Monday, April 14, 2008

March 12th-Today..

This is my first blog post on here. I was talking to Chucky Edge the other day and he told me I should update our blog more often and keep it up with daily tour shit while we are out on the road. I decided I would give you an update from when we left California(3/12) till today(4/14). I'll be updating this with tour stories pretty often. For now here is the story from when we left till now...


We practiced everyday from 9 in the morning till about 8 at night for a long time getting ready to go record our LP. We left California on March 12th and drove straight to Chicago to record our new Full Legnth. We had a few mix ups with the law on the way there but we eventually bailed everyone out and kept it moving like we always do. We spent a few days in Chicago recording at Electrical Audio Recordings with Steve Albini. It was a great experience. That dude works like a mad scientist. We will be self releasing this record. It will be out at Sound And Fury. Keep your ear to the streets. After we finished recording we made our way to Philadelphia to hang out with our good friend Mook. We met Mook when he came out to California with Cold World/Iron Age. We played a few gigs on that Cali weekend and have stayed friends ever since. Back in September 07 we had a few weeks off on the east coast in between tours and Mook opened up his North Philly basement for us. It was our home away from home for awhile. Philadelphia is one of my favorite cities in America so any down time we get there is spent doing the most. We caught the Blacklisted record release in Philadelphia. That was a solid gig. After hanging with Mook for a few days in March we made our way down to Richmond, VA for United Blood Fest. Festivals are great because you get to see so many friends in one spot. It only happens a few times a year so its always a good time. UB Fest was wild as fuck. The line up was solid. Bands killed it. Kids moshed it was good times all around. Hopefully we will be able to make it out for UB next year. Our friend Rashod had a crazy after party/dance rager at some club in RVA. It was pretty fun. A lot of friends came out and lost their minds to some wild tunes. After the fest we started the first portion of our 60 day Spring tour. We met up with Trapped Under Ice in New Jersey to start our Full US with them. We met TUI when we first came out to the east coast in May 2007. We both played together in Richmond, VA with Down To Nothing. I believe it was TUI's first show ever and our first east coast show ever. We smoked hella weed/drank some beer and have been good friends ever since. The NJ show was great. It was good way to kick off the tour. The Mongoloids played and its always fun to see them in their home town area. Kids lose their minds. After the gig we headed to my favorite part of NJ.. The grease trucks. We don't have places like this in California. For 5 bucks I got a sandwich with mozarella sticks/chicken fingers/french fries. It was awesome. We stayed at some girls mansion after the NJ show. It was a really weird experience. I've never really been in a house that has a shower so crazy it feels like you're standing in the rain. She fed us and we were on our way. The next day was Baltimore, MD at the Ottobar. Blacklisted/Verse and Warpriest joined us on this gig. It was a solid show start to finish. I've heard the name Warpriest but I had never listened to them before this show. They were great. It was real intense/entertaining to watch. I'm siked to see them at Sound And Fury this year. Verse was great as always. We played some shows with them in February so it was cool to see those dudes again. Blacklisted played a ton of new songs from their record that just came out. It was awesome. Their new songs kill live. If you haven't picked up Heavier Than Heaven, Lonelier Than God you should go do that. We stayed at Justice's(TUI singer) house that night after the gig. He has a good set of dogs. In the morning TUI was runnning a little late. We had to take them to go get their van on the other side of Baltimore. We crammed everyone from the whole tour (11 people) into one van with all of the gear/merch. It was a pretty wild ride. People on top of people gear on top of everyone. Our van was filled with weed smoke and barely scraping down the road. We made it work though. We then drove to South Carolina. We were super late because of all the wasted time in the morning. We got there right when TUI had to go on. The show was in this pool hall/bar. It was great kids came out from North Carolina and other surrounding states. There weren't a ton of kids there but you could tell everyone was there to see the gig. Shows like that are the best. The energy stays high and kids rage hard. Living in a town where bands don't come through all the time keeps kids so pumped on shows. We went to waffle house that night. Going to waffle house is what we do on tour. We don't have it on the west coast so we always eat way to much of it on the east coast. We got a hotel room that night in SC. It was a huge hotel right on the beach looking out over the ocean. It was the off season so we got a crazy hotel room for like 75 bucks. It was pretty wild. The next day was in Atlanta, GA. Last time we played ATL was with The Mongoloids/Cruel Hand in December. Our set was going great. It was one of those nights where everyone is going crazy. Even the dudes on the tour it was awesome. Our set got cut a little short because our current roady (Nick Fit) went for a stage dive and had a mix up which ended with him knocked out on the floor. Since our set was cut a little short I was eager to get back to this city and make up for it. The show this time around was just as wild as last time. Nick Fit redeemed himself with some good dives. Our friends band from California played so it was good to see them all the way out in Georgia. I love playing ATL. That night we stayed in a hotel room that the promoter got us because his father owns a hotel. It was cool and much appreciated. In the morning we headed to Florida. The weather was crazy good. I have never seen swamps and shit like that so it ruled. Out of nowhere on this drive it started pouring rain. Crazy rain like i've never seen before we pulled off to get gas/see what we should do and the street right next to the gas station was washing away. Some crazy flash flooding shit. We kept it moving and got to the show. The show was in Tampa, FL at the tampa skatepark. That venue rules. It has a huge skatepark attatched to it. Tons of kids were there. Trapped Under Ice killed it as usual. There was some crazy girl fight after the show. I don't really know what happened. I walked outside and 2 girls were brawlin. I saw the cops coming so I threw my 40 out into the grass. The cop saw me and screamed for me to get on his car so I did. He asked what I was doing and I told him i was throwing my forty cause im not 21 and I dont want to get hemmed up on some stupid shit. He told me to get out of his sight before I go to jail. Cops always talk down to people. You can never have a normal interaction with cops. They always have the upperhand. The next gig was in West Palm Beach. We walked around the area of the show before the gig. It was a crazy middle age paradise. Old ladies were dancing in the streets. There were street fairs and tons of silk shirts. The show was great. The place was packed. I rolled my ankle moshing for Trapped Under Ice so I was limited on my movement for the night. There was a bucket in front of the kick drum that helped out alot. The whole drive the next day we were searching for gators off the side of the road nothing turned up. The show was in Mobile, AL in a garage. There were about 50 people inside of garage that can comfortably hold 30. Legion played they are from Birmingham, AL. They were great live. Sounded heavy as shit. Trapped Under Ice got wild. I think the garage door got broken up. Our set was rad. Courtnay (TUI roady) was crawling around the rafters. Good times all around. We stayed at a hotel with TUI in Mobile. We got really drunk this night and I don't really remember what happened. I just know that when I woke up I had to throw up and it wasn't very cool. The next show was in Birmingham, AL. We made it just in time to catch Legion again. I was stoked on that. They shredded the place. Cave 9 is a really cool venue that helps that area alot. We played on the floor that night. The lighting was cool. TUI set it off super hard. Our set was cool. I was feelin the groove hard that night. A bunch of friends from Tennesee and Georgia came out to the show. It was good to see them. We bought a quarter of weed that night from some burly dude with a huge beard. We smoked it all by the morning time. TUI/TT has a good number of stoners. Weed doesn't last long around these parts. We were headed Arkansas next. The show was in Jonesboro. It was another great scenic drive. The south is great. The weather and all of the scenic shit make it so cool. These are the areas I offer to drive forever. I have never heard of shows in Arkansas so I was pretty exicted to see what it was going to be like. It was a cool vibe not that many kids came out but the people who did come out were there because they wanted something to do. If i lived in Arkansas I would go to every show that hit my town or around it. Kids came out from out from a few different surrounding states. Our set got a little short. During our set the PA speaker started to tip over so the promoter of the gig was sprinting to stop it. He jumped straight into this thing and bashed his teeth face first into the speaker. It was fucking gnarly. He just laid there for a few seconds then got up and ran out. I didn't know exactly what was going on but then he came back in with a bloody mouth saying the show is over because he has to go to the hospital and see whats going on. It was a bummer but it has to be done. I think he cracked all of his front teeth straight in half. The kid was super nice and very helpful. I hope he is doing okay. Justice gave him a call in the morning time and he seemed to be doing alright. I can't wait to get back to Arkansas and finish the set. After Arkansas we were headed to Dallas, TX. It was my 20th birthday. I planned on raging hard and I did. We showed up to the show in Dallas greeted by a bunch of friends. Daniel Rosen came out. It was good talking to him for a few. Always a good conversation. The show was great tons of kids came out. Highlife played and we missed their set. I was super bummed on it cause my friend plays drums for them and I had been hearing good things. Their demo just got a killer review in MRR check em out. Oh well we will catch them next time. Stymie played and it was solid. They have played every show we have ever played in Dallas so it was cool to rage with those dudes again. The bar gave me tons of beer cause it was my birthday. That's always good. Andy Rice called the promoter of the show and had him get me a birthday cake. It was very thoughtful. Thanks Andy Rice. There was some wild dude at the Dallas show who called himself THE CRAZZZY PICTUREEE GUY. He has a website where posts all of the photos from the shows he goes to. He just sent them to us today. Check em out. Tons of wild pictures. That dude is insane. (www.crazypictureguy.com) It was my birthday. I got black out drunk and I don't really remember that night. I know we raged hard with some of the dudes form highlife/ans. Always good times in Dallas. The next show was in San Antonio, TX. Sudden Death played and it was their singers last show. 150 kids came out it was a rager. The stage was super high but it didn't really matter. Kids had fun regardless. Daniel Rosen set the pit off. He is a home town mosher. Weird style if you ask me. FEED played and they killed it. I can't wait to hear some new tracks from them. There demo tape is hot fire. Mad heavy and super groovy. The drive after San Antonio is always the worst drive of the tour. You start driving right after the show and you wake up and you are still driving in texas. The desert is a crazy place. the wildest shit probably goes down out there. It's a very peaceful drive. Klipa(TUI guitar player) fell in love with the desert and our van. We made it to the show in Tucson, AZ a little earlier and grabbed some beers. We took TUI to a good burrito place across the street from the house we were playing. They haven't really had that great of mexican food im assuming. Their bass player was borderline about to cry from how good his burrito was. We headed over to the show after eating. This house is one of my favorite places to play. It's in a small living room about 10 feet by 10 feet. It started out slow but by the time we played the place was packed. The place is so small that you can't escape anything. Kids were diving off of everything possible. There was a small bass cab loaded into the back of the room. I thought someone was going to play out of it but I was wrong it was just there for the sole purpose of diving. The show was complete insanity. After the show ended the house pretty much turned into a party. No one left everyone drank. We slept there in the living room on the mattresses the put against the walls to sound proof the place. It was the best sleep I have had this whole tour. In the morning we made our way to the ALMIGHTY CALIFORNIA. Before I get started on California Justice from Trapped Under Ice wants to say "MAKE NOTE ON HOW I WANT TO MOVE TO CALIFORNIA." That basically sums up this weekend. Right when we got into California there was all of these crazy border patrol check points. Courtnay(TUI roady) was driving our van when we passed through one. Instead of stopping he kept it moving passed the stop sign. All of these border patrol people started freaking out screaming. A cop runs up to our car and says "youre lucky you stopped when you did I was going to have that guy over there throw down a spike strip." Some border patrol cop came up to our door and says " you got any illegals in there?". Places like that are so crazy to me. The first California show was in San Diego at the Che Cafe. We got into SD early and went over to our friend Tylers tattoo shop. Garrett got tattoo'd by him last time we were in SD so he came back to get his piece finished. Justice got a portrait of his dog spike on his forearm. His dog Spike will probably be pretty stoked on it. Our bass player Spencer came up with this crazy hybrid animal called a scorpigator. He somehow talked Eric form TUI into letting him tattoo it on him. Spencer has never really given a tattoo so it was a pretty wild adventure. Spencer drew up the image and Tyler set him all up. Above the scorpigator it says TRA$HED UNDER ICE 08. Tour tattoos are some of the best things you can get on tour. Good job Eric. The show at The Che was wild. 200 kids came out. Downpresser played all of the Cali shows on this weekend. It was good watching them. Their new record is solid. Pick it up. Trapped Under Ice got their new 7 inches at this show. It was the first time they had them for sale. Kids freaked out. Boxes were gone in the blink of an eye. We have played Che Cafe 3 times. This was by far the best time we have ever played this spot. Kids were swinging from everywhere. It was a riot. I cant wait to get back down to that spot. Its crazy how many kids from mexico come out to shows at che there is always a good number of kids from there. Its awesome I would love to get down to Tijuana soon and bring the show to them. The next day in California was a disaster. The day started off good. We got some good food in SD. Tony and I bought some cheap bottles of vodka. We had plans for a great day/night. The show was in Redwood City which is right outside of SF. TUI stayed somewhere different than us the night of SD. We had a few of their members in our van and they had a few of ours. We headed down up to Northern California seperately. We were smooth sailing up I-5 when we got the call that TUI had blown a tire and were stuck on the side of the road. They were a few miles ahead of us so we caught up to them and waited while AAA came and fixed their tire. After that we got back on the road and were smooth sailing again. We got about 40 miles ahead(i drive like a beast) of TUI when we got another call. The tire they just fixed blew out again. It was about 6:00 pm we had to be to the show by 7:00 pm and we were about 150 miles away. We were fucked and there was no way possible we were going to make it to the show. TUI called AAA and got towed 25 miles south in the opposite direction and got their tire fixed. We kept it moving and decided we would just meet them up at the gig. We showed up in the middle of Sabertooth Zombies set. I was super stoked because I thought we were going to miss them but we made it just in time. The first tour Trash Talk ever did was with STZ. We went down the coast and up the coast. Those are some of our best friends so any chance we get to see them is great. They played good and kids had wild circle pits going on. My friend Eric gave me a sweet STZ beer coozy. I'll be using that every day of tour. When STZ finished playing TUI was still about 100 miles away. There was no way we were going to be able to play. It sucked but there was nothing we could do about it. The promoter Max is a super cool dude he understands shit happens. He still paid us and TUI which was greatly appreciated. Thanks Max. It's a bummer because I am not sure when we will play Northern California again. As of right now we don't have anything planned. Hopefully we can make up the show soon. After the bay area show we went and stayed at our old roady Chris P's house. He smoked crazy blunts with us. East Coast weed can't compare with West Coast weed. Klipa and Eric from TUI looked higher than they have ever been in their entire lives. We woke up in the morning and headed to the final California show in Newhall. We got into town a little bit earlier so the promoter of the show let us come to his house and shower. He also let me put the rest of my vodka bottle in his freezer so that I could start the Newhall night off just right. We got to the show just in time for the doors. A bunch of bands played. Downpresser was great as always. The singer of Johnny Cages voice projects down the street. You can hear him singing from outside the venue and down the street its pretty crazy. A band called Catch Your Breath released their CD at this show. Trapped Under Ice had a good set. Kids moshed hard and people were singing their throats away. Internal Affairs played and they were rad. I've been seeing IA for a long time now and they are always entertaining to watch. Corey is a great front man. He can always make a room full of kids laugh. Our set was wild to say the least. My voice is a little rough as of right now but we made the best of it. Some kids fought each other and other kids were having a good time. We had in n out after the gig. It was good to get that one last time before we leave this place for another 2 months. We are now in Reseda, CA at the house I used to live at with Joe Harder. We just got our van fixed and ready to go for the 15 hour drive to Denver, CO. There is no show tonight so we are going to make a stop in Las Vegas. TUI has never been so we figured we'd make a night of it. Tony B. won't fuck a hooker in Vegas. I bet you a million dollars he won't. I don't really have anything else to say as of right now. It's time to get back in the van. Trapped Under Ice can't/won't stop listening to Stout. It's pretty hard style. I'll be here later with some more updates soon..

I'll add pictures and what not to this post later on..

Hope all is well with you..

-L

6 comments:

OMEGA said...

Fuck I just read that whole thing, Next time you guys come to San Diego get at me and ill bring along some blunts.

myspace.com/skiesaboveareclosedtome

Unknown said...

Wow that was a great read, I loved the bit about the Scorpigator. Can't wait to see you and buy the LP at Sound and Fury.

Justin said...

Thanks for the kind words about Myrtle Beach. I had a blast. Thats for coming around. You guys are all the rage around here now, ahaha. Please come back and take it easy. See you guys in Germany!

justin

Unknown said...

good read.... it's "BEAT LA". gotta catch a giants vs. dodgers games with you doods sometime.

Matt Owens said...

Was bad ass kicking it with some of you dudes last night after the show. Mad bummed I had to work, May 22nd we'll make a party out of it.

Anonymous said...

johnny cage played the two socal shows of the first stz/TT tour ever.

studio S and then jerry's pizza where we did an unstoppable (not permited) three way split set.

that was december of 2005.