JULY 18, 2005 - FRESNO, CA

Fresno wasn’t the longest drive from Monterey Bay, but it wasn’t exactly the easiest either. There wasn’t a straight shot from one to the other and we had to take a two-lane highway about 90% of the way there. Not only was a two-lane highway the only option—the entire 155 miles were the winding, desert mountain roads of northern California.

We got the best directions we could from MapQuest before we left Clint’s aunts apartment and decided to leave a bit earlier in case we got lost. We were still driving our old 1993 Ford Econoline van (the one with no heater that we bought before we went to Erie) and since we didn’t have the money to fix it before we left, we had no A/C either. We stopped at the Walgreen’s on the way out of town and filled the cooler with bottled water and ice because we had a feeling we were going to need it.

The drive through the desert was one of the worst I’ve ever endured. I was behind the wheel, and we all drank so much water that we had to stop every half an hour or so for someone to pee. The lanes were so narrow that any time another car drove by—which was rare—I had to pull off to the side because we couldn’t both fit.
After the two hours that it was supposed to take, we got out of the mountains and came to a long, deserted highway road. We hadn’t seen a single car for the better part of an hour and we had come to a fork in front of us. There were no signs and it was over 100 degrees. We were all hot, restless and pissed and no one knew which way to go. I looked back at Brook and asked him which way we should go. He’s always had a pretty good instinct on which way leads where and even he threw his hands up in frustration and said, “Honestly, I have no fucking clue.”
Clint looked at me and said, “It’s your call.”
All I could think about was the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a dozen other horror movies that start with a bunch of hapless people lost in the middle of nowhere.
I drove down the road and went left.

Roughly 45 minutes later, we came out of the desert in the middle of a town. We were all relieved to see civilization again, but still had no idea where we were or how far away from Fresno it was.

When we got our bearings and figured out we were only a few miles of an actual freeway road away, we felt better. We were still tense and frustrated, but happy to be close to getting out of the van for a while.

We rolled in to Fresno and met up with Oubliette. We asked them how the Sacramento show was and predictably, there were about 20-25 people there and no trouble whatsoever. Figures. Davin and Ben came over and hung out with us while Bryan was getting the venue info and told us things weren’t going too well on their end. Everyone in Oubliette was getting on each other’s nerves and their cramped van and shitty shows were making everyone increasingly hostile—and most of it was directed towards Bryan.

He had the address for the venue, so everyone piled back in their respective vans and we began following them. About two miles down the road, they flipped around and drove back the way we came. We followed suit. A few minutes later, they flipped around again and we followed. They flipped around a third time and pulled down a side street and parked. Suddenly we could all see why the tensions were running high with them. Bryan got out of the van and made another phone call. We waited patiently in our van—no one was talking and we all just wanted to get the fuck off the road.

Finally, Tears of Gaia rolled up and told us to follow them. They led us back the right way and we found the venue. We pulled around back, got out, said hi to all the TOG guys and waited for the owner of the club and the promoter to show up. We got back in our van and I tried to take a nap, but was woken up by Clint talking.
“I wonder who that is.”
He pointed across the parking lot where three other tour vans were parked. There were a few guys hanging out around them, but no one we recognized.

Eventually the owner of the club showed up and opened the doors. We all walked inside to the cool, air-conditioned venue and found the bathroom. It was a nice place with a real stage and sound equipment. There was even a side room with a few couches. We hung out for a minute, then Brook, Clint and I went back outside and opened the back of the van. I took one of the merch bins out and set it on the ground, just as one of the guys that had been hanging out on the other side of the parking lot approached us.
“Hey, uh, what band are you guys?”
“Cherem.”
“Are you supposed to be playing here tonight?”
“Yeah. Who are you guys?”
“We’re playing here tonight, too. We’ve got a 4 band tour package and a local opener.”
“Are you sure?”

The three of us looked at each other in confusion and Clint looked like he was about ready to hit the kid. We walked back inside with our new friend to where Bryan and Erik from New Eden Records were sitting on the couch. He told them what he had told us, and they started arguing a little bit. The owner of the club came over and settled the argument. Cherem, Tears of Gaia and Oubliette were not the bands he had down for that night. Bryan pulled his phone out and I walked off into the little side room where Austin was playing his guitar and Ben from Oubliette was setting up his drums.

“We don’t have a show tonight,” I said.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me.
“What the fuck do you mean?” asked Austin.
I told him what the deal was and we walked back into the other room just as Bryan was getting off the phone with the promoter.
“He denied even booking the show,” said Bryan.
“What?” I asked?
“He said he never confirmed anything with me because he didn’t book the show. But he told me he did,” said Bryan.

Austin and I walked back towards the other room and the guy we had spoken with in the parking lot came up to us.
“Sorry dudes,” he said. “If you want, you can try to get another P.A. system over here and you guys can set up in that back room and play in between our bands. Like while we’re setting up. Probably won’t be able to give you any door money, but it’s better than nothing.”
I can’t say for sure, but I think I saw steam come out of Clint’s ears when he said that.
“I don’t think so, man,” Austin said. “Can’t we just share the bill with you or something?”
“Like I said, if you want to see if you can get another P.A., you guys can play in here.”
That’s when I walked outside to the van. Brook was sitting in the drivers seat.
“I kind of want to fight Oubliette,” he said.
That’s when the back door of the van opened and Clint climbed in and slammed it behind him.
“Fuck, I want to punch Bryan in the face,” he said.
Brook turned around and said, “Me too! I say fuck this. Let’s go to Redlands.”
“I agree,” said Clint.
George looked up from his phone and asked, “What’s going on?”

I jumped out of the van, “I’ll go get Austin.”
As I walked back inside, Bryan, Erik and the rest of Tears of Gaia were hanging out, laughing and having a good time. The rest of Oubliette was breaking down and putting away their equipment looking like they were at the end of their rope. I walked up, grabbed Austin and said, “We’re going to Redlands. Fuck this.”
Austin turned back to Erik and Bryan and said, “I guess we’re gonna take off.”
“Alright,” said Bryan. “We’re going to hang around here for a bit and see what happens. Maybe we’ll get someone to bring another P.A. over.”
“Cool,” said Austin. “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow.”

We walked out the back door, got in the van and headed for the freeway in a worse mood than when we got out of the desert.

JULY 16 & 17, 2005 - Monterey Bay, CA

The drive was long and uneventful and we crossed into California early Saturday morning. As we made our way towards Sacramento, Austin got a phone call from Mike Hood with bad news. Mike was out of town on tour with Hoods and wouldn’t be in Sacramento for the show, which was a bummer because he’s the only reason we even stop in that city. Even worse than that, he’d had a bit of a run in with some dudes that didn’t end too well for him. He’d spent a little time in the hospital because of it and he was calling to give us a heads up.

Apparently, the guys that had jumped him made it known that they had a few problems with Salt Lake City also, and they were gunning for us at the show that night. We had no idea who these people were or why there were issues, but Mike told us if we showed up in Sacto, we needed to be careful. If he were there, it would be a different story and we might be able to work it out and get to the bottom of the problem to squash it. But he wasn’t.

We had a quick band discussion and decided that we probably wouldn’t stand a very good chance with only 5 of us and we didn’t want to drag Oubliette into something we weren’t very clear on to begin with (not to mention I’m not sure how effective they would have been if something had gone down). We took a vote and decided that since every other time we’d played Sacramento it was all right at best, we’d skip it and go stay with Clint’s aunt and cousin in Monterey Bay. There was a beach and we had the next day off before hitting Fresno on Monday. We called Oubliette, gave them the run down, told them to have fun and we’d see them in a couple of days.

Monterey Bay is a cool little town, but there’s not much to do. We pulled up in front of Clint’s aunt’s apartment building, grabbed our stuff and headed upstairs. We all kind of crashed on the floor and couch for a while Clint hung out with his little cousin. When we woke up and got ready later in the afternoon, we decided to head out and have a look around the town. We wandered the streets that were packed with tourists, checked out the bay and debated whether or not to pay for the aquarium. No one wanted to spend the money, so we bagged that idea and kept walking around. On the way back to the apartment, we stopped by Walgreen’s for snacks and what not. There was a huge Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince display and Brook and I both picked up a copy and started reading a little. I put the book down after a minute and went for food. As we were leaving, we saw Brook all the way on the other side of the parking lot reading Harry Potter. We walked back to the apartment and watched the Pauly Shore classic Son-In-Law, hung out and saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory later that night.

The next day, we spent more time wandering the streets and Brook saw Don Cheadle duck in to a gift shop. We were eating dinner with Clint’s aunt and a friend of hers at the restaurant she managed. It was a steak and fish house, but she promised the chef was going to make vegan meals for us and it was her treat. Since we were all fairly broke that sounded like a hell of an idea. Brook had less money than all of us, so I paid him $10 to steal a copy of the new Harry Potter and he was glad to oblige. He headed to Walgreen’s and we went back to the apartment to get ready.

Clint’s aunt is really nice and her eccentric, gay friend was one of the highlights of the trip. He didn’t quite understand straight edge, so he bought several bottles of wine, opened them and set them up all across the table “in case we wanted a taste.” Since none of us did want a taste, he ended up drinking more than he should, which made the night that much more entertaining. George showed off his sweet coloring skills and the food ended up being pretty good and the gay guy was hilarious. Monterey Bay was fun but we were getting bored and wanted to get back to playing shows. Fortunately we had Fresno the next night.

JULY 15, 2005 - PORTLAND, OR

Portland is only a few hours south of Seattle, so we had the majority of the day to hang out before hitting the road. Our first—and pretty much only—stop was PCC of course. The day before we had all gotten ready-to-eat vegan BLT’s from the deli section, so that’s the first place we all went. Unfortunately, they were all out of the vegan ones, but had a few real ones sitting in their place. Austin, Clint and I just stood there staring, looking over every single sandwich to see if another one was hiding somewhere. Out of nowhere, Brook reached in and grabbed one of the real BLT’s and went off. The three of us just looked back and forth at each other wondering if Brook was just trying to be sneaky and didn’t read the label or if he had just had enough and didn’t care anymore. Not wanting to have to find a replacement for the replacement singer after only two shows, I walked over and took the sandwich from him.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“This is a real one,” I said. “The vegan ones are all gone.”
I turned back and showed him the label. He read it and said, “Fuck. I wouldn’t have even noticed until I bit into it. Then I would have been pissed.”
“Why did you think the three of us were just standing there?”
“I don’t know. I thought you were looking for something else and I wanted to grab one before any of you changed your mind. I thought I lucked out.”

After we had eaten soup, salad and whatever else we could find, we bought cookies and donuts for the road and went on our way.

The drive should only take three or four hours, but we hit some pretty bad traffic leaving town and it took us over 5 hours to get there. When we pulled up to the venue were supposed to play at, we saw Justin standing out front and a whole bunch of punk rockers going inside. Clint got out to talk to him and when he came back over, we were informed that they double booked the show and ours was the one that got bumped. We got a hold of Oubliette (who was having trouble finding the place) and let them know what was going on. Justin was working the phones trying to find another venue for us to use and luckily enough, he found one. It was the basement of something on the other side of town, but I can’t remember for the life of me what it was.

We all drove over there and while the PA and the rest of the stuff were getting situated, I took a walk to find a gas station or store of some type where I could get a drink. I was shit out of luck. There was nothing around. I ended up walking for half an hour before I just decided to turn back towards the show.
The show went well, but again there were only a handful of people there. Justin had been expecting more and they had done a good job of promoting it, but the last minute venue change to a place that hardly anyone knew about probably fucked us.

After our set, some kid kept trying to start an argument with Brook at the merch table but just kept talking in circles. He was arguing that dancing/moshing was ruining hardcore and that it makes him mad when people do it. The only problem with his argument was that Brook and I had both seen this very same person moshing/dancing during Oubliette. Brook called him out on it, and he said that the only reason he moshed for them was because they were anarchists. It wasn’t a very strong argument so he switched to trying to argue with us about something he read in Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael book. By this time I had started helping people buy shirts and cd’s and what not, so I didn’t really take part in what was going on. The only thing I remember was this little snippet of conversation.

“...I agree with you,” said Brook.
“No, I what I’m saying is…” said the kid.
“Yes,” said Brook. “I understand exactly what you’re saying and I agree with you.”
“No, see the thing is…”

Some type of variation on that argument happens a lot on Cherem tours. People just want to argue and will argue anything for any reason—even if you agree with what they’re saying in the first place.
After the show and after we had said our goodbye’s we took off and found a grocery store. We needed to stock up on supplies for the long drive to Sacramento. We found one a little ways away and while we were inside, I noticed there were a surprising amount of people out shopping at 11:45 P.M. and they all seemed to be milling around the magazine and book area. The other thing was that the majority of them were pretty young—11, 12 and 13—there with some very tired looking parents. I grabbed my stuff and got in line trying to figure out what was going on. Brook came and got in line right behind me and asked me why all the people were there and I shrugged but asked the checkout lady.

“The new Harry Potter book is being released at midnight,” she said
Brook’s eyes got wide.
“Oh shit. I forgot about that,” he said.
I looked back over my shoulder at the crowd.
“Me too,” I said. “You want to make everyone wait so we can get one?”
Brook nodded.
“Good luck,” said the lady. “If you didn’t preorder it or put your name down on the list you might not get one. We ordered extra but a bunch of people requested one since.”
We were a little bummed, but since we were driving through the night in the dark, it wouldn’t have mattered much anyway.
We left the store and jumped back in the van, got on the 5 south and headed for Sacramento.
But that’s not where we’d end up.

July 14, 2005 - Seattle, WA

We drove sluggishly through the night, with Brook doing the lions share of the work behind the wheel. I rode shotgun most of the way, but couldn’t stay awake the entire time—which is the one thing you’re supposed to do while riding shotgun on tour. Sorry about that Brook.

We rolled in to Seattle the next afternoon, and since I had a friend that lived there we drove straight to her work to say hello. She had a few hours left before she could leave, so we wandered the streets of Fremont looking at record shops and other random stores. I found a record by a band called Killed By Death, and I was a little bit upset about it. That was Casey, myself and Brook’s punk rock band that played one show. We took the name from a random Motorhead album, and figured someone had used it before, but it was still kind of a bummer to actually see. Across the street from the record shop was the greatest store on the planet. It’s called PCC and it’s what I wish Whole Foods/Wild Oats was like. There was awesome vegan food everywhere. Not one or two things that just happened to be vegan, but actually made in order to be vegan. Ready-to-eat vegan BLT’s, donuts, cupcakes—it was the best thing we’d ever seen. We hung out there most of the rest of the day eating way more than we probably should have.

Once Heather was finally off work, we met up with her and she took us back to her apartment. We were tired from the night before, so we all just kind of took it easy for a while and I caught up with Heather. I hadn’t seen her since the previous summer when she lived in San Diego (after the disastrous Total Liberation Tour Los Angeles show, everyone in Cherem decided to head back home, but I caught a ride to San Diego for Comic Con, and Heather’s place down there was our SD home).
George called first dibs on the shower, and since everyone else just kind of wanted to take a nap, we said okay. After a few minutes, he reappeared in the living room looking frustrated.
“I don’t want to sound like a dumb ass—but how the fuck do you turn on the shower?” he asked.
We all started laughing and Heather took him in for a demonstration. From that moment on, he had rightfully inherited the “Rookie” nickname.

Later that night, Heather was going out to meet some friends, so Clint and I went with her to some hipster bar while the rest of the dudes hung out back at her apartment. I felt like kind of an asshole, because we got all the way to the club before I realized I forgot my ID. We drove back, picked it up and headed back to the bar. It was a little bit boring, but everything in the bar looked extremely familiar. I mentioned something to Clint about it, and one of Heather’s friends overheard us.

“This was the main bar in that old movie, Singles.”
“Holy shit! This is the bar Alice in Chains played at.”

Dan Fletcher was the only person that would have appreciated that, and he wasn’t around. Everyone just looked at me like I was crazy.

The next day, we drove downtown and checked out The Space Needle (cool to see, but it was like $20 to go up and down), the Experience Music Project (pretty cool, but too expensive) and the Science Fiction Museum. The Sci-Fi museum was about $15, but since I’m a nerd, I had to see it, so I paid and left everyone behind for an hour or so. Totally worth it.

We were playing with another vegan band from up there called This Time Tomorrow, and they had told us about a place called Bamboo Garden, so we headed over to meet a couple of them there and check it out.

Meanwhile, this whole time, Oubliette had stayed the night in Idaho Falls and tried taking some fucked up “shortcut” through Montana or something the next day. It ended up taking them and insane amount of time to get to Seattle, so they weren’t going to be joining us.

After we ate, we headed over to the show to check the venue out and wait for The Dead Unknown to arrive. Bill and Clint had met The Dead Unknown when they went on tour with 78 Days After Death and remained pretty good friends. Any time they played Salt Lake we helped them out, and any time we were up around the Northwest, they came out to support, or better yet, play the show with us. We got to the venue, a decent sized place that was way nicer than we were used to.

In addition to This Time Tomorrow, there was another local band on the bill called Hell Promise. The sound guy asked us to backline the stage, since we were headlining, but we thought that was kind of a silly idea—especially when we saw Hell Promise roll up looking like fucking rock stars. We asked them if they’d headline instead, since this is their hometown and all, and they reluctantly agreed. They were kind of dicks about it, but at least they said yes.

The show started and there was only a handful of people there. We asked the locals if all the shows were like this (hoping we weren’t going to find out we were playing opposite another big show like last time) and they told us that if we weren’t a two-step band or a fast hardcore band, no one really cared. All the bands played good but it was still a really awkward show for everyone. We watched Hell Promise play and then started packing all our stuff up.

I had picked up a box of vegan cupcakes from PCC earlier in the day and was eating one by the van talking to the girl that sang for This Time Tomorrow. I offered her a cupcake but she looked a little hesitant.

“Are they vegan?” she asked.
“Well,” I replied, “we are a vegan band.”
She just stared at me.
“So, yes. They’re vegan.”
“Oh, then sure.”
She took one and started eating it, but after eating half of it, she stopped.
“Wait, I don’t eat refined sugar. Are they all natural?”
I just stared at her and her already half-eaten cupcake.
“They’re all-delicious,” I replied.
“Okay,” she said and popped the rest in her mouth to finish it off.

After that, The Dead Unknown dudes jumped in their van to head back to Portland. A few of them had to work the next day, but were playing with us again down there the next night. Oubliette headed out with some of the This Time Tomorrow people and we went back to Heather’s place to crash.

July 12, 2005 - Idaho Falls, ID

Beep Beep Beep.
Beep Beep Beep.
“Hey George, does your phone have a ‘silent’ function?” asked Brook.
“Yeah, but I can’t hear it when it’s on silent,” replied George.

And so began our ten day tour with a fill in singer, an ever rotating bass player and a band that had never been on tour before and was in the middle of five weeks that weren’t going so well. We’ve never had the best luck on the road, so if there was any way things could get worse for everyone, we were just the band to make it happen.

Idaho Falls has always been good to us, and it’s always a good time when we go up there. The turnout is always decent (for a city of that size) and the people always made us feel right at home, so we try to go up there as often as we can. Of course, now 3 or 4 of the guys live in Salt Lake, but that doesn’t make it any less fun in Idaho.

The first show of the tour is always a little sloppy, and this was no exception. We’d never played in front of an audience with Brook singing and George hadn’t played with us outside of practice either. Dan Fletcher was still technically our bass player, but he decided that he needed to grow up, be responsible and not miss any classes at school. Therefore, he couldn’t make it. No matter though, George knew our songs pretty well, and could at least pretend he knew what was going on even if he did get lost.

The show went well enough, but we were a little sloppy. I don’t think anyone minded though, because we still brought the mosh and sometimes that’s all that matters. We decided against spending the night in IF and driving through the night to Seattle. We had a day off the next day and just wanted to spend it up there hanging out and we figured Seattle would be a little bit more fun than Idaho—no offense Idaho.

With that, we said our goodbyes and piled in the van for the 12 hour trek to the Great Northwest.

July 11, 2005 - Ogden, UT

We were set to go on tour with a band called Oubliette from Charlottesville, Virginia. They were another vegan straight edge band on New Eden Records, so we had a lot in common with them. They had set up a whole summer tour, but needed a little more—clout, I guess you could call it—out west so Erik, the owner of New Eden sent them our way. We were more than happy to do it for a couple of reasons. All of us were ready to start touring as much as we could, and Bryan, the singer, said he had set everything up but just needed a little help out west. Nothing major, maybe just a few shows in California and somewhere between Denver and the Northwest.

We were happy to oblige, and hooked up a show in Sacramento, Redlands, and Idaho Falls. We tried to get something set up in Salt Lake, but it didn’t work out, so we headed a few miles north for a show in Ogden. The kids up there have always been supportive, and we liked going up there whenever we got the chance.

There was one little problem with this tour on the Cherem end—Bill couldn’t go. He’d gotten in to some deep financial trouble (something to do with a Nigerian Prince, I think) and couldn’t afford to miss two weeks of work. We didn’t want to get the reputation as a band that bails on an entire tour at the last minute, so we did the only thing we could think of—we got a fill in singer and went on tour. Luckily, Brook Aftermath didn’t have a job and wanted to come along, so instead of having him as our roadie, we promoted him to singer. He was fine with it, but a little bit apprehensive, because he didn’t have much time to learn all the new songs we were going to play, but hadn’t had time to record. That meant that Bill needed to show him how to sing the songs and give him the lyrics. Brook was up for the challenge, but he didn’t want to start singing until we were out of Utah. So Bill drove up to Ogden right after he got off work, and showed up just before we went onstage.

The show went well, and we all headed back home to finish our last minute packing. It was going to be an interesting two weeks, but we had no idea what we were in for.

DIY TOURING

I wrote an article on touring for City Weekly last year, and just ran across it today.

Check it out.

March 20, 2005 - Cedar City, Utah

We were on our way to Cedar City, but we were hungry as hell. We weren’t sure what our options would be, so we stopped in St. George to hit up our home away from home on tour, Fazoli’s. It was terrible as usual, but it filled us up and that’s all that matters. We jumped back in the van and drove the 45 more minutes to Cedar City.

As the show was getting started, people from Salt Lake started showing up. It was good to see everyone, and kind of a nice homecoming of sorts. Blake and Richard drove down to take the place of Clint and I, and it was nice to finally watch Aftermath from the side of the stage instead of being front and center with them. I enjoyed playing for them, and I think Clint and I did an excellent job, but they sound much better with Blake and Richard. That’s Aftermath of a Trainwreck.

The drive home took a little longer than expected, because it had started snowing again while we were gone. At least we were able to miss most of the shitty weather, and we had a good time. Sleeping in my own bed was nice, but it was short lived. I had to be back to school at 10 A.M.

March 19, 2005 - Phoenix, AZ

We stopped to fill the van in a little town called Yuma, Arizona. That city is really nothing more than a giant retirement home and military base. At least I think. My Grandpa lives in Yuma from October to April every year, and from the stories he tells, there’s not many people under the age of 60 down there.

As we pulled back onto the street heading towards the freeway, there was a small group of kids—probably 12 or 13 years old—standing around on the corner. They saw the van and trailer and figured we were a band on tour. One of them started yelling, so Jake rolled down the window.
“Hey, what band are you guys?”
“Taking Back Sunday,” said Jake.
The kids flipped out and started yelling at us to stop, but we just kept right on going. It was probably the funniest thing Jake did the entire ten days we were gone.

We rolled in to Phoenix and it had been raining most of the day, and much like Southern California, people in Arizona are afraid of the rain. I think they feel it’s a sign of the apocalypse or something and they won’t leave the house out of fear. That said, the turnout was a bit mediocre.

We did hit Chopstix on the way, but I wasn’t feeling too well so it was kind of ruined for me. It was a bummer, because that BBQ tofu is delicious and I totally missed out. I tried to save it, but after a few hours, it wasn’t even remotely edible.

Back to the show, we had been wondering all day whether Bring it Down was going to show up or not. We were all a little bit surprised when we got there and their van was behind the venue. Clifton, another band from Salt Lake, was just heading out on tour, and they were on the show as well. It was a like someone took a weird Salt Lake line-up and just moved the whole thing to Phoenix.

The tensions between Bring it Down and Cherem and Aftermath were running a little bit high, so we kind of avoided each other the entire night—or at least until Bring it Down left. They were supposed to co-headline with Cherem, but they talked to the promoter, switched with another band, played second and bailed as soon as their set was over.

Aftermath and Cherem played, the sets were both solid, but nothing special. One of our friends from down in Phoenix talked us in to playing Life of Agony for the final time on the tour, so we did. Again, no one knew what the hell it was. Fun song to cover though. We just couldn’t ever get away from it.
After the set, a few kids came up to Bill and told him they were bummed that he didn’t talk much during the set. They were so excited to see us play, and hear him say something awesome, but it was the last show, everyone was a bit burned out and the vibe just wasn’t there. Sorry to those kids that were looking forward to hearing a speech of some sort, but sometimes it’s just not going to happen.

After the show, we hung out and spent the night at an apartment that like 7 people lived at. I stayed up most of the night watching Family Guy and trying to find Bad Boys II, but never did. Finally fell asleep around 5 am, woke up at 10 and were back on the road to Cedar City for the final show of the tour.

March 18, 2005 - Oceanside, CA

When I woke up on the floor of Thom’s living room, Maryn was sitting by my head watching a movie. The first thing she asked was if I wanted to play, and since I’m a sucker for kids, I obliged. We didn’t do anything too active since I refused to actually get up off the floor, but we did what we could. Thom asked if I’d watch her while he ran to get her some juice, and I said of course. Ten minutes later, he was back with the juice, poured the three of us a glass and sat down. He asked about everyone that we hung out with in high school, if I ever saw anyone or what had happened with in their lives. I had to tell him the truth Most of them were either going through rehab or still in the thick of whatever their addiction was. It was hard to tell him about the kids that I used to be so close to, but now barely knew.

When everyone else was finally up we decided to get some quick lunch before it was time to pile back in the van. I ended up driving (surprise, surprise) and we were following Thom. About halfway there, while stopped at a stoplight, a car rolled up next to us and the old man driving informed us that the trailer was open. The first thing that ran through my head was, “Holy shit, is my stuff close to the front of the trailer?” Since I was usually the one to pack up, I had a pretty good idea where everything was, and felt a little calmer knowing my stuff was all towards the back. All the while, no one had done anything except for try and blame each other for leaving it open.

“So,” I said, “somebody want to jump out and shut the fucking thing or sit here and argue a little bit more.”

Dan jumped out, shut the trailer and got back in the van. The argument continued the rest of the way to the restaurant until we pulled in and everyone piled out to see if anything was missing. Only one thing was gone: Clint’s luggage.

He and I borrowed Thom’s car and retraced our steps back to his house, twice, but to no avail. It was gone forever. He wasn’t too broken up about it. He said the only thing he’d really miss was his Misfits shirt, and thanks to Hot Topic, those are now readily available. We got back grabbed a quick bite and were on our way to Oceanside.

I stayed in Oceanside a few times when I was little. Well, littler I guess. I’m not exactly huge now. Anyway, whenever my family would go to Disneyland, we’d rent a house in Oceanside or Balboa. I remember it being pretty nice, but when I was 6 everything was nice.

The show was at the Oceanside Recreation Center, right on the beach, and it was a benefit show. This was the show that Mike Hartsfield, he of New Age Records fame, helped set up. Two of his labels new bands, Angels Die and Hellfire Trigger, were on the show, so add Aftermath and Cherem is the odd man out. That’s not counting the opening band, Pink Robots, but I think we’d all just assume forget about them all together.

Now, being a Rec center, the stage was in the gym and it was huge. It was the equivalent of playing a high school dance only with less people; a lot less people. It was raining outside, and if there’s one thing that scares the hell out of everyone in California, it’s rain. For some reason, no one dares to leave their house if it’s raining in Southern California so there were very few people at the show. To kill time while we waited for some people to arrive, we played basketball. I tend to get a little competitive when it comes to sports, so I tried to take it easy, but it didn’t work too well. But my team won, and I guess that’s all that matters. See? That’s the competitive side.

When it was finally time to get our shit set up, Jake wasn’t happy. He didn’t want to play on the stage and was saying they weren’t going to play unless they could set up on the floor. I didn’t really care either way, and Brook wanted to play on the stage so he could run back and forth. He ended up being in the minority and we played on the stage and pretended to be a much bigger band than we actually were. Cherem played next and included River Runs Red for the three people in the crowd that knew it.

After we played, we met a kid that drove all the way up from Tijuana, Mexico just to watch us. He bought a bunch of stuff from us and Aftermath and that alone made the show worth it. To know that there were those two kids driving from another country just to watch us do our thing was the one of the best parts of the whole tour.

When we were all packed up, we piled in the van for the long drive to Arizona. We all have friends down there, so it was one of the places we were looking forward to the most, but after about half an hour of driving, Austin asked if we could swing in and visit his mom who lived in San Diego. None of us minded, and we ended up staying the night. His mom offered to take us to breakfast the next day, and we were kind of excited about that, but when the morning rolled around, we had all overslept and needed to get on the road if we were going to make it to Phoenix in time to get BBQ tofu that I’d been hearing about for a week and a half. Like I said, this tour was more about good food than good shows

News. Slightly.

More updates soon. I am lazy and for that I apologize.

March 17, 2005 - Redlands, CA

We pulled into Redlands about 2am, tired as fuck and ready for sleep. We were staying with Thom Green who played drums for Cherem in SLC a long time ago. As soon as we got inside pretty much everyone fell asleep, but a couple of us sat around and caught up with Thom for a little bit. Clint and the Rookie refused to wake up, so we left him in the van while everyone else got situated on the floor. After about half an hour of chit chat and Thom deciding it was time to turn in, I felt bad so I went outside to wake him up. I didn’t have the keys with me so I was reduced to knocking on the window. It took a good three minutes of knocking before they woke up, but as soon as they did, we headed back inside and fell asleep.

His daughter came over early the next morning, but she played in Thom’s room while everyone gradually woke up. The rest of the dudes rose and got ready, and while they did, Thom’s daughter, Maryn, asked me to play Polly Pockets with her. Since I am a sucker for little kids, she and I rocked Polly Pockets for a while until it was time for her to go to school. After Thom left to take her, we set out for Chico’s. Brook had been raving about it since we left SLC, so we were anxious to get there. It was about half an hour away, but came with a promise that it would be well worth the trip.

As we pulled into the parking lot, the house next door to the restaurant was having a garage sale. There was a guy standing by the back door keeping an eye on things, and when Austin got out of the car, the guy noticed Austin’s tattoos and said, “You get any of those in prison?”
“Uh, no.” Austin replied.
“Damn. Those are the best kind of tattoos.”
Austin wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, but it didn’t matter, because his attention had turned to Brook in the drivers seat, wearing just a jersey.
“Damn! You’re homeboy’s all blasted, huh?” He said.
“Yep,” Said Austin, “pretty blasted.”
At that point, Brook had parked the van and gotten out right next to his yard, within shouting distance, and the guy yelled out, “Hey, what’s that say on your throat Homes?”
“Dedication,” said Brook.
The old man nodded his head, took a drag of his cigarette and replied, “Hell yeah it does.”
We tried to contain our laughter until we got inside, and barely made it. Even if the food wasn’t as good as promised, that scene was well worth the trip.

The food was all that it was promised and we left feeling very satisfied, but then we noticed a problem. The parking lot behind Chico’s was too small for us to turn around in and too long for us to back out of. After about 20 minutes of trying every trick possible, the waiter from Chico’s came out with a box of Tofutti Cuties for us. At first we thought it was a sympathy gift because we were having such a hard time, but then realized it was probably more because we had left a very generous tip. While we snacked on those a few other drivers took a shot at getting us out of the parking lot. After over half an hour of trying, we finally unhooked the trailer with everything in it and put it back on after the van was facing the exit. Everyone was pretty irritated, so it was a quiet drive back to Thom’s house.


Back at the house, while everyone was taking naps and watching Anchorman for the seventh or eighth time, Maryn came home and she and I and Clint picked up right where we left off in our PP game. That got old pretty quick, and she came up with a new game that consisted of little more than her killing Clint and I and bringing us back to life. This was about the time that she re-named me Clayton for some reason. Not sure why, but that’s what she called me for most of the rest of the day. After and hour or so of that, her babysitter came so Thom could get to his church early to set everything up. Maryn and I and her sitter decided to let the dudes nap for a bit longer while we walked to the store for popsicles. When we got back it was time to go. We climbed back in our home on wheels and drove to the show.

Thom is the Pastor of an Alternative Christian Church, and has a place that doubles as a venue for bands when they need a show. It’s a nice place, and probably the only church I’ve ever seen that has Star Wars murals on the wall. It was still early, and no one was really there yet, so we all walked across the street to Barnes and Noble to kill some time. By the time we all got back, the show was ready to start and there were quite a few kids ready to have a good time. Thom’s band played and it was fun to watch him play drums again. He’d been singing in xDEATHSTARx for a while, but quit when they started touring. He’s a drummer at heart, so it was good to see him back behind a set. Aftermath played and kids were going off making it probably the best response of the tour. Cherem was up after them again and it was definitely the best show we played on tour, despite my string breaking halfway through our best song. We made up for it with an otherwise good show. After we were done, xDEATHSTARx came up and finished off the night. A good time was had by all, and after the show as we were all hanging around, this girl walked over to the merch table and sent several of the dudes into a lovesick haze.

As we got back to Thom’s, a bunch of the DS kids were hanging out and Thom put on a DVD of one of the funniest stand up comedians I’ve ever seen. I’m not much for stand up, but this guy was hilarious. It was a hell of a way to end the night.

March 16th, 2005 - South Gate, CA

We woke up around 7am and Dan and I decided we should drive to find a coffee shop somewhere. I think hanging out at random coffee shops is a staple on any tour we take, especially in LA because we like to sit around and watch how important people pretend to be. As Bill jumped into the driver’s seat, we started wondering how we were going to get out of the parking lot. It wasn’t big enough to just turn around in, so Bill had to pull off quite an amazing three point turn by backing the trailer into a covered parking spot. He did it much to our amazement and we were on our way. We drove to a Starbucks down by the beach and set up camp for a little while. Austin and Brook opted out of the coffee shop for more sleep in the van, but the rest of us had wonderful conversation that resulted in the formation of the greatest band in the history of the world. All I can really say about it is the name, The Guitarmy. Don’t be surprised when we take over the world someday soon.

The Rookie had never seen the ocean, so after a few hours of Starbucks we headed down to the beach to give the kid a look. Dan, Jake and Clint all got in their swimming suits to take a dip while Bill took a long walk on the beach talking to his girlfriend on the phone. We pretended that they were taking a virtual walk on the beach together while we watched the other three take a cannonball run into the water. It was March, so the water was pretty cold, but that didn’t seem to matter to any of them. While we were at Starbucks, our friend Kodee had come down to meet up with us, and offered up his apartment for a shower. We piled back in the van and drove to Long Beach to get cleaned up. When we were all ready, he took us to Native Food before we left for the show.

As we left Native Food, we stopped by another shop to see a friend of ours at work, but he wasn’t there, so we decided to head on to the show. As we were on the freeway I saw the exit for Compton, and after years of listening to NWA, I decided it would be a good idea to get off and drive around for a minute. That idea was immediately shot down the second I brought it up, but it didn’t really matter, because the exit that we needed to take for the show was the first exit past Compton. As we exited the freeway, we saw a homeless guy on the side of the road staring at us, a few seconds later we heard a loud “BOOM” and were convinced that the homeless guy was jealous of our sweet van and had thrown something at us. We didn’t think much of it and continued on our way.

The show was in South Gate, California, which is like a small Spanish city within LA, and about two blocks from the venue, I noticed that we were driving on a flat tire. We pulled through a parking lot on to a side street to get it changed. Thanks to our brilliant planning, we didn’t have all the tools we needed to get the tire off, so I set out looking for a hardware store that might have something we could use. A few of the other dudes went down to the venue to let the promoter know we were only a block away and to borrow some tools for changing the tire. Brook and I sat on the curb eating rice and soy sauce watching Clint and Austin struggle with the tire for about an hour before it was finally changed and we could continue to the show.

The venue was actually an old movie theater that had been slightly renovated to accommodate shows. It was definitely the creepiest venue we have ever played. The stage was huge and it was the only part of the room with any light to it. It looked like the set of an old horror movie. Aftermath was up second, so we set up our stuff and started to play. After the first song, the sound guy told us we only had time for two more. We were confused, but just made the best of it and rocked the two best songs in the set. As we finished, we tried to get Cherem set up as quick as possible to use as much time as possible. As we were setting up, Jake walked up to ask the sound guy why they got cut short and the promoter walked up to the stage with Rob from Bring It Down. Apparently, BID was to share a set with Winds of Plague, but the sound guy got it mixed up and thought Aftermath and Cherem were supposed to share. They started apologizing to me and I told them they were going to have to talk to Jake, because he was furious. Cherem played a full set and everything went alright, but after we were finished, I walked out to our merch table and Brook said, “Jake just took Aric (Bring it Down singer) outside.”

I got a little nervous at that thought because Jake has a pretty short temper as it is, and he had been trying to keep his cool for three days. He finally lost it. A few minutes later, Rob comes walking up to their merch spot, which was right next to ours and told their merch guy to pack everything up because they were leaving. They started getting ready to go and Jake walked back in with smoke coming out of his ears. None of the kids would look at us and we just sat in awe as they put their shit away and drove off. After the show was over and we were packing up, we decided to take bets on whether or not they’d come to the Phoenix show. They weren’t getting very good odds. We jumped back in the van and back on the highway towards Redlands.

March 14th, 2005 - Redding, CA

When we wake up the next morning, everyone was pretty rested. Driving all night then playing a show took a lot out of us, so we were in need of a good rest. We heard about a burrito place that had good vegan stuff, so we gave it a shot. After we were full, we debated about what to do until the show started. We had a few hours to kill and our options were kind of limited. There was talk of seeing a movie, but since we had seen one the day before, no one was really into it. The Redding kids told us there was a skate park not far from where we were staying, so everyone thought that sounded like a good idea and we went back to the apartment to get boards and head over.

Now, I’m not much of a skater, so I opted out and went back in the apartment with a couple of the other dudes. I was looking around the apartment for something to entertain me while the rest of them played video games and hit up the Myspace. As I was looking at the movies, I noticed a book that I had been looking at the day before at Tower Records: “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star” by Jenna Jameson. I had read an excerpt from the book In Rolling Stone a few months before and it seemed interesting, so I picked it up. Two hours later I had read about 70 pages of it. I stopped for a minute to hear a story of how Dan ate shit two seconds after getting to the skate park and acquired a huge bruise that covered his entire knee. I read for most of the day while Austin schooled the rest of the dudes at NBA Live2005 and the other dudes chatted on the internet to random girls.


At about 6pm, we decided to go eat again because this tour was more about food than anything else, and there was a Thai restaurant near the venue. After we were through, we got to the venue just in time to meet up with Bring It Down. Brook went over to square everything away, and it went much easier than we thought it would. We played the show, and like Sacramento, since we weren’t old school two-step, we didn’t go over too well. We started packing up, and Matt was nowhere to be found. He was on his cell phone the entire time we were loading the trailer, and that’s about the time we decided his new nickname would be Rookie, and that’s what we called him for the rest of the trip. When we were done loading, we headed back to Harry’s apartment for another night of video games. I was relieved that we weren’t going to see Bring it Down again until Phoenix because tempers were still rising.

The next morning, we found out that our Long Beach show had been cancelled, so we had a day off to spend playing video games. While Jake was browsing through the bulletins on Myspace, he found a flyer for our show in LA the next night, but with another band added to the bill: Bring it Down. This is about the time that tempers rose through the roof and a few kids became irate. Around 3pm we left Redding to drive down and stay with a friend in Long Beach, but we hit some bad traffic right around Sacramento and it took us a lot longer than we expected. Finally around 1am, we rolled into Hollywood with nowhere to go so Austin got off the freeway to drive around the city until we found a place to go. We couldn’t get a hold of anyone, so we started looking for hotels around Huntigton Beach. The cheapest hotel we could find was about $75, and we decided that since it was already two in the morning, and we would have to check out by 11 it wouldn’t be worth it. So we drove behind the hotel and fell asleep with the homeless guy that was camped out by the dumpster.

March 13, 2005 - Sacramento, CA

The drive from Portland to Sacramento was by far the worst of tour. Everyone was tired and trying to sleep in various spots of the van. I was the last one to get in after buying gas, so I got the shittiest spot in the van. It’s right behind the passenger seat and there is no way to get comfortable. I tried for about an hour. Finally, I just bit the bullet and tried to squeeze down to the floor between the first and second bench. It was hard, but at least I could stretch out and fall asleep. After about an hour of driving through canyons and mountains, it started to get really cold on the floor. I looked around and found Clint’s blanket, so I wrapped myself up and fell back asleep. About 45 minutes after that, Clint is reaching over from the seat in front looking for his blanket. I decided to be hospitable and give it up, but as he was pulling it off he realized that I was using it and felt bad because I was on the floor, so he let me keep it. Apparently, while Brook was driving he encountered fog that was so thick he couldn’t see more than five feet in front of his face. Didn’t really matter to me, because all I wanted to do was sleep. When the sun came up and we rolled into a gas station, Bill decided that he wanted to drive. He was really excited about it and jumped into the pilot seat and we headed the rest of the way into Sacto.



We got to Sacramento about 11am with nothing to do, so we repeated our form and went to Tower Records & Books. It’s a good place to kill an hour or so. After that, we hit up the Thai restaurant that we skipped over the last time we were in town. This one was much better, and we regretted our decision from last time. Still having several hours to kill, we found a mall with a movie theater and watched HITCH. It was alright, but not $10 alright.

After the movie ended, we piled back in the van and headed over to West Coast Worldwide. A few of the bands had already shown up, including Bring It Down. Now here’s the thing about BID: I like them as people. I’ve never had any problems with any of the kids in the band, and they’ve always been nice to me. But on this tour, they started getting on my nerves a little, and everyone else’s nerves a lot. Apparently, when they found out we were going on tour with Aftermath, they started setting up a tour of their own. The only problem was they were going on the same tour we were. Wherever we had a show booked, they’d get a hold of the promoter and get on the show. We were both working with Mike Hood, so when they got on the Sacto and Redding show, we didn’t mind, but they got on our Phoenix show and our Cedar City show. I still can’t place why this bothered the hell out of any of us, but it did.

The show was good for a Sacto show. There were about 50 people there. That’s pretty good considering we aren’t an old school two-step band. After the show, Mikey Hood hooked us up with the kids in the band Set it Straight who were down to let us stay at their house up in Redding. We played there the next night, so we were fine with driving up there, and they seemed like cool kids. After we got paid, we piled in the van and headed on our way. About 15 minutes after we’d left, Brook got a call from Mikey Hood. Apparently they door guy had given us too much money, and Bring It Down was acting like we stole from them or something of that nature. That added a little more fuel to the fire, but we told them we’d work it out with them the next night.

About 20 minutes outside of Redding, we were driving behind Set it Straight when all of a sudden we see sparks fly out from the bottom of their van. They start losing control and swerving back and forth across the highway. We keep our distance just make sure everything is okay, and they pull over to the side of the road. A few of us jump out and take a look. None of us are car experts, so we just kind of guess at the problem for a minute, but the bottom line is that it’s not going to start and they need a ride. We decide to roll it up the highway about half a mile to the next exit. They didn’t want to leave it on the side of the highway all night, and I don’t blame them. So, Harry gets behind the wheel and me, Clint, Dan, Matt and the other two from their band start pushing. We get the van going pretty fast, and we try to ask Harry how fast it’s going. One second, the guitar player is next to me pushing, then the next I look over and he’s gone. I glance back over my shoulder and all I see is him rolling head over heels down the hill on the side of the road. We all notice it at about the same time and start hysterically laughing. We laugh so hard that the van starts losing its momentum and we struggle to get it up the off ramp. As we finally roll it into a restaurant parking lot, we look back and see our van just pulling off and their guitarist walking down the side of the road. We load all their equipment into the van and we get everyone to Redding no problems. I’m still not sure what happened to their van.

March 12, 2005 - Vancouver, WA

After the house show in Boise, we found a kid that was willing to let us all crash at his house for the night. It was actually his parents’ house and they were out of town for the week. We stopped by the grocery store to get pasta and made a hell of a feast for everyone, and talked about old fight stories for a few hours. We always seem to do that: spend hours at a time talking about shit that happened five years ago with kids we’ve never met. The stories are funny to us, but to the kids hearing them, we must sound completely insane. Oh well. I guess that’s how Salt Lake gets the reputation it has.

The next morning, we were on the road to Vancouver, Washington. It was about a seven hour drive, so we weren’t sweating it too much. We hopped in the van and were on our way. The drive was uneventful, and I mostly retreated into the back and rocked out to my sweet tunes.

Vancouver is only about 15 miles away from Portland, so we decided to stop there to see our friends in the Dead Unknown and find something to eat. Brook is probably the coolest best looking guy I know. We got to Justin’s house and watched a terrible movie on the Sci-Fi channel for a few minutes before we set off to eat. He told us about a place called the Vita Café that was a bit like home style cooking. He said they had biscuits and gravy and we were sold. The biscuits and gravy was true and we all spend way too much money, but we were full as we set off for the venue.

Vancouver is just over a bridge and the place we played at was the basement of a church. We seem to get these places a lot. For some reason, Cherem and church are like peas in a pod. Not sure how it got that way, but it probably won’t change. Well, it might, but only if we start playing huge stadiums and I don’t see that happening. So we’ll take church shows. Brutal Fight rolled up just after we did in a sweet/deadly looking school bus and started unloading their Hot Topic worthy merch display inside. They had a credit card machine, which is a good idea, but easy to make fun of. We decided that we now accepted checks, but they had to wait until we got home and the check cleared before we could give them anything. No one really went for that idea when we pitched it to them.

Aftermath and Cherem were up first and second so we hit the stage to set up. Aftermath didn’t get a great response, but there were a few kids singing along, and it was fun. That’s all that matters I guess. Cherem got a little better response, I think mostly due to the Dead Unknown kids hyping us and we had met a few of the kids when we played Olympia the last time we were on tour. We decided to give the Life of Agony song a shot up in Vancouver, and to our expectations, maybe three people knew what it was. I think that made 6 kids in three cities that knew what we were playing.

After we were done, I hung out by the merch table for the rest of the show. The highlight of the night came when two girls started fighting in front of me. I was pretty excited, but I guess that kind of thing doesn’t happen up there too often, so it stressed everyone out. I enjoyed it though. After the fight, one of the girls came up to talk to me about touring and said she’d be down to help out if we ever needed it. Austin dubbed her my Vancouver girlfriend for the rest of tour.

We had a long drive down to Sacramento, so we piled in the van grabbed some cold soda and hit the road.

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.

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.