March 11, 2005 - Boise, ID

The house we stayed at in Idaho Falls only had one bathroom, and it was located in one of the bedrooms. I woke up at about 4am really needing to use it but not wanting to walk through some dudes room. It drove me nuts and I lied in my sleeping bag trying to forget about it for at least an hour. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and went in. There was another dude asleep on the bedroom floor that I almost stepped on as I was walking back to my spot on the living room floor. It was dark so I had to fell my way along the wall. I went slow and hoped that I wouldn't stub my toe and scream and wake the whole house up. I almost did, though. It hurt really fucking bad. I finally made it back to the sleeping bag and fell asleep for another two hours. I woke up again and decided to take a shower before everyone else woke up. Afterwards, I was still tired so I went back to sleep. Then I woke up with everyone else and we got ready to go.

The drive from Idaho Falls to Boise required a bit of back-tracking, but nothing too serious. Four hours later and we were rolling in to town. We drove past the "venue" we were supposed to play at, and it was a house. We've played house shows before, so we were ready, but we couldn't load anything in for another few hours, so it was off to a Boise staple: The Pita Pit.

The girl at the Pita Pit looked pretty pissed when all 8 of us walked in at the same time. She looked even more pissed when the A-man asked her to use different gloves for our falafel. After we all had our food, we walked across the street and sat on the grass to eat. Some black metal kid wearing high boots, and having another pair of boots attached to his back-pack walked by and asked us for money so he could buy weed. We all kind of laughed and told him no. At least he was honest. As we ate our food, Brook decided he had a crush on the Pita Pit girl and wanted to go back over but had no reason. Then I remembered I left my sweatshirt inside, and Brook jumped at the chance. He went back over but right before he walked in, another dude did too. Turns out Pita Pit girl had a boyfriend and Brook came back over broken hearted. But he did have my sweatshirt.

Still having three hours to kill, we headed for the mall. A girl that used to work with me had transferred up to Express in Boise, so I wanted to see if she was there, and she was. She was pretty surprised when I walked in. I told her I had moved to Boise and needed a job, and she got really excited. Then I told her that wasn't true and it sort of killed her spirit. She wanted to come to the show, but I figured a hardcore house show wasn't the best environment for a 30-year-old Express manager, so I never called her to tell her where it was.

When we finally got to the house, there were already a few people hanging around outside. Brook and Jake saw some cute girls and tried to get them in the van, but they weren't having it, so they blamed their misfortune on Matt. The kid in charge showed up and Jake, Clint and Matt went to look around. They came back out and told us we had to get in there and see it, so we headed inside.

I didn't see the upstairs, but the basement walls were covered with tin foil and there were lots of black lights everywhere. It looked alot like the set of a cheap porno movie, and it probably was. That's what I decided after we started loading equipment into a green room with a "SEX" sign and an arrow on the wall.



The place could hold maybe twenty people, and even that was pushing it. We didn't care and as soon as we started, shit got crazy. We played our hearts out and the few kids that actually watched us looked like they were having fun so we were stoked.

After the show, some kid let us stay at his parents house and we made a bunch of spaghetti. Then Brook and I spent the next hour organizing the Aftermath merch, took showers and went to sleep. Portland was 7 hours away.

March 10, 2005 - Idaho Falls, ID

Since none of us are as popular as you'd like to believe, we had nothing to do for spring break. No vacation time in Mexico or Daytona Beach for us- just some awesome touring. We also figured, "hey Aftermath of a Trainwreck isn't that cool either. Let's take them with us." With that, the spring tour 2005 was formed. There were just a few minor problems: Richard couldn't miss work and Blake had some legal issues that prevented him from leaving Utah. That left Aftermath with no bassist and no drummer. Clint and I volunteered our services so they could go and we could have some fun. We had planned on meeting at my house at 1pm and leaving from there. The only problem was trying to get everyone there by that time. It didn't happen and we didn't get on the road until about 4 in the afternoon. Aftermath opted out of buying a van for just the three of them, rented a trailer and we all just piled in the Cherem van. It was cheaper on gas and more entertaining. Not to mention the fact that I probably wouldn't have to drive as much. As soon as we all get in the van, Brook and Jake Aftermath hop into the very back and declare the entire back of the van their territory. Brook even threatened to put up a sheet to seperate the area from the rest of the van. They thought they were pretty clever.

This was probably the best put together tour we'd ever been on. We had garauntees and 11 shows in 11 days. We were starting to feel like a real band. Clint takes the first shift driving and I assume my usual post of shotgun as we roll up to Idaho Falls. Somewhere between SLC and IF there was a billboard for the Idaho Space Center and Brook told a story of the moon crashing into Idaho sometime in the past, and that was the reason they had the space center. There were other jokes made, and I'm pretty sure Jake and Brook were the only ones laughing at them. Paul from Idaho meets up with us at a gas station and leads us to the show. It's at a preforming arts center and the show is already underway when we pull up. The first band is just finishing up and we all race to the bathroom since we hadn't stopped the whole way.

The next band started up, and I'm pretty sure they were more concerned with calling the crowd pussies and telling them to move around than the actual quality of their songs. The people that owned the place told everyone that if the language wasn't cleaned up they were shutting the show down. That shut them up for a minute, but then they played another breakdown and instead of talking shit into the mic, the kid just yelled it. I guess he thought he was being sneaky.

I had a discussion with Brook about how I may not fit in with Aftermath style, what with the long hair, so I packed my camo shorts and jerseys to make myself a little more HC. As the rest of the dudes started setting up, I changed into my sweet threads and grabbed the bass. The Aftermath set went alright, despite some bastard hitting me with a beverage. I was a little pissed about that, but let it slide when someone came up and apologized for it after the set. I thought about putting on a real shirt for the Cherem set, but felt that would just look ridiculous and left the jersey on.

The Cherem set went over pretty well. Kids danced and there were a couple sing-a-longs. I was worried that they might shut the show down when Bill yelled "Where is your fucking hatred", but then I remembered it was our last song anyway. So fuck them.

After the show, we took the van to the house we were staying at and piled in a few different cars and went looking for food. One car went to Taco Bell and the other car went to get real food, because, you know, fuck Taco Bell. That's about when Brook decided we were going to go the entire trip without fast food. Most of us were up for the idea, but Jake, the A-man and Matt weren't too into it. After we got back to the house, we made some delicious Garden Burger meals and popped in a DVD. We watched a movie that would set the tone for the next 10 days and inspire countless quotes and numerous references- Anchorman.