was, getting to play a legendary festival and to end it by watching a legendary band.