Tour Journal:
Unfortunately, this is one of the last events at our favorite venue/artspace in the city. Fortunately, it was unbelievably good, as usual. Plenty of people, some good fans, some crazy partying. Edmar who runs the whole deal and the publication Lumpen (very rad magazine) is one of the funniest people we know in the midwest, and a highlight of meeting on our tours.

We were all geared up to play a second set at 230am, and not 15 minutes beforehand, a squad of police invaded and kicked the whole lot out, attempting to stamp any fine possible. Goes to show why the venue is shutting down, too much pressure from the surrounding community. Humourously, one cop got causually pulled aside and asked “Hey man, did you used to break(dance)?”… to which he gruntingly admitted to. The other (smashed) partygoer was stoked to see an old friend.

Tour Journal:

This was day two of the “Estefest”. We were not sure what to expect, but it turned out surprizingly cool. We were blown away by “Sword Heaven”, and stayed with a new friend who was of equally comparable video game nerdery. No sleep was had thanks to a full Mrs Pacman cabinet set on free play.

Also, if you can find it in Columbus, you must eat at the TACO NINJA. A small ninja themed mexican food stand inside a bar. Even the chips are shaped like throwing stars.

Tour Journal:
This was actually mislisted as being in Cincinnati, which it definitely was not…. more of a segueway between OH and PA. Thankfully we had picked up some steam from the midwestern part of the tour, because the show turned out to be a dud. Not much else to say. More sleeping in the van. Didn’t want to waste any more money on a hotel room (or have to literally sneak people in through the hotel room window).

Tour Journal:
Another coincidental monday night in Pittsburgh…. this time around, things are starting to pick up. We seem to accidentally hit this city on off days, but after enough struggles, we manage to fare ok. Hopefully we can schedule a weekend date next time around. Show was good, and then we realized how close to home we really were… and so….

…Sometime earllllly tuesday morning we rolled into Philadelphia, almost completely delerious. We broke into our own house, screaming and smashing random things within our grasp (the war of 1812 rages on) as the non-band occupants living there awoke with confusion and excitement. Then the landlord came by and told us he wished we never made it back home.

Tour Journal:
Before all the positive things roll out… let us just say…. WHY THE HELL DOES CONNETICUT HAVE SUCH HORRIBLE, NONSTOP TRAFFIC?!?!??! (and gas prices). This fact killed us to and from boston.

In any case, the show turned out to be a FANTASTIC “end of the road” part of the tour. Great to have played with The Parasprinter, members of which we’ve spoken to for some time. Nice folk, and good group. Trying to get them on the bill for Magfest 4 (www.magfest.org). The venue and show itself reminded us of the Ashland Church shows in south jersey we used to attend nearly every friday night growing up, even before we had any sort of band to play in….. Can’t believe that was almost a decade ago.

Tour Journal:

At last, we are home (for real)….. so much needed sleep, laundry, and showers were in order. The van (and our Urkel hoodpiece) may rest easy for a few days. No more sleeping in the van/begging for food. For now.

However, our homecoming show is THIS SUNDAY, JULY 3rd! We’re hitting arguably the best venue our city has to offer once again, the Unitarian Church… with our friends and supreme video game band THE MINIBOSSES! And to top it off, when we met up in Phoenix weeks ago, we worked out some secret nintendo material which we’re going to unveil AS ONE BAND, FOR A DUAL ENCORE!!!

A 12 piece video game orchestra awaits you. Preordering tickets might be wise, or at least showing up early (doors at 730). Ever since we got back, we caught heavy word of how fast the 500 capacity room is filling up. Do so at: www.r5productions.com

Tour Journal:

We went into this show blindly, and it turned out to be fantastic. Got to see a slew of fans and friends from the general area, and were impressed with the space. Bucky’s “helmet cam” is working out perfect (see Mr Magfest’s pictures in previous post). Got some amazing new band photos on top of a heavily egyptian themed night club that used to be a weird cult gathering space. Again, will get these up sometime later.

Have a long drive all day tomorrow, must make it to dallas early on friday!

Tour Journal:
We arrived today at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in center city, dallas texas. The convention is gigantic… in both size and attendance. Roughly 12,000 attendees are here. The hotel is overbooked, and people are coming in from all over the country staying whereever we can. Fortunately we have a few band suites and a green room to retreat to. With plenty of air conditioning to escape the texas heat (the tour van was heating up on the way here, even with a newly repaired air conditioner). Spent the day sorting out lots of minor problems and checking out the booths and panels and etc.

We attended opening ceremonies and let Bucky whip his hair on stage in front of a couple thousand people during our introduction. Lets hope our show tomorrow goes just as well!

Tour Journal:

Today we finally got to relax a bit more. This was the last day of the con, so a lot of stuff was getting wrapped up by late afternoon. Attended the breakfast buffet social-mixer, where a number of con attendees paid to get in and eat/talk with all the featured guests of the convention, including us. Also held a booth for more merch and autographs, although the vast majority of the people got this done right after our show last night.

Following this, we got special treatment, as the featured guests and con staff sort of claimed sunday night as their own. After the attendees have left the convention center/hotel, the guests and staff traditionally go out to eat, all expenses paid by A-KON (this time it was a swank kobe-beef japanese steakhouse, with all the trimmings and sake to spare). Then after being shuttled back on the merry drunken buses, all night was spent in a massive hotel suite with an open bar, where much griping and congratulations were due for everyone that participated and made the convention happen.

Everyone, attendees staff and guests altogether, were extremely nice and appreciative of our efforts as a touring group doing fringe music… one of the many reasons why we love playing conventions of all sorts. Lets hope the budding invitations to come back next year come into fruition!

We’ll miss you, A-KON….

Tour Journal:
After what seems like living forever and being treated so nice at A-KON, we’ve moved on to continue the road part of the tour. Amarillo is fairly sprawling considering the location (north texas, middle of nowhere?), but erieely has few cars or people on the streets and endless bail-bond stores. We were barely able to find the venue. Despite all this, the show came through in the end (considering the place and time, a monday night). Some of the people watching ended up being the most decent folk in the area, and were more than welcoming in taking care of us during and after the show. When all the smaller stops on tour turn out to be just good enough like these, touring seems feasible for us once again…

Tour Journal:

This venue was crazy…. an ex 70’s gay bar, turned into a punk rock cage match dive bar with an entire arcade to boot. The show itself was great (Mr Pacman was a fury of leather jumpsuits and nintendo punk rock, and Magic Cyclops was hilarious), and the attendance was again just enough to keep us going. Many thanks to the club and bands and fans, getting merch and making sure we got enough from the door to survive.

We love Denver, but we had to get a shower and some laundry done before the tour van becomes a biohazard. Fortunately Mr Pacman accomodated this. This is another reason why we love touring: such open welcoming friends (new and old alike). Spending months and months conversing online is nothing compared to finally enjoying a night or two while on tour with the people who make it happen for us.

Also, the best idea of tour thus far has been the fact that we all got Nintendo DS (gameboys) beforehand. With its wireless capacity (vulgar pictochat and Mariokart are current favorites) the long drives seriously have shrunk so much. 8 guys crammed into a van have now become a nonstop video game tournament featuring 8 guys crammed into a van.

Ah, and our van is getting really good gas mileage (because we sunk hundreds of dollars into pre-tour repairs, that we have yet to make back, but we’ll see). Maybe it’ll balance out in that respect. Having functional air conditioning this time around (with the new gameboys) just about keeps things bearable.

Tour Journal:
RIP Monkey Mania

Our friend and Denver celebrity of rock n roll best dudeness, Josh Taylor (of Friends Forever), moved a while ago, and despite this, we still wanted to give the “new” monkey mania a try. Long story short, after we literally got the show UN-cancelled (they tried to cancel it that day, fortunately we arrived early), cleaned the hell out of the venue (mysterious piles of shit? dog or human?), the show actually happened to a very small crowd. It felt very sad to us though, as if going through the motions of something good that was long past. One new guy living there was trying to give his honest help, however.

Ironically, Josh ended up moving to LA and working @ The Smell and Amoeba Records, both places we’ve hit and loved, so best of luck to him… hope to catch him there sometime in the future.

Thankfully Mr Pacman and co. saved our asses, and we had a good time later on. Much thanks to Avery.

Tour Journal:

This show was a last minute addition to fill in a gap. Unforunately, it was as disappointing as was Monkey Mania. We had done very well in Chicago on all previous tours, but this was a late addition on an ill-matched show, at a venue that wasn’t quite right for us (despite being booked all the time, The Blue Note is literally the Chicago version of Philly’s Grapestreet Pub, for those who know our area). The staff and other bands were friendly enough however, and once again we ducked out with a chunk of gas money. This tour is still proving to be the best ever, seeing as the very few “bad” shows still provide some fuel in the van.

Too bad the show wasnt up to expectations, because we drove 24 hrs (all day thursday into friday from denver) to get there! Agh. At least that was the only mega drive of tour, all the rest has been less excruitating.

Also, this entire tour we’ve seen some weird coincidences… such as the Power Rangers. Toys, puzzles, etc where ever we go, and we actually met and ate dinner with the creator of the Power Rangers @ A-KON last week (and the actor for Chewbacca as well!). The other coincidence being this really creepy painting of a cat playing with a unicorn at several venues, the very same picture as seen in the comedy central show STELLA (the episode where the guys flood the apartment below them, and the downstairs girls end up sleeping over).

Tour Journal:
This is in the top list of places we look forward to. Jeff @ The D.A.A.C. has always taken care of us, and the show was good enough for a sunday night (especially seeing all the shizzer fans coming out for us, and playing with The LSDudes was great as usual). All the guys from The LSDudes are some of the best around, and we partied two nights and three days with them when all was said and done. We baked a pornographic series of cakes featuring Pac-Man and friends at one point. We will miss the guys here, too bad Grand Rapids is a long drive from Philly.

Also forgot to mention earlier, on the way to driving to Chicago the other day, we were pulled over big time. Literally right before we got to the Mississippi river (the border of Iowa and IL), 4 cop cars and a narcotics squad surrounded us and pulled us over. After separating Dino and Denny (who were pilot and wingman at the time), and keeping the rest of us in the van, we went under some rigorous but silly questioning, and damn drug sniffing dogs went all over our van and in the trailer. Apparently they were looking for more big ticket arrests, and assumedly our ratty looking tourvan and trailer (and temp registration, long story) was suspicious looking. In any event, it was a long, tense pain in the ass, but we walked free. If anyone else remembers, this happened way back during our 1st US tour, in another middle-of-nowhere state (idaho), where the state trooper made us stand 50 feet away from the car (in a field, in the rain), while he combed our van hoping to bust us for something. Too bad he failed too!

Tour Journal:
We spent monday hiking through the woods to reach a secluded beach on lake michagan… it was incredibly serene. We ruined it by swimming in our clothing and making lewd sand sculptures (Pacman yet again, seeing as we baked a lewd Pacman cake the previous day).

Tuesday we once again hit Kings Island, our favorite theme park… we were tired as hell and ready to go home, but couldnt pass up one last chance to hit up SON OF BEAST and the rest.

Tour Journal:

Well… we’re home safe now, and very happy. This tour was by far the most successful one. Even during the very few rough times, we had enough to survive, and at best we saw so many friends and fans everywhere, new and old alike. Fortunately, these times were the majority of the trip, which made the drives so much more tolerable (although, having the wireless gameboy DS’s definitely helped).

So many thanks to all of you, we wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for your support. Extra thanks to Bucky (Pat) and Phil for coming along to help fill out the empty spaces in the music/performance.

We took 2 video cameras and 3 digital ones with us, thus far only one album has been posted (thanks Bucky!). Already one can see how big A-KON was (can’t believe we ate dinner with the creator of the Power Rangers and the actor for Chewbacca), the sexual Pacman cake we baked, day off at lake michagan, cooking in the tourvan, our rooftop trespassing on a closed down egyptian nightclub/cult center, and more. Explanations will come about when more albums are posted online.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v281/abstartselect/chrome%2006%20tour/

Best of the best,
CHROMELODEON