welcome back to your regularly scheduled program! sorry we've been off the blog for so long. we played a super fun show in oakland at mama buzz with gladiators eat fire, who were one of the loudest most epicly awesome bands we've seen! egad! we went to the beach after the show and hung out with them and it was delightful! played in sf with the lovely ash reiter at the mojo bicycle cafe. it was a super tiny spot right on divisadero. whilst in sf we met up with our friend who also happened to be visting from alaska, arielle, and partyed it up in castro! yeehaw! after our bicycle cafe show it was time to split paths for a bit as steffi went on out to a wedding in minnesota, while i manned tammy and wound my way down the bay. things were going great until san jose when bam! tammy's tranny went out! damn you ford, damn you! this caused amazing complications as you could imagine, especially since i was supposed to pick up steffi soon. after getting the run around from ford, we moved tammy to aamco and they saved her! i squeaked in a rental car and rushed to pick up steffi. we met up with tammy the next day, packed up the necessary gear into the rental car, and headed down to southern california to play some shows!
first up was the biko garage in isla vista. after wandering to the beach and gathering naturally occurring tar on the soles of our feet [which i still think i have some on there], we went to biko. we played in a super cool garage with cats and all kinds of goodies on the walls! adsr + miniature trees played with us and it was so much fun! adsr was one guy who played everything using loops and electronics to his advantage. miniature trees was a super technical and super great math rocky band from san diego i believe. their set was captivating and loud and lovely! we spent the night and were off to la the next day. we stayed with jeremey + preston in hollywood and it was a super awesome spot. our first show in the area was on friday at the smell. we played a rollicking fun show with captain ahab [ohmigawd!] kid infinity [with one of the coolest homemade light shows ever!] and kevin blechdom [with super theatrical goodness!]. we met some really awesome folks and had so much fun dancing the night away!! the next day we headed down to san pedro to play harold's place. the second we walked in it was like cheers where everyone knows yer name, only a million times better because there was some grit + grime + super cool folks all around! we played with a couple super energetic punk bands + bombon, an all grrrl surf trio from san pedro as well. it was a super wild fun night and we met so many awesome amazing people and we can not wait to get back! on monday we headed over to the tribal cafe for a show with headlights + persona la ave. both bands had a cool electronic feel to them on opposite ends of the spectrum. i was in awe at headlights set and could not turn away as axel twisted and turned all kinds of knobs to make ridiculously wild sounds. it was a hoot!
we had about a week until our next show so we decided to head on down to venice beach. oh! did i mention that we got tammy back on monday morning? it was great to be back with her and she's running great! anywho, venice was a riot. it was scuzzy, but in the most delightful way possible. we biked up and down the beach and ended up at the santa monica pier at night. it was so cool to see all the rides and the pier lit up like oddly shapen metallic christmas trees! up next was the oc! oh no! the oc was so ritzy, we couldn't fathom it. it was exactly what you thought it would be. we headed back up to santa maria for an acoustic park show. we must have gone up and down us-101 a million times and slept at the same rest stop on two or three occasions. anyways, we played an acoustic show in a huge park in santa maria. it had the cushiest grass that we had ever stepped foot on. once sitting down we didn't want to go anywhere. even where the first round of frolfers came we stood our ground and continued playing and talking and making new friends. it felt good to play acoustic again and was a nice change of pace. we played one last song and as we were leaving a group of super anxious and not very good frolfers just couldn't wait any longer and threw their disc and hit my wrist... those bastards! nevertheless we escaped and said our goodbyes and were off to las vegas!
sin city, usa! we checked into our super mod room at the flamingo as we prepared for stefanie's birthday. we had an amazing pool, free drinks, slots a plenty, and so much neon! we met up with stef's family friend mary + her fiance joe who were two of the nicest people we've ever met! they took us to fremont street and showed us where vegas began and told us all the cool spots to hit up on the strip. we wandered around vegas for a couple days pool hopping, taking in the neon, gathering free drinks and cheap food, and having a blast. for steffi's birthday, joe was able to get us tickets to see terry fator! woohoo! he was great and we'll post a video or two up later. he did ventriloquism with a bunch of different characters and sang really amazing impressions through the puppets. it was wild! we had a very late dinner in paris and topped off the night with some creme brulee. after we checked out, we wandered around the strip some more, catching places we had missed, before we went down to flagstaff. we stopped at treasure island to get some free slot play and then something amazing happened! after putting in a dollar, steffi got three flaming sevens and won $260! booyah! we came out ahead even when you factored in eating and gambling! yesssss! and it was instantly off to flagstaff after that! ha! we got to drive over the hoover dam and drove through the ridiculously high desert until we got to flagstaff. we arrived at the haunted hotel monte vista and played a quick acoustic set and a longer electric set for a super fun night. we got to stay in the air supply room and looked out the window the next morning and hey! it's late for the train coffee! a delicious treat right across the street! we served this for quite a while at the coffeeshop i worked at and it's so good! we're going to grab a bite to eat and we'll try and get pictures + videos up soon! we're off to phoenix and more desert today! midwest, we'll see you so soon!
-xo bobby
