july 18th - springfield

i woke up in eric's bed alone. he was on the floor. i guess i kept rolling on him mostly unclothed and was making him hot so he got in the floor, or something like that. oscar, eric's son, got home right after i woke up, so i put some clothes on and we played with light sabers and video games for a while.

it was a pretty long drive to springfield from wichita. there are no decent highways connecting them, so we kept going through lots of small towns. when we finally got to springfield, we went out to piatt's mom's house to pick him up. he was hanging out with krunchy k.

we had a bit to drink and smoke, eric and james worked out what guitar parts eric might play that night since he'd never played guitar with us before. we'd written down a few notes for each of the songs just to give him an idea of what we were playing. eventually we made our way down to the outland.

we know the bar people there so we started getting free drinks as soon as we got there. we loaded our stuff into the front of the venue near the window where we always do and a girl from some touring band started telling me we needed to move it because they were using that space for their massive merch station. i suggested a booth near the same spot, she was cool with that, we kept loading, then i moved the car around the corner.

while the first band played, i showed the guys who'd never been to springfield before around the square and told them how there used to be lots of venues there and now they were all lofts. we went to the tatoo place where piatt used to hang out a lot to see ron little. turns out some of the guys we knew there were being watched by the FBI on suspicion of selling heroin, so ron had to let them go. he told us a story about one guy shooting up in the basement right before he loaded up his stuff to leave. but it all worked out okay, ron's place is still up and running and the FBI left him alone after he fired the guys they were watching. craziness.

we were supposed to play last, but one of the touring bands (the same one complaining about us loading gear where they wanted their merch) were insisting on playing last. we really didn't give a shit, so we went back to the bar and set up. the bar people gave us ever more free shots because of the mix up.

i handed the camera to krunchy k and showed him how to use it right before we went on. after the show i found out that he left after the second song so we didn't get hardly any video. that kind of sucked because it was one of our best shows ever. by the end of our set, it was super crowded in front of the stage, we played everything perfect. with piatt on drums and eric playing noise guitar, it was really beautiful.

lots of our friends were there, my brother even came up from fayetteville, it was a fun night.

we spent the night at jared's (bartender at the outland) apartment, it was in the same apartment complex that i'd lived in for a few months when i was 18, cherry plaza estates, on the corner of cherry and national.

around five in the morning, piatt jetted, saying something like, "i just gotta get outta here." so he takes off on foot, but somehow ends up back at his mom's house outside of town. he said he went to a waffle house and met a girl that took him out there. eric fell asleep in jared's closet sometime around then. zack and his friend took off for fayeteville around then too. the rest of us were up until the sun was.

after sleeping curled up in a chair for a few hours, i woke up and felt horrible. i threw up a few times, then went outside. it was blazing hot, i was wearing jeans. i threw up some more. i threw up behind the same art supply store i used to throw up behind in college. i was filled with nostalgia.

july 17th - wichita

i didn't reserve a trailer, so i spent the afternoon trying to find a trailer to pull behind my car. eventually, i found one in blue springs. trevis and james met me back at my house and we loaded guitar and bass stuff, no drums though, eric played drums for the kansas shows, so we used his drums.

left kc about 3, got to wichita about 6:30 and went to the bookstore where eric works. he had a PA and his drums set up in a vacant strip mall store connected to the book store. we loaded into the unrented strip mall store and played for a few hours. it was fucking hot in there. for the first time we'd ever played with eric, everything sounded pretty good. eric was wanting to practice more, but i like things messy and convinced him we'd be fine without practicing anymore.

around 9, we went to barleycorn's and started drinking free PBR. it was a two band night and we were playing second so we loaded our shit into the back room of barleycorn's and i changed from my swimming trunks and sandals into more bar friendly apparel (jeans/shoes). the first band, dream supreme, was pretty cool. one of the guys in that band had been in raygun administration with eric years ago, they'd just moved back from colorado.

the show wasn't as packed as it usually is when we play in wichita, but some of our friends were there: adam, charles, and their people. our set was pretty good, it was hard to get really into it with so few people there, but we played pretty decent and the sound guy did a decent job.

sweet baby james was passed out in the back seat, but when we pulled up to the only taco place we could find that was open at three in the morning, he mumbled something about needing a quesadilla. so we ordered some bean burritos, a fish burrito, and a quesadilla and went back to eric's house. turns out they gave us beef burritos, i ate a few bites anyway, but it was nasty, trevis got beef juice all over the only shirt he brought.

i stripped down to my underwear and got under the covers in eric's bed.

closing in

on the end.

there was a bit of a booking fiasco with our last show. it was supposed to be at the replay in lawrence with boo and boo too and norrit, but the 20th got double booked and we got bumped.

i sent a message to jeremy at the tap room about moving the show there, but haven't heard back. in the meantime, the replay is letting us stay on the show on the 20th since that's really our only option for a decent venue in lawrence this close to the date, but we have to open and we're not getting any door money, something about the contracts of the bands that bumped us.

but the bands playing that night are actually cool, so it'll probably still be a fun time, we're playing with the moaners and the spook lights. the show on the 19th at the brick should be really good, we're playing with witch and hare and the black tarantulas.

we met with crystal, a writer from the pitch, a few days ago and talked for a while. she's working on a piece about the end of the band and our last few shows. we needed a song to post with the article, so i remixed 'people are animals' for her to use.

it's here.

don't know if i should do this or not, since it's nowhere close to being done, but here's the rhythm tracks (drums, bass, rhythm guitars, main vocals) for a new song we recorded with gaurav last week. it still needs lots of noise guitars, background vocals, and more mixing, but it's getting close to sounding like almost being on the verge of somewhere close to done.

it's called troll.

baby birds is out on tour and just posted a live recording on their blog.

it's called 'are you going to the party at fuck mountain?'. go get it.

boo and boo too's new album No Tempo
is the best thing i've heard in a long time.

love/josh