...and introducing Mick Shrimpton!!

It's happening AGAIN!!! We're hitting the road next week with our dear friends Metavari in celebration of their newly purchased van. We fully intended to soil that thing to our highest potential and leave no scent un-smelt.
here are the dates:
8/30 Bloomington, IN
8/31 Cleveland, OH
9/1 Philadelphia, PA
9/2 Brooklyn, NY
9/3 Cambridge, MA
9/4 Biddeford, ME
9/5 Montreal, CANADA
9/6 Ottawa, CANADA
9/7 Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
9/8 Grand Rapids, MI
9/9 Chicago, IL
9/10 Holland, MI
9/11 Fort Fun, IN
...just click 'em for all the important info.

we started rehearsing today, and it went really well. here's the proof:

tim and bryant discussing guitar amp sounds...bryant's all like "i need more BASS!", to which tim replies "there's already too much bass as it is, i'm not going to turn it up just for the HALIBUT!" to which bryant replied "oh, i can't hear it. my hearing used to be pretty good. i must've LOBSTER and never FLOUNDER" to which tim replied "huh?".


and here's burke. staring off into space without a thought in his pea brain.

we're really excited about these shows. so, if you know anyone in or near those towns we're approaching, tell them to come on out. we're intentionally planning to have fun at each and every show on this whole tour.

Two Days Worth

i'm a little behind....sorry about that. it's been a whirlwind couple of days with lots of traveling. not much internet time.

enough excuses.

after the show and gourmet hotdogs in cleveland, it was time for one of our favorite old haunts, columbus, oh.
we hadn't gotten enough skin-tubes of oozing parts-is-parts "pork" and "beef" at the happy dog, so our first stop was a much anticipated visit to the schmidthaus. it's a german buffet in germantown. tim stayed home to recuperate flu-wise while the rest of us chowed down.



we were all feeling pretty ripe after all that sour kraut and knockwurst, so we went for a long-distance hike through the columbian wilderness to work it off. here's lewis and dave guiding us on our spiritual quest.


i'm getting sleepy....

the show was in a short basement.



sleeping bag in action.


after columbus was luna music in indianapolis. give them your business. here's what that show looked like during the sleeping boys set where lewis dogged us, thinking we were not in the room. we were in the room, and lewis is a chowder head.

on with the show...


after the show, we played taboo. here are two of my oldest friends. well, not that they're old, they're their normal age, we've just been friends for a long time is what i mean.


andy really wanted to make the tour blog, but unfortunately his photo came out blurry...andy, if you're out there, send me your senior pic or something and we'll treat you right. sorry for the poor photo quality.


this is emily, and the reason her hand came out blurry is because she just got done smacking tim. that's why tim looks so scared. she also went to space camp.


tim was really upset about getting smacked, so he went off and pouted with lennon sitting in his lap. lennon's the dog.


lennon likes to smooch.


you may remember ryan from our austin blog entry. here he is, making another appearance. so....that's what that is.

see you tomorrowzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Hot in Cleveland Rocks

tim's got the flu, and he's laid up...

so we threw him in the van with no a/c and drove to Cleveland for a hot dog. the show was great, and we had some old friends out. we're also on tour at the moment with Sleeping Bag, who are a very good band. If you don't want to take my word for it, just ask Dave Segedy. He'll tell you.

David Woodruff saw what we were doing to Tim, what with the fever and the no a/c, and he DID NOT go for it. So, he jumped in his time machine, flew back to the 1800's real quick and grabbed this bike. Then he pedaled all the way Cleveland, OH. Here's the proof...


I'm still waiting for Zac to text me the picture we got of Aaron sleeping (he's bryant's replacement for the summer), but his verizon connection is no good here. can you hear me NOW?

here's sleeping bag:


EDIT
i finally got that photo of Aaron...welcome to the club, buddy

MORE TOUR DATES!

We're hitting the road again, starting tomorrow!

7/6 Cleveland, OH - Happy Dog
7/7 Columbus, OH - The Purple Grape
7/8 Indianapolis, IN - Luna Music
7/9 Grand Rapids, MI - Founder's Brewery
7/10 Kalamazoo, MI - The Strutt

all dates are with SLEEPING BAG!
full details at XRArecords.com

Rabid in the Kennel

We're home for a while, trying to schedule a few shows in July before Bryant's triumphant return and a big fun-time surprise-news tour in September.

in the meantime...

Check out our live session and interview with Jack Rabid over at bigtakeover.com!! As you probably remember from this very tour blog we had a great visit with Jack and his lovely gang of buddies when we stopped by the Kennel in April, and now its all streaming across the internet for you to enjoy as well. Also, be sure and pick up the latest issue of The Big Takeover and read the great review of PROUD FLESH and see us at #27 in the editor's picks! WHAT A COUNTRY!!

New Old Music!

No, this isn't technically tour-related, BUT, one time, on tour, we recorded four songs for Daytrotter.com. One of them was called "LEM Three".

Starting now, the previously rare and hard-to-find original version of "LEM Three" (as well as One, Two and Four) is available digitaly from XRA and Flannelgraph Records!

Buy it, if you can!!

Our Return to the Land of Milk and Honey

Captain's log star-date 5/1/2011.

Meet Kevin:

Kevin is many things to husband&wife. He is our drive, our life blood, our sherpa, and most importantly our guru. Guru Kevin called out to us all the way from his heavenly perch at the Chinese Buffet in Gas City, IN, beckoning us to come quickly and eat at his half-filled/lukewarm chinese buffet. So we packed up all our duds and climbed back in the Ecto-one (our wonderful 2003 Ford Windstar) to followed Guru Kevin's pillar of cloud out of the big apple.

As it turns out that pillar of cloud was actually a gigantic pillar of radioactive material from 3 Mile Island. It lead us right to Harrisburgh, PA. There Guru Kevin called out to us again. This time he took the form of an old dear friend serenading us with surefire pop-country hits:


We had a great time with Mike Johnson (Kevin incarnate), but had to push on to Pittsburgh. Guru Kevin parted the waters of Pittsburgh's three rives allowing us to pass through and make it safely to Howler's Coyote Cafe for our show.

There was a sweet city-wide gallery opening in downtown Pittsburgh. We only got to two of the galleries, but they were both sweet exhibits. One was a show for the girl friend (Katherine Young) of a great new friend we made at our show (Johnathan from the band Delicious Pastries).

Unfortunately the arts counsel decided to hang up all these paper snow flakes, but leave out the ones Zac's been working on all tour in the van. He was pissed.


After a short lunch with my doppleganger . . .

. . . we were ready to push on towards Guru Kevin in Gas City. Unfortunately before we could escape Pittsburgh the Heinz family captured us and held us hostage. They were pissed at us for being from the home state of Red Gold. Guru Kevin took the form of our new friend Bankt and came to Zac in a dream. He gave Zac instructions for freeing us from the Heinz families enslavement. Zac didn't quite follow it all.

Zac did manage to remember that we were to sacrifice a Red Gold tomato and spread its blood on our door post (looking a little orange in this picture, do to the color correction on our camera).

Guru Kevin said he would send the Angel of Expiration Dates in the middle of the night to the kingdom of Heinz, and it would cause all the first born ketchups to go expired. But if we had spread the blood of a Red Gold tomato on our door posts (orange here) the Angel would pass over our dwelling and spare our ketchup. This happened just at Guru Kevin said it would, and in the madness that followed all that expired Heinz being disposed of, we managed to escape Pittsburgh and push on west toward Indiana.

We made a quick stop in Toledo where, after many attempts and two weeks of practice, Bryant finally learned to do the hand-jive:

This made Zac happy.

After a nights stay in a hotel so nice you couldn't operate two [appliances] at once . . .

. . . we finally arrive in Guru Kevin's presence. Kevin talked to us through our entire meal, sharing all sorts of wisdom about the I-phone 5, local elementary schools, the devastating floods he would cause if he could, cool cars, the "Fast and the Furious" series, and his older brother. We wished we could stay for eternity with Kevin in the heaven that is the Gas City China Buffet, but he said he had other plans for us. Guru Kevin had other followers to attend to and so he sent us out. This made Bryant sad:


Kevin, where ever you are . . .

. . . watch over husband&wife.

This is Tim signing off. Good night and good luck.