August 21, 2004 - Boise, ID

So, about 3am Austin takes the wheel and I take to riding shotgun because everyone else is asleep and not getting up. We drive through the night and talk about important stuff for most of the way. Actually that's not true. I think we made mindless chit chat for about six hours because that's what happens at 5am in the middle of nowhere.

Either way, we rolled into Boise not knowing exactly what will happen with the show. We heard that Folsom was supposed to play, and that's what had us wondering. A few weeks before, a few of our friends had gone to Vegas to see a show, Folsom was there and ended up beating up one of our friends pretty bad. Seeing as how we were in Boise and three other bands from SLC were on their way, we figured things might get ugly real quick. Then Folsom cancelled. Surprise, surprise.

So we hang around the venue for a bit and decide to hit a Boise staple called the Pita Pit. There were "vegan" hot dogs for us, but we remembered about Chris Purkey's escapades the last time and opted out. After we got back, we were told the show would be starting soon. The Eulogy Tour that we had been following the entire weekend was in town, and luckily on the same show as us. It was some kind of benefit/fest and there were about 12 bands playing. At first we were told we were up like second or third, which kind of bummed us out because that meant playing at about 2pm. Then things changed and we were following Aftermath and Skeiff, neither of whom had shown up yet, so we were looking at a good spot around 5 or 6.

About 3:30, a bunch of cars roll up and it looks like half of Salt Lake has come up to the show. It had a good turnout already so this was just icing on the cake. Bring it Down was one of the first bands to show up that morning, and they play in Idaho more than they play in Utah and they had to play second or third I think. I felt kind of bad. But as the day wore on, Salt Lake played, then Black My Heart, Shattered Realm, The Judas Cradle and the Warriors tore everything apart. It was the best show of the tour, and I was able to pay myself back for all the gas I bought on the way.

We bid our farewell and climb in the van for our ride back to SLC. It was about 11pm, so we figured we'd get home about 4 or so, sleep in our own beds and head to our supposed "Big Show" in Salt Lake the next afternoon. Bill volunteered to drive, which was surprising because it was the first time he'd driven the entire trip. I tried to grab some sleep, but the floor of the van isn't the most ideal place to do that so I put on a little Nine Inch Nails and gave it a shot. Half an hour later I wake up to Bill saying he can't drive anymore. Clint volunteers and I climb up into the passenger seat again. About an hour later, Clint is spent and needs me to take over. I try but only last about an hour, too. I pull off to a gas station and decide I'm going to sleep for a little while. Clint liked the idea, grabbed a blanket and headed out to sleep on a small patch of grass in front of the gas station. At the time it sounded like a fine idea, mainly because I didn't care and just wanted to sleep. 45 minutes later I wake up to Clint looking for his wallet and two police officers standing outside our van. They talk to Clint for a few minutes while I half sleep/half listen to something about us being a death metal band and an abandoned hotel across the street. Clint gets back in, and I ask what happened.

"Well, I was asleep out on the grass and then I woke up to someone poking me and yelling 'Vamanos! Vamanos!' I looked up and it was a cop. He kept yelling at me in Spanish, but I had no idea what he was saying, so I just sat up and said 'I don't speak Spanish,' and he stopped yelling at me."

"He said he was driving by, saw me on the grass and turned around. I guess there's alot of Mexican bums that wander the streets and pass out at random places. He thought I was a Mexican Bum. I showed him my blanket and pointed to the van and told him that I was in a band. Then he asked for my ID and told me I couldn't sleep on the grass."

Now at 4 am after 36 hours of no sleep, this story was hilarious. Dan and I laughed for a good 15 minutes as we drove away. When we dropped Dan off at his apartment in SLC, Austin finally woke up. I was excited because that meant I got to tell him how Clint was mistaken for a Mexican bum. I could sleep easy after telling that story again.

August 20, 2004 - Olympia, WA

So after Clint and I are up, we take advantage of the Chevron next to the hotel and buy some breakfast; and by breakfast I mean coffee and junk food. We look at our atlas and I see that we've only gone about 100 miles. These bastards knew nothing of night driving. So I take the reigns and we're back on our way. We had tried to get a Portland show, but that proved to be futile because I guess Portland only has one venue and the Eulogy Tour was there that night.

Bill and Misty had friends in Seattle they wanted to see, so we thought about going up there and then driving back down to Olympia the next day. It sounded like a good idea.

Cut to a few hours later and we're out of gas. We pull in to a gas station somewhere and I get out. We didn't make a lot of money in Sacto, so we're short on money. I ask if anyone has any money they want to pitch in for gas because we don't have any band money left.

Complete silence.

So in order to get gas, I front the money to fill the tank then announce that we are definately not going to Seattle because I'm not paying to get there and then back down to Olympia.

Just outside of Portland we stop at a Denny's. Bill had heard rumors of their gardenburger being vegan, so we figured we'd give it a shot. The waitress really had no idea what we were talking about and just thought we were giving her a hard time by asking her to bring us the ingredient list, but she brought it out anyway. The rumors were just that, rumors. Not vegan, so we all just get french fries and fruit and try to figure out what we're going to do. I decide that I'd pitch for a hotel room in Olympia just so I could take a shower and get a good sleep because this was the only night we weren't going to have to drive through the night. Everyone else goes for it, that way we can just hang out and not worry about driving and spending alot of money.

When we got to Olympia, we found a hotel (after three tries) and checked in. I paid for the room, so I got first dibs on the shower, and that was all I really cared about. After that was over I watched Austin Myspace it up for a bit and looked out on the pool to see Dan and Clint causing a ruckus. Bill and Misty "took a shower" that lasted a good 45 minutes and required me to turn the TV volume up to an almost unreasonable level.

After that was all over, we hit the town. Well, we actually just went to a Wild Oats style store so we could get something to eat. It was a pretty nice place, and I bought some dinner that wasn't from a gas station so I was excited. I was the first one finished so I walked outside to wait for everyone. There was a big guy outside on his cell phone looking through the window, and as soon as he saw me come out, he just looked at me and turned away. In the back of my mind I had a slight feeling that we were about to get into some kind of fight. Not sure why, but these days no one needs a real reason. I went back in to the store and we rounded everyone up and left. As we got out into the parking lot, the big guy approaches us again, looks at Austin, pulls out a police badge and says,
"Excuse me. What did you do with the Chapstick?"
"What Chapstick?" says Austin.
"The Chapstick you had in your hand a few minutes ago."
Austin reaches into his pocket, pulls out some Soft Lips and goes, "Oh you mean this Chapstick?"
The cop looks at him, then at us, and back to him, "Let's go."
And they disappear back in the store.

We pile in the van and take off, not knowing if we're going to have to bail Autin out of jail or what, so we decide to have a look at the City. We park the van and take a walk. This is about the time we notice that Olympia is mostly hippies and drug addicts at night. It looks very different at night that it does during the day, get sick of being asked for money and go back to the hotel.

About an hour later, Austin shows up at the hotel. He took care of everything and walked back. He asked us to not say anything about it and we said okay. We lied.

The next day, we hit the store again for breakfast, but Austin stays in the van as he's not allowed back in there. Then we do what everyone does when they need to kill time, we go to the mall.

There was a sweet go-kart track outside, so everyone drops a few bucks and rides it and then we head inside to watch Without a Paddle. After the movie, we hit up the Hot Topic where we're told that My Chemical Romance is the best band around, that Straight Edge doesn't make sense unless you're Christian, and that Cherem sounds like "A discotheque with a coffin in the middle."

Too much fun, so we head to the venue to meet up with the Dead Unknown. When we show up, they tell us that their merch guy just got busted stealing from the same place Austin did and we all share a good laugh.

The show that night is kind of a bust because of the damn Eulogy tour in the town 15 miles away. Some of our merch gets stolen while we're setting up (Who the fuck steals from a hardcore band? That's just spineless. We're not rich. Our shit isn't worth anything. So fuck you to whoever stole it.) and my head blows out on the last song. So add that to the fact that we have no band money and I just get really depressed. After the show as everyone is shooting the shit, I just kind of wander off and wait to leave. I love the Dead Unknown kids, but I just wasn't in the mood to hang out. I just wanted to go. We finally do, and I get the first shift driving and the second shift riding shotgun. It was a long night.

August 18, 2004 - Sacramento, CA

Since the summer tour was a bit of a bust... okay, giant bust due to the complete and utter disorganization of the Total Liberation Tour, we decided to hit the road again on our own. We couldn't do much on short notice, so we just hit up the people that we knew. We were asked to play a local show called "Sabbathon" in SLC, and the day before that something called "Rememberance Fest" in Boise, so we just worked backwards from there. We could only get a few shows, so it wasn't more than four days we were gone. Our first stop was Mikey Hoods place, West Coast Worldwide.

So, a bit of backstorey on Hoods and Mikey...
About three years ago, I played for this band called Opened Up. Hoods came to town and Opened Up, along with Cherem, played with them (Cherem covered Firestorm). As Opened Up was setting up, the Hoods bass player got up on stage and exchanged words with our bass player. He doesn't have a real good temper, so things escalated quick. Hoods bassist told us they were playing next and we needed to "get the fuck off the stage." We obliged and proceeded to heckle Hoods for their first two songs. They were heckled pretty badly and one kid in the crowd had a little toy gun that shot rubber pellets, and was shooting them at the band. Finally, Hoods had enough, packed their shit up and left. Everyone in SLC wanted to fight them that night, and I'm pretty sure Hoods were pretty into fighting whoever, too but I think half of them had the flu and figured it would be an unfair fight anyway, so they just split. Then the internet shit talking began. Both SLC kids and SACTO kids did their part, but it got a bit out of hand. Quick finish... Three years later, Mikey Hood asks us to come out and play Sacramento and we say yes.

In true Cherem fashion, we don't end up leaving Bill's house until around midnight. He and his girlfriend Misty were still packing. We make the rounds to the store for soda and what not, find a gas station and are finally on our way to Sacramento at 1 am. We decide to drive through the desert at night because our sweet van has no A/C and it's the middle of August.

Now, the ride to Sacramento was probably one of the best tour drives I've ever had. Dan the man was riding shotgun and Bill was rocking the seat directly behind us, so the two of them kept me company while I drove my usual night shift. Basically we waxed intelectual about a few of the finer bands from the early 90's. I happened to have a Grunge Mix cd, so we popped that in and talked about all the greats for hours; Mudhoney, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, Soundgarden...etc. We vowed that when we got home we'd start a band like that, but it's still never seen the light of day. Every once in a while at practice or before a show Dan and I will rock some Smashing Pumpkins, though. I think that's as close as we'll ever get.

Around 8am we rolled into Reno and tried to get something to eat and maybe win a little money. Well, since only Bill and Misty took off and Dan and Austin aren't old enough to gamble, I lost money for everyone. Putting ten bucks on black twice and losing just pissed me off, so I wouldn't do it anymore. Even with Austin's money, I said no. Because I didn't want to win and have to give that smug bastard his winnings. That's why I refuse to play the slot machines for my dad whenever we pass through Vegas. If I won with his quarter I'd pretend it was mine, keep the winnings, then just feel like shit for doing so. I think I won once for Austin and told him that was enough. We piled back in the van, and I tried to sleep a little while Bill and Misty watched one of the worst movies ever, Monster, on Austin's laptop. Sleep didn't really work because by then it was hot, and I could keep hearing Charlize Theron playing a white trash whore. Heat and whores. That's the stuff nightmares are made of.

We finally got to Sacto around 1pm, and didn't really know what to do. We looked for the venue, but couldn't find it. We called Mike Hood and he told us load in time was about 5, but told us where the venue was. We looked, and true to Mikey's description of "looks like an abandoned building" we found it. We spotted a Tower Records and hit that up for about an hour, then as I headed for the comic shop down the road, everyone else hit up the coffee shop across the street. I met up with them there, and we killed a few hours and I tried to nap, but it still wasn't working. Finally it was time to hit the venue.

As we rolled up, we were greeted by Mike. In the back of all our minds, all we could think was: "This guy just lured us to Sacramento so he could beat the shit out of us in his own town. We're so fucked." Not so. We joked about the whole thing a little bit, but put it behind us and he introduced us to the bands we were playing with. Bloody Sunday was on the show, and we were pretty stoked. Good guys. We'd played with them in the Vegas junkyard.

This is about the time we learned that we were basically following the Eulogy Records tour. The Warriors, Shattered Realm and The Judas Cradle were playing in San Fransisco the same night, which meant there was about 40 kids there. It was still fun, though.

After the show, we went to get some pizza in the ghetto. We didn't know it was the ghetto until someone told us, "Don't park on that street right there. If you can't see the van it'll get broken in to." So we moved the van to avoid theft, and oh the irony, Dan's brother calls right then to tell him their apartment had been broken into.

After some decent pizza, we decide to drive through the night to Washington. We head out with Clint behind the wheel and I got the first bench all to myself. We watched a little of Full Metal Jacket and I was spent. I finally fell asleep around 2:30 am. I'd been awake for about 36 hours and I needed some rest. It was short lived, though. I woke up around 6:45 and we were parked in a hotel parking lot and the entire van was asleep.

July 17 & 18, 2004 - Los Angeles, CA

"So I get home last night, and Purified In Blood was in my basement lifting weights in their underwear. I guess I have a weight set at my house."

That was how my day started off, having Bill tell me this story. It was a bright spot in an already shitty day. It was only 2pm, too.

I still hadn't packed, and didn't have a suitcase to pack anything in, so after a little looking, I finally talk Boise Surprise Babe into loaning me her sweet hiking backpack in exchange for a couple of cd's. Punk Rock is So Totally Sweet Volume 1 (title copyright me) among them.

The more the day wears on, the more depressed I became until I finally was ready to just get the fuck out of town. We stop at the store before we leave to get some snacks for the 11 hour drive, and this is when everyone in my band finds out that...
A) I don't like pennies, but if I must carry change, it needs to be silver.
B) I will not share utensils for making sandwiches.
That said, I had to buy a whole bunch of plastic knives for when my craving for a PB&J arose. Dan also bought some drinks, one of which was a Fred Meyer brand fruit punch that I immediately re-named "Stomach Ache in a Can."

As we drove away, we saw a paper mill out by the highway on fire. It was pretty huge, and we all talked about how the authorities would probably blame all the vegan kids in town for the fest for it. Sure enough, the next day the police stopped by Bill's house looking for him. According to federal reports, our singer is the leader of a "terrorist cult" because he's vegan. In case you were wondering.

As we drove through the night, Austin told me another story to brighten the day. It goes like this...
We re-named SLC Grudge City, and Aftermath kind of adopted it as their hook. Their shirts say "Grudge City Straight Edge" and things like that. As Austin was driving with one of the Italians from Purification, Aftermath was in his stereo and he asked what it was.
"Aftermath of a Trainwreck."
"Oh yes. Grudge City, right?"
"Yeah."
"Is near here?"
"What?"
"Grudge City. Is close to Salt Lake?"
Austin then had to explain that it was merely a nickname for SLC and not a real place. He still didn't get it, then hilarity ensued as Austin attempted to explain what "grudge" meant to a car full of Italians.

Around 4am, we roll into a rest stop and as we get close, it looks as if someone is doing pushups on a bench and another is doing sit-ups. We were confused until we realized we had caught up with Purified in Blood, and it all made perfect sense. We shoot the shit for a while and head on our way.

We roll into LA around 7am and head for a coffee shop. We find one just off Hollywood Blvd. and take a seat. Coffee shops in the morning are one of my favorite things to do on tour, especially in California. I love watching all the people in LA pretend how important they are as they order their complicated drinks. We hung out there for a while then decided to look for something to eat. Nothing with vegan food opens until around 11, so we mill around outside a Guitar Center waiting for it to open. Guitar Center gets boring pretty quick, so we head to Real Food Daily. We have to wait for it to open for a little while, too. This is where I learned that Austin despises, not just dislikes, but harbors full on feelings of hatred towards Bluegrass Music. During the entire meal, he could not stop talking about how much he hated the background music. It was barely audible and not bothering anyone else, but he was about ready to march in the kitchen, find the controls and change the station himself. I think it made him hate his food, too. Too bad because it was delicious.

So after a few hours of tomfoolery, we head for the venue with our fingers crossed. The venue was on the fourth floor of a building, above a Thai Massage Parlor and a flea market in the heart of South Central LA, just around the corner from MacArthur Park. How stoked were we?

In addition to all this, it's completely unorganized. We were supposed to play on Sunday, but then we were moved to Saturday, then back to Sunday, then maybe we should do both days. After a half an hour we were finally told Sunday. They made a list of who played when for that day and it got underway. Four hours later, we had made it through 5 of 11 acts. No one had given time limits to the speakers, and they were just rambling about whatever for an hour each. Austin and Clint kept telling me to just decide to be in charge and get this thing moving, but I declined. Finally Tim Generations took over and everything began to run smoothly. And Make Move played. That was the highlight of the tour.

Funny side not about Tears of Gaia real quick; they broke down on their way from Chicago to SLC in Grand Island, Nebraska. We were so stoked. At the show Hector asked me if we went swimming in the awesome lake they had while we were stranded. I looked at him for a second and replied, "It was fucking January and 13 degrees. I was afraid to leave the hotel."

The LA show was a bust as far as people went. We were basically playing for the other bands and about 15 fans. Then we heard that the Oakland show was having problems and the Seattle show had fallen through. We were heading home after our show the next day.

The next day, we drive an hour to the venue only to learn that something broke and we had to relocate back 5 minutes away from where we had stayed the night before. We were no longer in South Central but instead in a Mexican Civic Center. Again we played for the other bands and a few randoms, and we started to pack up the van for the ride home.

I wasn't going to go home, though. I'd had enough of SLC for a while. It was stupid shit, but I wanted a vacation. I made some arrangements and as everyone left for SLC after the show, I went back to Sascha's house with Foek. The next day McCall picked me up and drove me down to San Diego. I was meeting some friends from SLC down there and we were going to nerd it up for a week at the San Diego Comic Con.

But first, I had to find a used clothing store. All I had was shorts, and there was no way I was spending the weekend at a comic convention showing off my Batman tattoo. I'm not that much of a nerd. Okay so I am. Fuck off.

July 15th, 2004 - SLC, UT

Total Liberation Tour, or as I call it, worst idea ever.

So Ian Liberation, the guy that booked the awesome fest in Erie, PA tells us he's going to take that show on the road. He tells Purification (Italy) and Purified in Blood (Norway) to fly over, do the tour and he'll reimburse them for their tickets and have a van ready for them. He gets in touch and asks us to be a part of it. Everyone else in the band was stoked, but not me. I wasn't feeling it at all. All I could think of was: So, a dude that can barely book a show in his own home town is going to book two days in 15 different cities and everything is going to go smoothly? Not a chance in hell. I try my hardest to talk everyone out of doing this, but they don't listen to me. They think it's a good idea. It sounded like one, but every time I tried to e-mail this Ian guy and ask a question, it would take him two weeks to get back to me, and even then he'd just avoid my questions and ask if I'd set up the show in SLC. I told him no, as I had no time to do it, nowhere to do it and no way of getting the $2000 he was asking for in each city. I hand it off to a couple friends of mine and they go to work.

Three days before we leave to drive straight to Syracuse, NY (Where the tour starts) we have a band meeting and decide to skip the first half of tour and pick it up in SLC. No one doing the tour has told us anything about it, where the $2K from each show was going and generally just avoiding all questions about it. I was confident in my decision, but everyone else was a little bummed about it. Two days later, the day the first show was set to happen, I log on to the TL website and this is what it says...
Total Liberation Day 1 - Cancelled
Total Liberation Day 2 - New Venue TBD
Hate to say I told you so, but I called everyone in Cherem and told them. It started to look like we made the right choice.

Ten days later, the SLC show happens. Colby, the dude in charge because I refused to take part in organization of a large fest, greets me as I show up to the Library Ampitheater. He tells me he needs help, I say sure and ask why. He says, "Ian quit the tour and went home."

I couldn't fucking believe it. Colby then proceeds to tell me that every show has been a disaster. No one had advertised or done any type of promotion for any of the shows and not one band, or the tour in general, had seen a dime. Add to that, when the European bands arrived in NYC, they had no van. Ian totally fucked them out of everything he promised them, been called out by Undying who told him to apologize or go the fuck home, and went home.

So here I am, now in charge of getting a PA system set up, scheduling bands, finding bands to fill in for the ones that decided to quit when everything went to shit, and essentially run the fucking show. The one thing I didn't want to do. No slight to Colby or Jake N, because they did an amazing job of getting everything set up, they just had a little trouble executing everything.

We get everything together by 2pm and the show, that was supposed to start at noon, is up and running. Gather opens and tests the water followed by Tears of Gaia. After that we dive into a three headed dragon of SLC hardcore: Skieff D'Bargg, Aftermath of a Trainwreck and Cherem. A few other bands play and some speakers give a little lecture and the Europeans tear the place down.

We took donations all day and Colby had been getting them for weeks, and at the end of the day he was able to give roughly $1200 to anyone on the tour not from SLC. That was fine by us, we made enough to get to LA for the next show.

We had talked about dropping off the tour altogether, but decided we'd just do one show at a time. Meaning we were going to drive to LA, and if that show was a bust, leave, but if it wasn't, keep going until we couldn't afford it. After the show, everyone was stoked and the turnout had been way more than we hoped for so we were off to pack and get ready for LA.

June 2, 2004 - SLC, UT

The only reason I'm writing about this show, is because it was a disaster as far as we were concerened.

Terror used to be one of my favorite bands, and some of the nicest dudes I know, so I'd been trying to get on a Terror show for months. They'd come through a few times, but for some reason we never got on the show. Finally, we got on the MADE tour as the opening band. Figured it was going to be a good show all around. We show up at about 6:45 and there's nowhere out front to park, so we used the handicapped spot. We were just going to unload the van then find a parking spot. We got about 1/4 of the way unloaded and parking enforcement shows up. The asshole tells us that we had to move and he meant business. I try and talk him into letting us just unload everything and then we'll move. He says if the van isn't gone in ten seconds, he's giving us a $75 ticket. We shut the van, I drive around the block and park in front of a driveway. We recruit some kids in line and get everything out before he gets back. I park the van and run back to the venue. It's about 7pm at that time. Chris is at work and Bill is at school. They said they'd be ther by 7:30 or 7:45. I figured that was no problem since show usually start around 8.

Not tonight, though. The club has just come under new management and set a curfew for 11pm. They also hired a stage manager. We'd played in this club at least 5 times before and never had to deal with anyone except Blake, but that night, Blake wasn't able to do much because the new managers had some grand idea of getting everyone out for no reason other than they wanted to get home in time for MASH. So as Clint is setting up, the stage manager walks up on stage.

"Alright, we're on curfew tonight, so you guys get twenty minutes. Start at 7:15 and be done by 7:35."
I looked at Nick, then turned back.
"Are you joking me? Start at 7:15? There's 25 kids outside."
"I'm serious. Get this shit set up, man. We've got a schedule to keep."
"Well," I said, "I think we have a problem because out bass player and singer aren't going to be here until at least 7:30."
"Why?"
"We were told the show wasn't going to start until 8."
"Nope. Doors are at 7, show starts at 7:15."
"Well. Fuck."
"What do you wanna do?"
"Looks like we're not playing."
"Are you sure?"
"Can't play without a bass or vocals."
"Shit man. Sorry to hear that. Let's get this stuff out of the way then."

Then he helped us move all of our stuff off the stage. At 7:45 Chris and Bill roll in, and I break the news to them. Chris thought I was joking and Bill didn't really seem to care aside from the fact that he left school early for nothing.

It was a hell of a last show for Chris and Nick.

June 1, 2004 - Provo, UT

Chris, Nick and I met Clint at the Albertson's way out in the middle of fucking nowhere. (aka right by Clint's house, in Draper. I'm a downtown kid. Anything past 6300 S. is far away.) We hop in the van and drive out to the show. There is some wicked traffic, so it takes us longer than usual.

Now Provo shows can really go either way. If there is some kind of tech-metal band (which we aren't) on the bill, kids will come. Otherwise you're pretty much shit out of luck. With, of course, the exception of about 5 people. Those five people know who they are, and we love them. The rest of the Provo scene pretty much consists of dipshits. Dipshits that smoke because it makes them look hip. I guess it's their way of rebelling against all the mormon stuff that goes on there. Not really sure, and all I know is that I haven't been back there since this show.

Anyway, Rob from Bring it Down sets the show up with BID, Cherem, Gone Without Trace, Bound In Blood and the Hi Fi Massacre. HiFi is a Provo tech metal band, and like I said before, the type of band that draws kids. So, everything goes alright to start the show off with. We do our thing and there's about twenty five kids watching us and another thirty standing outside on the sidewalk smoking. It doesn't really bother me, because that's how some shows go, but as soon as HiFi starts setting up all the kids start piling in. The other bands borrowed my cabinet, so as I was getting it off the stage, I get sort of pushed out of the way so someone else can get up on it. It's the singer for HiFi, which until that night, I'd been told he was a real nice guy. I think whoever told me that was lying. I shrug it off, move my stuff out and go sit behind the counter with the merch. Halfway through HiFi's set, two girls come up to the table and ask to buy HiFi shirts. They start asking all kinds of questions about what colors and sizes I have. I politely tell them that I'm in Cherem, and don't have answers for them but if they wait until after the set someone in the band could probably help them out. They give me a couple dirty looks and walk away.

After the set is over, the singer walks over and takes his place next to me selling HiFi stuff. I tell him good set, and he ignores me. This kid was starting to piss me off acting like that. I brush it off and tell him about the girls that asked questions. I tried to turn it into a slightly humerous story to get a positive reaction out of him. He looks at me, looks away and mumbles, "Yeah, whatever." Now, at that point I'd had just about enough of this fucking guy. I pack our merch up and get the fuck out of there.
I'm not really sure what all happened, because we'd played Provo with those dudes before and everything, to my knowledge, was cool. I guess not anymore.

Oh well. Fuck Provo anyway.

May 31, 2004 - Boise, ID

So we get a call from a kid up in Boise asking us to come play a show. He says it will be a good turn out, so we decide to do it. He gives us a date and we agree. We talk with Bring it Down and they're playing the show, too. A couple of the bands from that show are going to be in Provo the day after, and they ask us if we want to play and we say yes. We have a show two days before this in SLC with Love is Red and we get them on the Idaho show, so basically we make a mini-tour out of three shows.

We were asked to play the MADE tour that comes through with Terror the day after Provo. It sounds a little ridiculous, I know but we made a mini-tour out of four shows in 5 days. 2 in SLC and one 45 minutes away. Whatever, we'll do as we please.

Back on track... Chris and Nick had decided these were going to be their last shows. Nick was starting a new job and couldn't commit to touring and Chris had a family to support, so he couldn't tour either. So that's the main reason we made kind of a big deal about it, as a little send off for them. The Love is Red show went well and we were excited about playing up in Boise, so we planned on meeting at Bill's house Monday morning at about 10.

Monday morning rolls around and we all start to arrive. We took Foek with us, because it's fun and he's good company on long rides and Dan (our new future bass player) decided to come along because he really didn't have much else to do. Plus we had a little extra room in the van, because Chris decided he was taking his own car. So Chris rolls up to the house and comes inside.

He looks at me and says, "I've got a surprise for you in the car." I head over to the window and take a look, but all I can see is Candace.
"Um," I say, "all I can see is your wife. That's not a very good surprise."
"No," says Chris, "in the back seat."
I head outside and take a look as to what kind of surprise he's talking about, and sure enough, he brought along my friend Andrea. It was a pretty good surprise, I'll give him that.

We all pile in our respective rides and start on our way. Clint put his cd player in the van this time, so we had something else to listen to while we drove. Instead of me singing and gangster rap. I brought the rap, just in case though. When we all got to Boise, Chris told us a story of how there was an accident on the freeway and he had to pull some Bad Boys II shit. He said that a car flipped over and was flying at them, so he had to swerve and drive under it at like 70mph. I didn't believe him then, and I still don't to this very day.

While we're waiting on a few of the other bands, Andrea got a headache, so she and I take off to find a store. I didn't feel like driving the van, so Chris offered to let me take his car. I jusmped at the chance, because it sort of looks like a race car and would probably be fun to drive. Fun wasn't exactly the word I would use now, though. It's difficult and loud. That's what it was. I felt so stupid rolling up the Albertson's with a car that made more noise than a poorly functioning lawnmower. Either way, we get some Tylenol and head back to the venue.

When we get back, the promoter comes up to us and tells us that they made food for all the bands. We usually don't pay much attention to this because when it happens, they usually forget that we're a vegan band and we don't really want pepperoni pizza. This was different though, because he tells us that he went out and got vegan hot dogs for us and they're all ready to go in the snack bar area. We all head over and grab a hot dog or two and go back to hanging out. As we're all sitting around bullshitting, I notice that Candace, Chris' wife, hasn't eaten any of her food. There's a small chunk sitting on the side of the plate and that's it. Chris asks her why she isn't eating and she says she doesn't think hers is vegan. Chris tells her that it is, because they cooked all the regular dogs on one side and the vegan ones on the other, and he got hers from the vegan side. She still didn't believe that it was vegan. Chris was very adamant that it was, and to prove it, he'd take a bite. So he grabs it from her plate and takes a big bite. He chews it for a second, then looks at us in horror and spits it out. "Fuck, that's a real hot dog!"
"I told you." said Candace quietly.

That kind of bummed the rest of us out and we didn't go back for seconds.

The show was pretty good after that. We couldn't hear a damn thing on stage, so we were convinced that everything sounded like complete shit and got really bummed. But after we got back to our merch table, everyone told us that we sounded really good, and the sounds sucks while you're on stage but everything sounds good from the floor. That made us feel a little better.

After the show was over we packed everything back into the van and started on our way home. I got first shift driving on the way home, but could only make it about two and a half hours before I got too tired. I tried to entertain myself and stay awake by texting with Andrea who had already left, but that proved to be a bad idea because I think I almost crashed several times. Fianlly Little Nick took over, then Dan and when they were both done I took over for the rest of the way into SLC. I dropped everyone off and went home to catch a nap before heading down to Provo.

April 1, 2004 - SLC, Utah

I don't write about local shows ever, mainly because they all blend together as one long show, but this is a story I felt needed to be told.

Some dude named Danny emailed us and asked if we'd play an animal rights benefit show. Seeing as how we're a vegan band, we felt it would be the right thing to do. He tells us that it will be on April 1st, which is April Fools Day. Now, I love April Fools Day, and am all about jokes. I took this as an opportunity to play a joke on everyone. I talk the dudes into posting on our website that Bill has had a run in with the law and is under investigation as a terrorist threat. Sounds ridiculous, but in SLC it sounds about right. Anyway, we post that his lawyer advised him against any contact with straight edge kids or vegan kids. Since we didn't want to bail on the show, we wrote, Brook Aftermath would be filling in on vocals. Everyone bought it. We had e-mails from all over asking how Bill was and if we needed any help. We were good to go.

The show was an akward line-up. There were two indie bands, a gutter punk band and us. We sneak Bill in through the back door, and start to get everything set up. We tell the sound guy that we need two microphones, and he gives us two mics. Now, the way it was supposed to go down was like this: Bill gets a mic stands to the side of the stage and sings, while Brook jumps around and lip syncs, thus confusing anyone paying attention. Then at the end of the first song, we say "April Fools" and Bill sings the rest of the set. There was only one problem: The dumbass sound guy didn't turn on the second mic. So we start playing with no vocals, and Brook stands around looking like an idiot waiting for Bill to start singing.

Needless to say our joke fell flat. I was disappointed.

March 17, 2004 - Las Vegas, NV

We'd never played Vegas before, but Aftermath of a Trainwreck knew some dudes down there and said it would be good times. We figured what the hell, and drove down there.

There was one problem.

As we left SLC we realized that someone had taken all the tapes out of the van. I hadn't brought any with me, because they were still supposed to be in there. We had one tape to last us the 13 or so hours it would take to get down there and back. We took the two back seats out and loaded 7 people into the van. Clint, me, Nick, Bill, Chris G, Misty and Megan. It wasn't really that comfortable, but I rode shotgun so I was fine. Misty brought a Cosmo with her, I hijacked it and read the whole thing cover to cover and it kept me entertained. We pulled into Vegas and head for Vegi House and immediately  after that it's over to Ronald's Doughnuts.

For those of you that don't know, this is a place that specializes in vegan doughnuts. I'm pretty sure it's only because they ingridients are cheaper, but who cares? They're vegan. We load up on those and head out to the venue. Brook gives me directions, and we follow them.

"Turn left at the women's prison and head to the end of the road," is the one line that still sticks out to me all these years later.

At the end of the road is a junkyard, and I assume we've taken a wrong turn. Not so. Aftermath rolls up shortly after and we're let in the yard.

The junkyard guy tells us not to go near the fence that borders the prison, as the guards get angry and start yelling.

We hang out for a while and wait for the other bands to get there, find a nice little piece of wood, make it into a table and set up our merch. Once again, Chris Purkey couldn't come because he had to work. He was being a pussy, basically. "I can't go. I have to work to provide for my wife and two month old son." I would have told him to grow up, but I think that's just what he did. So Brook pretended to play bass for us again. Most of SLC showed up and we played a good set. It was fun, Aftermath was fun, Bloody Sunday and Shattered Realm were good and we didn't watch Folsom.

When the show was over, we started on our way home. I'm not sure why, but this was around the time that I started to be given the task of night driving. So we head on our way. About two hours into the drive, I get really sick of my gangster rap tape. I eject it and begin singing Misfits songs to myself to stay awake. I was the only one up and I was singing quietly. Or so I thought. When we got home, Nick told me that he wasn't all the way asleep and heard me singing for about an hour. I was a little embarassed. Either way, we dropped everyone off and I went home to take a nap. My other band had a show that night.

January 11, 2004 - Erie, PA Day 2

So after a day of music at one venue, we're told all the speakers will be held in another venue on the other side of town. Luckily they told us that the night before and we didn't drive all over town again the next day.

The speakers were very hit or miss. Some of them were good, and you could tell they do this for a living. Others sounded like they made up a speech in the car on the way over. There was no time limit, which was a good thing for the pros, but a bad thing for dipshits that rambled on and on for an hour about how eating roadkill was still technically vegan. At this point in the trip, I needed a little time off. It had been a hell of a week and I couldn't stand being in the back corner of a large room, not being able to see a damn thing. So I took off. I walked about a block and a half to the first Starbucks I could find, sat down and just relaxed for an hour or so. I made sure I was back in time for Rod Coronado. He was basically the only reason we didn't take off that morning and start our trek of a 35+ hour drive home. He was the last speaker and well worth the wait. He spoke for about an hour and made the second day worth seeing.

As soon as he was done, we piled in the van and started our long, long drive home. The highlight of which, was that we drove 45 minutes out of our way to hang out with Wayne at Fazolli's in Grand Island, Nebraska. He hooked us up with some sweet breadsticks.

We rolled in to SLC at about 5am Tuesday morning after leaving at 11 Sunday night. I climbed into bed for a quick nap, but had to be up soon. I had class at 10 am.

January 10, 2004 - Erie, PA

Possibly the most unorganized fest in history, and it's what we put up with all this shit to play at.

We wake up pretty early and head on our way. We've gotten directions to the venue, but don't really know how to find it. Doesn't matter though, as Tim of Gaia calls to tell us the show has been moved. 11am and the day is off to a good start. We get the new address and head for the van. It's maybe 15 degrees outside, but at least it wasn't snowing. We start on our way, and eventually find where we need to be. What else do we find? Cops. About four of them. They tell us the show has been moved and to leave. We ask where it's been moved to, and they tell us they don't know and walk away. We call Tim and ask what the deal is now, and he says that there is an old ballroom that the show has been moved to and gives us directions.

Apparently the police have been giving the promoter a hard time all week and this is his last resort for a venue, and it's about the 5th one. We pull up to what I think is an abandoned building, but no, it's the ballroom where the show is. Eight inches of snow cover the sidewalk all around, and a few of the windows are broken. We park the van in the parking lot across the street and head inside for a look. Imagine an abandoned warehouse that is only used for shitty raves every three or four months and you've got the idea of what it looks like. There are a few bands there and no one knows what's going on.

The promoter walks around like he's just about given up and just says "I don't know" whenever he's asked a question. Oh, there's no heat in the building either. Then the fire marshall shows up and declares the building unsafe for a show. So everyone starts working on how to get the place in working shape. Shoveling snow, fixing exit signs, etc... All the while, the promoter stands around looking like he's ready to go home and sleep.

After a good two hours of standing around and fixing things, the show finally starts. No one is really moving around because it's hard to get into a band when everyone is wearing giant coats, gloves and hats. As the day wears on people start getting into it, more people start showing up and it gets warm enough that a long sleeve shirt kept you warm. Until the sun went down, that is. Then it got cold as hell all over again. By the end of the day, we deemed the show a success and made a bunch of new European friends (Purification and Purified in Blood) and set off to find a hotel.

January 9, 2004 - Pittsburgh

It turns out that the only part of the hitch we need is the cheapest part. Our day is off to a good start, and we only have about two hours to go before we get to Pittsburgh. It's a short, uneventful ride. Good for listening to a little music and just haniging out. We roll in to Pittsburgh, with nothing to really do. We have about two hours before load in, so we just head into the first empty parking lot we can find. It's a joint lot between the Steelers and Pirates stadiums, so we just hang out and find out where the venue is.

Pittsburgh is an awesome city, but not built for a large van with a trailer. It was a pain in the ass to get around there, so we didn't get to do much hanging out. The venue was about 20 miles outside the city, so we went up that way hoping to find somewhere to eat. The promoter told us the name of the venue was "The House of Hardcore" and we'd see a sign as we drove up the road. We got all excited to be playing at an actual venue, at a real show and in front of more than 25 people. He told us to look for the sign, and if we hit the strip club we've gone too far. We saw the strip club, turned around and called him. He said to head back, and we were sure to see the sign. Sure enough, we got back down the road, and there was a kid putting a large piece of plywood out in front of a house that read, "The House of Hardcore." So, at this point in Cherem's tour career, we've played more house shows than actual venues. Fuck it. If kids are there, I'll play anywhere.

The show actually turns out really well. Lots of kids show up, they get into it and everything goes well. After the show, the promoter gives all the money to Undying, who turns around and gives us a cut of it. Everyone in that band is awesome and I think they felt bad after they heard our story of trying to make it to this god damn fest. Plus, Bill is kind of friends with them. He almost sang for them, but didn't want to move to North Carolina.

After the show, we decide to head up to Erie. It's only about three hours away, and we don't know what time the Fest starts or where it is or when we play, so we want to be ready early. So as we get going, it starts to get colder than it's been the entire trip. Brook drove and the defrost was barely working.

I stayed awake most of the drive, and as we rolled into Erie, Brook turned on the radio. The high for the next day was 11 degrees. It was 1 in the morning and I'd never been so cold in my life. A few of our friends had driven out from SLC for the Fest and had a hotel, so we were going to stay with them. We got in the room and it was one of the smallest rooms I'd ever seen. There were 11 of us, and we barely had room to lay down. Chris slept under the sink and I had to sleep in the bathroom.

But before that, Brook and I were so hungry that we had to eat. All I'd eaten that day was Subway, and it just didn't cut it. All of our food was in the trailer, and neither of us dared to venture out into the sub-zero temperature for a sandwich. So Brook paid Nick $5 to go get it for us. And it was totally worth it, once we thawed the frozen bread with the complimentary hair dryer.

January 8, 2004 - Somewhere

So we set off on our way to Pittsburgh, hoping that nothing goes wrong. Everything goes well, and we start to get a little uncomfortable. We got good news with the Undying show, but surely we can't be on a roll. At least that's what I thought. We stopped at a truck stop to gas up. I was bored with my music and couldn't listen to anything anymore, so I bought a book on tape. The Pleasre of My Company by Steve Martin. I was excited. I was in the very back seat of the van, stretched out in my sleeping bag with my headphones on and just relaxing.

Then I hear it.

BOOM!

Then from the front seat, Chris yelling, "Oh shit!" Everyone turns around and looks out the back window. I pull my headphones off and sit up. Right out the back window, the trailer hitch has broken and the trailer is being dragged behind us on the highway at 70 mph by a chain. Sparks are flying out everywhere. Chris doesn't know what to do, so he slows down and tries to pull over. As he slows down, the trailer comes flying towards the back of the van. I think to myself, "Oh fuck. This is going to be bad."

I could imagine it perfectly in that split second. Of everything that was running through my mind, the main thought was, "This trailer is going to hit us, break out both these windows and send shards of glass flying at my face. I am so fucked. I was so comfortable in the back with my tapes and my sleeping bag, now I am fucked."

Then the trailer hit us.

And nothing happened.

It dented the back doors. That was all. We pull over to the side of the road, and try to figure out what happened. It started to snow while we were on the side of the highway. The pin that holds the trailer to the hitch broke off somewhere, and that's what started this. Brook gets on the phone with AAA and tries to explain what happened. AAA doesn't care, because they don't cover trailers. That's U-Haul's department apparently. Brook hangs up, and we decide to fix it ourselves and just get to the nearest hotel. We'd fix it for real the next day. Someone finds a 6" bolt on the side of the road that works pretty well. We stick it in there and duct tape the fuck out of it, climb back in the van and drive 45 mph 5 miles to the next exit. We get off somewhere, find a hotel and stay the night there. Only about 2 hours away from Pittsburgh. Told you everything was going too well.

We did have a little fun in the hotel though, so that helped.

January 6, 2004 - Milwaukee, WI

The van is supposed to be finished first thing in the morning, but surprise, surprise, it isn't.

We head to Fazolli's for breakfast and kill time. We play in Milwaukee tonight with Wings of Scarlet and Tears of Gaia. It's a 10-11 hour drive there from GI, so we have to haul ass. The van is done at noon, we get back to the hotel throw everything in and take off.

Sias drives like a crazy man. 90 to 100 mph in a van with a trailer, weaving in and out of traffic, scaring the living hell out of me. After an hour, I couldn't take it anymore, put my headphones on and tried to sleep. Bill asked how I could sleep, he couldn't take his eyes off the road, because Sias was scaring him, too. Parker of Scarlet calls us to say he's delaying the show as long as possible, but it still has to start at about 8 pm (it was supposed to be 5). We roll in half an hour after the show ends, but people are still hanging out. We borrow Tears of Gaia's equipment again, and play for 20 people. We sell a few shirts and a cd or two and find out some awesome news...

The rest of our shows fell through. No shows until the TL fest on Saturday. 4 days away.

We hit up a pizza joint after the show, and Parker tells us we can stay at his house, so we head back there. Parker's house is the most cluttered place I have ever seen. Granted, I was in heaven because he had Star Wars toys everywhere, but it made it difficult to find a place for 8 of us to sleep. Bill and Chris shared a love seat and slept sitting down, I fucked up my back by trying to stretch out on another love seat and the rest of the dudes slept on the floor.

The next morning around 7 am, someone, I won't mention any names (Sias) used the bathroom and tried to flush the toilet. Tried is the operative word here, as the pipes were frozen and nothing happened. So we break the news to Parker when he wakes up at 11 and head out to eat. Tears of Gaia tell us that they e-mailed Undying to try and get on their Pittsburgh show friday night. We figure it's worth a shot and head to the library. We wander around Milwaukee for a while, in the bitter cold, and where do we end up? A record shop. We've covered my feelings on this before, so I'll skip to us walking back to Parker's house. I thought Grand Island was cold, but Milwaukee is colder than that, so we walked as quick as we could.

Parker's toilet still isn't fixed and the landlord can't get there until the next day, so he tells us that we can stay at the house we played at the night before. We figured that was a good idea, as she has more room and a working bathroom. She was also making vegan fried chicken that night so we should hurry over there. It's a regular party over there and we all have a wonderful meal. The girl that owned the house told us that she knew a guy from SLC once that she talked to all the time on the internet. She met him on Makeoutclub and at one point was going to move to SLC to be with him, but again, I won't mention any names (Nate Briscoe). As the night went on and we watched TV, the who's who of Milwaukee showed up. At one point, this guy dressed in drag walked in and pranced right upstairs. It was obviously a guy, but trying really hard to fool everyone. It didn't work. We asked what the deal was, and the girl told us how he tricked the guitar player from a band when he was drunk and ended up making out with him. She wouldn't tell us who it was, but I figured it out. A few months before, I was talking to someone and he was telling us how he got really drunk and made out with a dude. He wouldn't tell me where he was, but everything started falling in to place. I asked her if I was it was, oh fuck it, it was Scott of From Autumn to Ashes. She said yes, and we laughed and laughed. Then my phone rang and it was The girl from Undying. She had gotten us on the show in Pitts, and made our night. We had two days to get there and decided to leave in the morning, that way we would for sure have a enough time to get there. Because if we learned one thing on this trip, nothing is ever going to go as planned.

January 5, 2004 - Grand Island

Chris and Clint got up at 7:30 and went to the transmission shop to see what the damage was and how much it was going to cost us. They said they'd take a look at it and call us in a few hours. We try to keep sleeping, but at 10:40 AM the door opens and some lady walks in. Now, had we been rock stars or movie gods, this story might take some kind of eventful turn. But no. The lady looks about 40, about as unattractive as you can get, and wears stone washed jeans and a flourescent yellow parka. She asks what the hell we're still doing there and that we're supposed to be checked out. Nick asks what time checkout is, she tells us 11. We tell her we have 20 minutes left, she mutters something about too many people in the room and shuts the door. We get all our stuff, load it in the van and head across the street to our new home away from home: Fazolli's.

We're all starving because we haven't eaten anything but frozen bread and shitty Walgreen's chips for the past 16 hours. Thank God for this place. Spaghetti and all you can eat breadsticks. Plus, we took over the part room in the back so the rest of the GI population wouldn't get mad at Lil Nick swearing. Clint gets a call and we find out what the damage is. The transmission is shot. A new one is going to cost us $2,000.

We think about our options for a minute, and figure we're renting two mini-vans, ditching the trailer and driving back to SLC. Then Clint's mom agrees to loan us the two grand and our trip starts looking better. So we sit at Fazolli's for a while, then hit up some of GI's finest. Like the mall and K-Mart. Then we returned the van and got another hotel room. We were right next to Fazolli's, so we went back for dinner. The transmission shop tells us the van will be ready by 11 the next day. That gives us barely enough time to get to Milwaukee for our show with Wings of Scarlet. We hang out at Fazolli's until it closes, and try to convince Nick to hook up with the breadstick girl. She asked if we were a band. Brook told her we were. She asked what we sounded like. He said "Kinda like Dave Matthews Band, but heavier."

I guess she wasn't into it because she didn't come back to the hotel with Nick.

Omaha, Nebraska - January 4, 2004

We were invited to play the Total Liberation Fest in Erie, Pennsylvania. We'd never been east of SLC before, so we were excited with the exception of one thing: Who the fuck decided it was a good idea to schedule a fest in Erie in the middle of January?
Either way, we were game. It's not like any of us had anything better to do, and it sounded promising with Undying, Purification, Freya, etc... So we set up a little tour to get us out there and we were set. We just had to buy a van and find someone to play bass, because Chris had real job, and a wife and like a child scheduled to be born the week we were gone. You know, grown up stuff. So Brook Aftermath decided to fill in on bass. He doesn't actually know how to play or anything, but he wanted to come. Plus, who really needs the bass? I saw Unearth once without a bass player. They sounded fine.

We got a van like three days before we left, and we rented a trailer the day we were leaving. It was a 13 hour drive from SLC to Omaha, and it was snowing, so we left Saturday night. That gave us about 24 hours to get there. We figured we'd need it. About 45 minutes into our trip, I started getting cold in the back of the van. I told Bill to turn the heat on in the back. He said that it was. Guess what? The only part of the heater that worked was the defrost. Score for us, eh? I was the only one that brought a sleeping bag, so I was the only one that wasn't freezing to death during the night.

Somewhere in Wyoming we get pulled over, and four cops surround the van. We had to scrape ice off the inside window to see, but we did. Apparently there was a new law that you're supposed to change lanes if an officer has someone pulled over. We didn't know, and so that's why the entire Wyoming police force stopped us. They gave us a warning and we were on our way.

Around noon on Sunday, Brook is driving and the engine makes a weird noise and we stop accelerating. Our transmission is out. In the middle of fucking Nebraska. Brook uses his brother's AAA card that he stole and we call for a tow truck. They tell us that only two people can ride in the truck and they won't take a trailer. Which means 6 of us on the side of a highway with a trailer in the bitter cold. The tow truck guy gets there, feels sorry for us and tells us all to stay in the van. He puts the van with all of us in it on the back of his truck, hooks up the trailer and takes us to the nearest town.

Welcome to Grand Island, is what the sign read as we passed by. The tow truck dropped the van off at a transmission shop and charged Brook $45 for hooking up the trailer. It's sunday, so the shop is closed. Clint, Bill and Chris head out looking for an auto parts store. The rest of us wait in the freezing cold van and try to watch Family Guy on Brook's mini DVD player. It gets too cold and we set off to find somewhere to hang out. You know what the only thing open in Grand Island, Nebraska on a Sunday is? Fucking McDonald's. Eight vegan kids stranded at McDonald's for 4 hours. Finally we get ahold of a rental car place, get our heads and guitars out of the trailer and haul ass to our show in Omaha which is two hours away. We get there and there's a storm East of Omaha and all the roads in, except the one we came on, are closed.

7 people at the show. I fucking counted. The promoter, his girlfriend and five friends of the opening band, Bloodcow. Let's talk about them for a minute. Imagine somebody really, really liking Pantera and someone else really, really liking the Dead Kennedy's. Well, put them together and you have Bloodcow.

We make $17 and head back to Grand Island to get a hotel and find out how much our van will be. The only hotel still open when we get back is infested with Roaches, but we stay there anyway. Semi-warm hotel with roaches vs. freezing cold van wasn't a tough choice.

August 12, 2003 - Corona

We get to Corona around noon, but don't know how to get ahold of anyone at the venue. So what do we do? Go to the record store. I fucking hate record stores. Now, I know they are similar to comic shops, but here's the difference. I know what I'm looking for when I go to a comic shop. I have list, a small list, of things I want. I don't go in there blindly for hours at a time looking for obscure colored records of bands that aren't very good anyway. I started collecting records back when I thought it was cool. It wasn't and I quit. Fuck records.

Anyway, after an hour or so at the record store, we went to the other place to kill time, the mall. We wandered around there for three hours or so then went to the venue. We sat around outside for another hour and a half before the doors opened for load in time. I was a little nervous for a few different reasons. I've never played a real out of state show before. I've played a few basement shows, but nothing with an actual stage, sound guy or over 50 people. Plus, there's been bad blood between SLC and California kids for a long time. Most of it started over the damn internet and it was all stupid. It ended up being fine, though. We cleared up whatever problems were there and everything went well.

It was Cast In Stone's last show, and we played with DEATHSTAR, so there were a lot of Christian kids around. Thom from DS used to play drums for us when he lived in SLC, so he came and played on Slit Wrist. It was fun, even if it was a bit sloppy.

After the show we decided to head home. Chris had to work the next night so we had to get going. We all tried to stay awake, but it wasn't happening. We made it to Primm, NV and got a hotel room at about 4:30 am. I jumped in the shower, because I hadn't showered in two days and had hung out in 110 degree weather and played two shows. I felt disgusting. No one else showered. After that, I wasn't tired anymore so I went gambling. 20 minutes later I had lost 30 bucks and called it a night. We slept until 11 when we had to check out, and that's when the fun began. Chris' car kept over-heating, so we'd have to pull over and let it cool down every 1/2 hour or so. It took us forever to get home, so I ripped the sleeves off my shirt and cracked open a cold one every time we pulled over. Nothing like the open road and Cherry Pepsi. You should try it.

August 11, 2003 - Phoenix

Our first time on the road with Cherem. We had a whole tour mapped out and were planning on going with my and Bill's other band 78 Days After Death. It was going to be about a week and a half, but then we suffered a series of setbacks. Let me explain.

1) 78 Days broke up. That was a long time coming, as it was just Bill and Jake that actually cared. Even they had started to lose interest, and I was just playing bass so I didn't really matter.

2) None of the shows came through. We ended up only getting one and a half shows out of what was supposed to be 9 or 10.

3) The kid that was going to let us take his van decided against it a week before we left.

All three of those left us with a house show in Phoenix and a real show in California, but no way to get our stuff there. Fortunately our friend Chris said he'd come along and take his 4Runner and that if we rented a trailer, we could fit everything in it. Sounded like a plan to us and we went for it.
The day before the Phoenix show, Clint and Chris rented the trailer and we ended up getting on the road at about 8:30 pm. We were going to drive through the night because the A/C in the 4 Runner didn't work. Nick, Bill and his brother drove down in a seperate car to leave more room for the rest of us. Three of the seven people on the trip were named Chris. Things got confusing at times.

We split up with the car about halfway there and ended up beating them to Phoenix. We were going to spend the day at Nick's girlfriends house, but we didn't know where she lived and none of us had ever met her. We called Nick and they were an hour away, but told us to go to her house anyway and gave us directions and her number. We show up, fall asleep and then head to the mall after everyone gets ready.
One thing I learned about tour was from someone from BoySetsFire long ago: Shower whenever you get the chance, because you never know when the next one will come. I took that advice and showered in Phoenix. I think I was the only one.

We'll skip that stuff and talk about the show. We played in Ian's basement. A lot of people actually ended up coming and it was a good time. Everyone was skeptical about it, but it turned out really well. And Ian made us all spaghetti that was absolutely delightful. After the show we went back to Kelsey's house for sleep. At 5:30 AM, Nick woke me up and said that we had to leave. Her parents had said not to let us stay there, so we had to leave before they woke up for work. We walked outside and it was already 90 degrees. We were off to Corona.

This is the first band picture of the second incarnation of Cherem. There might be a couple from when Nic, Thom and Jesse were in the band but the only place I know of is the back of the first t-shirt. And I don't want to scan a t-shirt.

A new use for this...

I've been reading alot of Henry Rollins the past few days. I have The Portable Henry Rollins, and it has sections from most of his books. They're good, and I strongly reccomend you check them out.

My favorites are Now Watch Him Die and Get In The Van.

These are where he recounts all the shows he played with Rollins Band and Black Flag. They're really entertaining.

It also gave me an idea for this blog. Basically, I'm going to keep a blog of the shows we've played out of state. I started doing it long hand a while back, because I knew I'd do something with it one day, but never got around to it. So starting in the next few days, this thing will probably become a tour journal of sorts. Hopefully all three of you that read it will enjoy it.