tigers jaw

It’s been super tough to update this regularly, so I’ll try to cover as much of the past two days I possibly can.

The house show we played in Portland couldn’t have gone better. We were able to hang out with Lee, Corey and Carolyn, our friends from Scranton, before the show, which was really awesome. Every band that played, especially Lee Corey Oswald, was fantastic. Portland is a beautiful city with beautiful people living in it.

We drove through the night to California, which gave us time to take the coastal highway through the Redwoods. We ate awesome pizza at Goat Hill Pizza in San Francisco before playing the Parkside, which is a really cool venue that treated us extremely well (I had two Blue Moons and the best veggie burger). We packed ourselves into a very nice apartment with The Sidekicks for the night, and in the morning went to watch sea lions.

Our show in Cupertino got moved so a minor league baseball team could party at the venue, so we played Streetlight Records in San Jose. The show was a little weird because the bands playing are obviously secondary to the business being run, but we were able to meet our friend Shirley in person for the first time, which was really awesome.

Since we were supposed to play Sound and Fury on Sunday, we drove to Santa Barbara and stayed in Cold World’s hotel room for the night. In the morning we picked up Tim from All is Fleeting, and our good friend Andy Saba, who played with Harms Way, and headed to the venue. We spent the day hanging out with Alex Russin, Jeff and Andrea from Run for Cover, Transit and Make Do and Mend. It was really amazing to hang out with so many people we love that far away from home, and it definitely made the festival so much more fun. Andy Rice is the most accommodating person I think I’ve ever met, and he helped us out so much in such a short period of time, and it really wouldn’t be fair to talk about Sound and Fury without mentioning him.

A pretty big, really dumb fight broke out between some kids and security ten minutes before we played, and Sound and Fury was shut down. I’m sure there are better accounts of what actually happened somewhere, so I’m not going to go into detail, but it was pretty wild (and, again, really dumb).

LUCKILY, we were able to get on a house show with Foundation, Backtrack and Bracewar that night, which turned out to be the most insane show I think we’ve ever played. Ive definitely never seen that many kids come out to one house, and I really cant believe it wasn’t shut down before it started. The guys in Foundation helped us out so much and let us use their equipment, and we played a very short, very fun set to a lot of kids. While Sound and Fury may have been a little more organized, this show was an awesome way to end the weekend. We met back up with The Sidekicks at Pat’s cousin’s amazing house in Los Angeles, and enjoyed a restful sleep before our drive to Mesa. AZ.

Arizona was the hottest place I’ve ever been. Ceremony was playing a show in the same building as us, but the people running the show planned it very well and made it so that people could see every band on both shows without missing anything. We played one of the most fun sets ever, and I really would love to go back to the Nile Underground if given the chance. We stayed with our friend Manny outside of Mesa that night, which was one of the most welcoming places we’ve stayed this tour. Manny rules.

Last night we played a house in El Paso, TX with Am I Awake, Man Overboard and The Sidekicks. Everyone was extremely friendly, and it was cool to see so many kids come out to a city we’ve never played. We stayed at a hotel with The Sidekicks and hung out for a while in their room (like, a REALLY LONG TIME) rapping and wrestling before going back to our own room and getting a solid four hours of sleep.

This was really long.

• Adam Terradactylwee

Since our last update, we’ve driven far distances, and had to combat mass quantities of Sidekicks bullshit. After waking up in Chicago, we began the drive to Minnesota, and came face to face with the Twin Cities. The home of Prince and the Wolverines. The show in St. Paul was a good time, and we successfully seemed to depart on our 27 hour drive across the the American North to Seattle. The drive was beautiful. I had never seen anything like it, and was amazed. Fargo, North Dakota was our first stop, followed by 24 more hours of driving. Adam, Ben and Brianna took the drive on, and pulled us through. The Sidekicks, particularly Matt (S), provided some hazardous road humor. We accidentally hit a dead deer that was in the middle of Route 94, but everything was okay. We survived, and continued our westward push.

July 21st was Brianna’s birthday, and we celebrated by stopping at an enormous grand canyon-esque desert oasis. It was 100 degrees, but because there was no humidity in the air, so I was not dripping with sweat, which is usually the case. For dinner, we drove through the enormous and majestic mountains of Washington to the diner known as the RR on the television series of Twin Peaks. It was awesome, and we all became Bob…For all of you who do not know who Bob is, simply look at the photo below. He’s on the far right.

thanks, goodnight,

pat

hello everyone,

just a little update. berea fest was great. its super nice to see a completely independently run festival with amazing bands, a stupid low price, and enough local pride to fill randy’s deep pockets with. super bummed about not getting to see delay and good luck, but for me, my favorite sets were the sidekicks, algernon cadwallader, bridge and tunnel, paul baribeau, saintseneca, asinine, new creases, and lemuria.

three matts.

we also played that after fest show (explaining why we had to miss good luck and delay) at a venue called the church, which after accidentally finding himself in the middle of a youth group slumber party, adam realized is NOT actually a church. the show was really cool, the crowd was very supportive. people wanted us to play one more song when we were done, and we asked the girl in charge if it was alright time-wise and she said yea, only if you play chemicals. we didnt play chemicals, so sorry to her.

last night we played the Beat Kitchen in Chicago IL. traffic was pretty bad getting into the city but we had biggie smalls to ease the stop/start monotony. on a side note, the van is running beautifully, so our deepest thanks to our new friend jeremy for the rental. beat kitchen was cool, they made us pizza. the sound on that stage is incredible, one of the few times we were all able to hear a perfect mix through the monitors. the crowd was great, but i was bummed that a kid got thrown out for trying to stagedive. he wasnt being a jerk, he was just having fun. like bats is a cool band, and the brokedowns too. tobias jeg wore a nice suit and a skinny tie, but he’s a ball buster. danielle parsons is doing a fantastic job selling merch. we all have black shoes. i got crazy bad food poisoning last night and it was the worst feeling in the world, but speck and fuzz from mastermind ink really came through for us last night. we were about to stay somewhere else with a very nice person who im sure would have been extremely accomodating, but upon arrival, our van was approached by some shady individuals, giving us second thoughts about trusting our vans safety in this particular area of the windy city.

today we travel to st. paul, mn to play at eclipse records.

more soon,

ben, tigers jaw

PS- if anyone has any good pictures of us playing from any of the shows, please send them our way ! myspace.com/tigersjaw or tigersjawmusic@yahoo.com.

PPS- please consider making us a mix cd. we got a motown one and its really really great.

brnncllns:

Tigers Jaw + tba @ The Church - 1967 W 65th St Cleveland, OH. 11:45pm, $donations$.

Thanks to everyone who came to the show last night and gave us a first taste of tour! Bearings played a solid set and Sidekicks were great as usual. We can’t wait to hang out more with the handsome Sidekicks and play some basketball and some music.

We will try to update this daily if not multiple times per day while on tour to share photos, stories, pat’s wisdom, show details, etc.

To anyone who is planning on seeing us at any of our tour dates: We will be driving across the country and back within three weeks. that is a whole lot of driving. We would be really excited if anyone would make us a mix cd for something different to listen to in the van. throw on some local bands, 90s alternative hits, smooth jazz, top 40, your favorite song, bands we should know about, etc. We will exhaust our ipods and get sick of our music libraries, so if anyone is into this idea, that would rule!

see you soon.

Our friends, matt and spenser, are driving cross-country for the next few days with an ultimate destination of California. I wish them the best, and am using this blog as a conduit for my wishes. Love you boys. Safe campin’. 

-jimmy crack corn

in other news, we’ll be playing in one week (July 8th) at the Fire in Philly with the Sidekicks. Come out! It will be a great time.