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[Travis]
[Sophia]
Travis'
tour blog
10/5-10/7 2007
As I begin
writing this, it’s 5:30am on Monday and I just got home in time
to shower and start my workday.
That’s right, even insane rock n rollers have to work on bank
holidays… Needless to say I’m exhausted and the fact that it’s
raining, isn’t helping my motivation to do work or even be conscious
at this point. Damn.
Well, we were touring this weekend and I know some people liked
to read our blogs from when we were on tour in 2006, so I thought
I’d give yall a little recap of some of the events that took place
on this little jaunt.
Our first destination was Essex, a suburb outside of Baltimore.
It took us about 8 and a half hours to get down there. We actually
made it 2 minute before we were scheduled to load our gear in,
so that was nice. Oh, I should mention we had a few guests with
us for some of the trip, the one and only Sophia Bliss and a hitchhiker
named Ana. Ana has an obsession for fresh fruit, and wasn’t carrying
an axe or Bud Light. I also learned that Sophia is infatuated
with Whoopie Pies for what its worth. Anyway, I hate the fucking
NJ Turnpike.
I should mention we were without Matt for the first two dates
of the weekend, which was a bummer. He was missed. Essex was interesting.
I have to say that I’ve grown to appreciate non-smoking venues
more and more each day. The venue (Macs) was huge. Ginormous stage,
big bright lights and $2 Miller Genuine Drafts. Rock on. The sound
was great, but our playing was ass-tastical. Yes that’s right,
even The Motion Sick can crank up the suck on occasion. We just
had an off night; I’m blaming it on the NJ Turnpike. I did get
to see a good friend from High School, who made the trip from
Washington D.C. Thanks to Karen, Stacey and Heather for making
the jaunt to support our band.
The headlining band dropped off the bill, so oddly enough there
was a hard rock Christian music show going on in a church behind
the venue. Mike and Patrick made their way over to the church
and were able to recruit a band called Morningside (http://www.myspace.com/morningsidemd)
to open the evening at Macs. They had a ton of energy, even after
rockin out at the church. Thanks to those guys for playing a double,
it was cool. Piano Black (http://www.pianoblack.net/)
closed the show and they were cool too.
We went to a diner for some late night eating action and had quite
possibly the coolest waiter EVER! I don’t remember his name, but
he was one funny guy. We stayed somewhere near Baltimore that night
and slept on some crazy comfortable beds. I got up early to drop
off Ana in Baltimore, her destination of choice. We hope she found
more fresh fruit to consume and that there weren’t any crazy parasites
or anything in the Baltimore water…
Saturday morning we made our way to Philadelphia to hang out for
the afternoon. Hung out downtown for a bit and walked the streets
to find some eats. Mike and Miss Bliss went to a joint (http://www.continentalmidtown.com/)
with Vegan Big Macs and swinging chairs to sit in. They expressed
that it’s cooler than it sounds. Patrick and I went to a brewery/restaurant
called Noddinghead Brewery (http://www.ripsneakers.com/nodding/).
They had an AMAZING beer called the “wet” Chinook Double IPA. It
was smooth as silk, great beer, great bartender and good food. We
tasted a bunch of their other beers and they were all tasty as well.
Good find.
Next, we headed to NJ for the rock show. We arrived in Morristown
and headed to the venue, which is a cafe/hookah bar. There was a
bit of a misunderstanding with the venue, as we had been told there
were supposed to be 2 other bands playing that night. It turned
out to just be us. We set up and played a semi-acoustic set that
included the debut of playing the new record in its entirety. We
played about 17 songs that night and had a whole lot of fun trying
new things. I think Mike will post the set list somewhere, so look
for that. It was an early show, so we met up with Mike’s sister
Rachel (you owe me some booty shaking) and her friend John. We “hit
the town” for a bit and ended up at a pub with a fucking incredibly
bad funk/R&B cover band. Nothing puts you in a worse mood than hearing
a 4-minute finger tapping bass solo… I’m glad Matt wasn’t there
to hear it, because he probably would have punched the guy in the
face.
We left the pub and hit the diner. I scarfed down a killer Patty
Melt (the one thing I should never eat late at night) and called
it a night. We drove to John’s father’s house in Morristown, who
was gracious enough to allow us to crash there. On the way we spotted
a buck on the side of the road just chillin out… Pretty cool, and
despite John’s attempts to convince me it was an 8 point deer, it
was really only 2 points. John’s father Gary is a great funny guy
and we’re so very thankful for his endless hospitality!! His daughter
Emily, is an up and coming musician whose music video for the song
“Little Boxes” can be seen on the ShowTime TV. Check out Emily’s
website (http://www.emilyeddey.com/),
she’s a great young talent with an amazing voice!
We hung around the Eddey household for most of the day, chatting,
eating bagels and listening to crazy stories, but mostly Patrick
and I slept. We left in the late afternoon to head to NYC to load
our gear into The Knitting Factory. We got there an hour early,
so we dropped off the gear and searched for grub. We went to a Mexican
restaurant down the street and nothing says “I Love New York” more
than $6 beers at a restaurant. After we ate, Patrick and I sent
out on an adventure to track down some Duct Tape. Why you ask? Well,
the reason is simple; Patrick has frequent meltdowns on stage and
most recently “fractured” his guitars ability to keep a strap attached
to it. Patrick being the craftsman that he is, can duct tape a strap
to a guitar like no other human being alive. Simply awesome. We
found the Duc-a-tape (red tape to be exact to match the guitar),
and proceeded to head back to the venue.
The Knitting Factory staff rocks, they’re wicked friendly and accommodating.
The first band to play last night was Massey (http://www.myspace.com/masseyatloophol
e).
He’s a one-man band, pretty cool. After Massey was The Newspeak
Ensemble. I can’t describe them very well, so maybe Mike will
insert a little blurb here about them. Mike says check them out
at: http://newspeakmusic.org
It was then our turn to rock out NYC. It was great to have Matt
back, I missed the bass. We rocked that shit so hard; I think
we may have knocked Tribecca on its ass. Let me tell ya, that’s
hard to do in a town that’s owned by Robert Deniro… We played
a great set and then set off into the night knowing that NYC had
just been annihilated by The Motion Sick. After stopping for pizza
and vegan whoopie pies, we headed home, into the dark of night
and under the radar of the NY State Police cruisers.
So, there you have it. I’m sure I’m missing some key moments that
happened that were funny or whimsical, but I’m honestly too brain
dead at the moment to remember them all. I hope this shit isn’t
too boring, I really can’t tell. In any case, continue to check
out our website, myspace, and facebook for updates on us. The
new record is going to be done soon and we’re really excited for
that, and for our new video, “30 Lives”. Be well my friends, and
be excellent to each other.
Ciao,
Travis
Sophia's
tour blog
10/5-10/7 2007
On
Tour with The Motion Sick or "Hey Shortie! Ya comin' to the
show?!?!"
Due to an aligning of planets, I was allowed to accompany the
boys for
their whirl-wind-weekend tour.
Day 1:
Mike and I started off Friday morning by getting up at 7:00 to
pack and
get ready. Several Soy Lattes and a trip to the store for supplies
later
and we were on our way to meet the van. The van had just gotten
new tires (who would let us hooligans break them in? Thanks Patrick's
Sister!), which led to stories of the last time Mike and I tried
to go on a road trip in a car with new tires (The tires and the
car decided to go their separate ways). It was a long ride to
Essex, which involved serious conversations of death by diarrhea
(Thanks to Ana for bringing the science and for showing up the
boys on the poop talk). I won't say much about Essex, except that
no one had much good to say about Essex. After the band played,
I locked myself in the van to take a nap. I was awakened to go
meet the best waiter I have ever had. Our friend had me in hysterics
when he said "I saw my grandmother in a bikini." That
is my new favorite exclamation. We then found a hotel and got
a few precious hours sleep.
Day 2:
After Travis got back from dropping Ana off, we headed to Philly
for some lunch. After some wandering around, Mike and I decided
to go to an uber-hip/yuppie restaurant that served me a vegan
"Big Mac". It has been 15 years since I've had a big
mac, but this was pretty convincing. Almost disgustingly so, but
cool all the same. After this we tracked Travis and Patrick to
some barstools where Patrick proceeded to dazzle me (and the eaves-dropping
bartender) with his theories on back pain; needless to say, I
think we were seconds from being booted out the door. From there
we continued on to Morristown, to New Jerseys "Only espresso
and Hookah bar." The Motion Sick played a tone-downed, extra-long
set. I had a few seconds of awesome rock drumming to "Every
Rose has its Thorn" while Travis checked the sound levels.
I think I can safely say that everyone was blown away by my awesomeness.
Travis, you better watch your back. Sometime amidst all of this,
Patrick made a discovery of epic proportions. He has found that
as long as you are doing the robot you can say what you really
want/insult people, and it will be okay. Ask him to demonstrate
next time you see him. Thanks to our local guides (Rachel and
John), we then explored the town. After patronizing another diner
and being waited on by the kid from Knocked Up, we were brought
back to the comfort of Gary's home. Thanks so much again to Gary
for putting us up, treating us to breakfast and a few guffaw-inducing
stories.
Day 3:
This was my first time in New Jersey and I certainly did not see
the
armpit that everyone talks about. In fact we lounged around all
day and
didn't get on the road to NYC until mid-afternoon. Once in New
York, we
met up with Matt who accompanied me on my quest for caffeine.
This show had an interesting set of music- Massey was on first,
who played drums, synth, and sang all at once. Did anyone else
catch a Trent Reznor vibe to the music? (Note to editor, that's
you Mike- if you think I'm crazy for saying TR then just go ahead
and take that out for me). Up next was The Newspeak Ensemble,
which is a sort of Political Modern Classical Composer Troupe,
led by my dear friend and Ex-band mate (in our Blitzkriegbliss
http://www.blitzkriegbliss.com days with Mike) David T. Little.
They started off with a more "rock" vibe doing up some
Massey tunes, then did some other pieces including a work by David,
his Love song to Oil, which was pretty awesome. The electric
violin with distortion made my day. They finished up with their
pièce de résistance, "War Pigs" by Black
Sabbath. Next up was The Motion Sick, who were happily re-united
with bass. They cruised through their set, barely stopping to
breathe and rocked harder than I've seen them do in some time.
A fitting end for the tour. We stopped off for a snack at Two
Boots Pizza with Ken, who then led us to the magical place where
vegan whoopie pies live. Patrick, Ken, and I partook of the whoopie
pies and we'll never be the same again. Though I cannot totally
claim the whoopie pie responsible, I was magically transported
back in my bed by 5:00 am Monday morning.
Out,
Sophia Bliss
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