Tour: Day Something

so, the whole chicago thing went very very well after all. met some really cool people and made a very very good friend.

i got no sleep and stella is a great show.

des moines killed me. i may never go back. i was mostly asleep, felt like i was on drugs, got barely any sleep and had a terrible terrible experience.

i left the next morning with fear and a heavy heart.

KC!!!! what a wonderful city. i absolutely love kansas city. opened for Bradley Hathoway @ the Mainstreet Cafe. denise and aaron were so good to me. sold lots of cds and had a GREAT night's sleep (finally).

dark. jesus candle. good shower. chicken pot pie.

then TACO'S at julie and courtney's.

now i am in omaha, burning discs and daylight.

i love my life. i love God. i am finally at peace. i have been shaken from my sleep by making very large mistakes, wrong turns, as well as being treated like a better person than i could ever be.

i have been trying to be a servant, and trying to not be an asshole... the latter is hard, but the first is pretty easy. it's the only thing that makes me feel good. it's the main thing that God wants.

wash feet.

wash them.

bradley read into my brain and told me things about myself without even knowing me.

i am a liar and he dug into me.

i feel clean.

EMERGENCY!!!

found out that i am out of money in my checking account. even though i have money on my person, my account will stay negative due to the fact that HUNTINGTON IS NOT A NATIONAL BANK!!!! (which was the first thing i asked when i opened an account. their answer: "yes! we are a national bank!" there are no locations within 200 miles of my next few stops!!!


this mega-mega-mega sucks.

Tour: Day Seven

i think i skipped a number... oh well!

i am currently sitting at the Ashbary Coffee House, waiting to play, in like, 4 hours.

i was thrust off of I-94, and with the help of my dad and a gas station, found my way back.

then i sat in traffic for a few hours.

lots of smoking. lots of little debbie cosmic brownies.

but now i am in Willow Springs, IL. wondering:
where i will sleep? will i make any money? can i afford to make it to des moines tomorrow?

only time can answer these questions.

FINGERLESS GLOVES = warm and STILL typing correctly!

Tour: Day Six

i awoke in the wonderful land of Ann Arbor. after much running around and trying to park without getting towed, i found a parking garage. then, at night, derek and i played the most unusual open mic ever ever ever! it proves everything i've ever said about ypsilanti.

during my adventures in AA, i bought the first clash album on vinyl, as well as the limited vinyl version of Brian Wilson Presents: Smile! then i sold all of my aforementioned thrift clothes for a lot of money to a wonderful store called The Get Up (you should go there if you are ever in MI).

after the crazy open mic, derek and i then watched his friends at the Fire Fly. it's a wonderful jazz club. i drank a "black heart"... it's like a black and tan without the tan, and instead, some other lighter beer that i do not know about.

the band was wonderful.

woody, their pianist, then went to Happy's Pizza with derek and i for a delightful dinner/viewing of seinfeld.

the night ended with some south park.

we also got lost a lot.

thanks derek and tomek for a couch and shower!

Tour: Day Five

after leaving akron, i went into the magical land of Michigan, and the less magical Lansing.

i soon discovered that Mac's Bar was right off of the highway, and not downtown at all! so, i settled into Gone Wired Cafe, where i capered and sang and coaxed my way into eating their food, stealing their internet, and consuming their coffee.

then the show.

i met the guys from the opening band June Star, andrew and tim. they were very nice and very talented. we spoke about music and not music and then music some more.

then derek and his friend alex arrived and we played a show to the bar tender and sound guy. they were both very nice, and the sound guy, ben, was a great great dude.

i then stayed with derek and we had fun watching petey greene and listening to billy bragg.

TOur: Day Four

this was a day off. me and donovan hung out in akron all day, ate pizza, made copies, watched the internet, and then ended the day with some TMNT!!!!

it was a good day off.

Tour: Day Three

so, after staying with sherrie, i decided to do some thrift store shopping. i bought a ton of amazing stuff as well as a charlie brown christmas book on record.

i then went to a flea market and had fun with local crazies looking at crap and lots and lots of dvd's, steeler's memorabilia, and dirty old things!

then i got lost and went to Zanesville. with the help of Tobias, i was able to find my way into good old mount vernon.

i was just supposed to play guitar for the glam-punk operation: THE FUSS, but after a band cancelled, this quickly became an actual part of the tour, and the most successful yet!

it was good to play with andy and my dad in the fuss, as well as seeing the guys from aces, 7sc, and especially having a fun ol' reunion with the boys in Goodnight Wednesday.

i then broke andy's hip and stayed at his house.

that was the day. we were all very tired.

Tour: Day two (cont.)

the show went very well. after waiting a long time for a microphone cable, and then having to drive and get one 20 minutes away, i played an hour and a half set of music from my past three albums, and some hopefuls for "carnivore". mitch, the wonderful owner of Friends Roastery set me up to stay with sherrie:


this is sherrie. i ate at sheets while she paid a pizza guy that she shorted a few nights earlier. she is an eccentric lady, with art and trinkets and collectible everywhere. we talked for hours about random stuff. then i met my favourite thing ever:


this is juice box. it has the Welcome Back Kotter theme song in it's catalogue of 45's. it was wonderful.



then i sat on a throne of lies.




then i met Zeoose... he's a Zebra_Moose combo.




then cane decided to jump on me a million times while i was going to bed and then later, waking up.


it was very nice to meet a person like sherrie on the road.

Tour: Day two

today i went to salem. it's a small town that i have grown to love, mostly because the coffee is as amazing as the Goodwill, and it's very historical (i.e. i found 8" IBM diskettes at the office supplies store... WTF???)


another reason why i like salem. this is someone's backyard.



the people at Friends Roastery are so good to me. they let me stay in the art gallery, fed me lunch and TONS of coffee. this is always a good atmosphere to create, relax, and re-burn all of the mono copies of Herbivore into true stereo (which means that the reverb isn't phase cancelled, the bass line of the carver pingpongs back and forth, and the shaker/woodblock barrage is in your RIGHT ear!)



here is herbivore, by the by:

Tour: Day One

i left ohio and decided to go to PA and see what it did for me. the city was much larger than i recalled, and it was beautiful since it actually has hills unlike columbus.

i then played at the lava lounge where i met people. it looked like what lava would look like if it were a lounge.

then i stayed with bill of the band Life In Bed. his house was nice and full of artwork done by his sister. we watched his security camera as some crazy person knocked on his door. we then watched audrey hepburn be amazing in My Fair Lady. i decided to go to bed, but the only thing i could get on the tv in my room was Poker After Dark, so that had to do.

why everyone should love Vampire Weekend

so, as i mentioned before, this band is taking my life from me. i think i may have found this decades 30 degrees everywhere.

i mean, they are much less obscure than the milwalkee based quartet was in 1996, and everyone is in love with this album, but that's because it's actually very good.

with a sting-esque vocal quality and wisps of reggae, indie rock, motown, and op-ivy style punk (ala A-Punk), it can make the saddest man loving life once again. i know this first hand.

this bright, poppy album has more charm in it than should be allowed by FCC laws, but it's not just surface, it's not just fun, and although the smiles are genuine, they have substance and meaning.

much like TPR, they constantly throw specifics out to make up a completely abstract piece of art, like a mosaic or realistic paintings and photos creating a large shapeless paint blob atop a sketch of pointless images. the words are often about geography, cape cod, new york, and in general, back yards and city scapes.

the first thing i said when i heard this band was "wow, an indie band with a lead singer that can actually sing!" and boy, can he sing. sting meets crooner, exra koenig swoons and evokes over raucous drums, mandolin-esque guitars, hopping bass, and rostam batmanglij's incredible multi-instrumentalization (ie - organ, chamberlin, harpsichord, and percussion).

beautiful. just what i needed. just what you need.

best tracks- 1, 4, 7, 10, and 11.

No, seriously...

we REALLY don't like romance...

you have no idea.

The Liberty Bell

This is Joshua Moblo. if you know anything about music at all, or you go to a loosely christian college, you have probably heard of the Tide. well, their guitar player soon started recording music for what i would consider one of the greatest musical projects ever, The Liberty Bell.
the greatest thing about the liberty bell would have to be the fact that there is reverb on EVERY instrument. i mean, gobs and gobs of it. moblo says that this is because his snare drum sound was not up to par, so he added reverb, and then it stuck and slowly dripped and dropped and echoed onto the whole recording.

watch for a Liberty Bell + Jonathan Hape tour later this spring.

THE LIBERTY BELL's myspace

in rainbows

i got the box set today. i am in love.

and another chapter is entered:

six new songs. quite, dark, and growing.

Friday: Procrastination 101

this is pretty much what i have been doing: watching/playing video games with tobias, hanging out with a bronchitis ridden andrea, blogging, and a squirt gun? well, something.

things that need to be done: send out cd's and press kits to local news and radio stations, send flyers to venues, send cd's and flyers to cd stores. i will not be doing this today, even though i had planned on doing this about 21 days ago.

things i have been listening to: louis and clark. good orchestrated folk
mount eerie: seven songs from mount eerie. wonderful wonderfulness
microphones: live in japan. okay stuff.
myself: an unfinished mix of blinking, a song for herbivore, which should be done by the time i leave on tour.

my mouth tastes like dry cigarette ash and coca-cola. luckily, i don't mind either.

My biggest fear/love/stress/salvation

so touring by yourself can be... well... i don't know. i've never done it before. i mean, it's a scary thing, but maybe something i need. people drive me crazy and maybe only having myself, music, and strangers will be a good thing.
the only problem is, if you don't have someone to share experiences with, does it matter?

i think from Feb. 14th to FEb. 26th i will be posting rabidly with photos, stories, reviews, and possibly distress signals.

"all our accidents went purposeful and fell. stripped of providence or any way to tell. our intentions were intangible and sweet. sick with simple math and shy discoveries piled up against our impending defeat."

i woke up

i was not surprised but thankful anyways.