A Day Off

But before we get to that, let's recap a bit:

August 1st--Denton

Thanks to Jimmy, Scott and Spitfire Tumbleweeds, and 100 Damned Guns for a wonderful North Texas evening. The show was fun, the beer was cheap, and the weather was hot. Thanks to my buddy Ian for showing up and for the old lady from the post before this who informed us that in 1947, Floyd Tillman was "hot." Yeesh. Also, thanks to my Aunt and Uncle in Irving for putting us up at 3am and feeding us a wonderful breakfast in the morning. And, of course, to Pepper.

August 2nd--Memphis

Young Avenue Deli is a wonderful, wonderful venue! Thanks to Giant Bear (especially Mike for the floorspace) and Arma Secreta for playing great sets and showing us the Tennessee we've all heard so much about. Just as nice and hospitable as advertised! And the BBQ! Let's just say that Logan has a bottle of The BBQ Shop Hot Sauce coming his way when we get home (courtesy of Gabe).

August 3rd--Chattanooga, TN

What a great town! The Blue Ridge Mountains really look blue and they really smoke! As does literally EVERYONE in the South. We were persuaded by the large "FIREWORKS!" signs and bought many, many bottlerockets and M-90s as well as several "Tennessee" trucker hats. A gigantic thank you to John from the Black Diamond Heavies for helping us out with our Chattanooga show. This led us to JJ's Bohemia. "JJ" stands for John and Jenny, the wonderful and accommodating couple that run the place. The initial "5 Band Bill!" was nothing compared to the rock that would ensue within its little room. Great bands from Tennessee (Knoxville, Memphis, and Chattanooga) and another band from Brooklyn filled the place up and PBR Tall Boys reigned supreme. After chasing the bats from the trees with loud shouts of "Horse Apples" and "WHEY!" we took the stage and everyone went nuts. Most of all, George sexy-danced throughout the room and made everyone feel like they were at a family reunion: familiarity, drunkenness, slightly awkward conversations, hilarity, and total embarrassment. All that was lacking was the Potato-Sack Race. The other bands (Westside Daredevils, Ghosts I've Met, the Glass Mondays, and Antenna Shoes) were all awesome and lots of dancing would take place throughout the night. We all swapped eternal love and email addresses and hopefully will be playing shows with many of them at later dates. Thanks to all of them and to John and Jenny for having us on the show and letting us sleep at their house (and their neighbor's unfinished house).

August 4th--Athens, GA

After a late morning and into the afternoon in Chattanooga (a beautiful river city we must get back to very soon), we rumbled down the highway towards Athens. Athens is a college town, usually hit or miss in the summertime when school is out. This night would be a hit and the Caledonia Lounge would be lots of fun. We had some friends come out to the show (Ryan McCullough) and one of them, Hunter, would be the host of our debauchery for many hours after the show. I'll get to this in a second. Amanda and Jeremy from Tin Cup Prophette are incredible and playing with them was a big highlight of the trip. The opener, Vulture Whale, were also awesome and we hope to get together with them in their hometown of Birmingham, Alabama on our next tour. Thanks to Kevin for making the sound the best we've had so far on tour. After the show, we headed over to Hunter's house where we proceeded to light off all of the fireworks we had previously bought the day before. Between the bottlerocket duels and my bandleader firebombing, it was tons of fun. And no one was hurt! Yay! Well, besides Jesse who has a little burn on his neck from a rogue bottlerocket. Chin up there, buddy. Then we formed what will now be the great noise rock band of all time, HORSE APPLES. Look for us to open up some shows starting in the fall. Damn! Oh, and Lindsay recorded an album. And we ate vegan/vegetarian food (finally!) for breakfast.

Today, our first day off since we started, we drove up to Knoxville, Tennessee to stay with Jess's dad. We traveled through the Smoky Mountains and the Cherokee Reservation of North Carolina and let me tell you, I have rarely seen anything so beautiful. Mountains and rivers and truckers, oh my! We're now laying low and trying to get to bed before 3am for the first time since we started the tour. We have officially finished our Southern leg and I can confidently say that we did rather well and had a blast doing it. We all miss our significant others and friends dearly and we hope they are thinking of us too. Sorry for the brief recalling of the first few days since the last blog (too much grain alcohol I guess). Anyway, we'll do our best to do this more often. We're driving up to Champaign, Illinois to start our second week and our Midwestern leg of the tour tomorrow. Cracker Barrel and Wafflehouse await. I'm gonna go sit on the porch and watch the fireflies. Enjoying the South.

Love,
Alex and OTW