to Seattle

Big thanks to Mr. Ledoux for providing us a map to find our way back to the states.



Edward received quite a warm welcome at our first stop at a gas station where he was accused of stealing half n' half. And we're not talking about a carton, but one of those inch sized mini-buckets that's probably worth less than a packet of ketchup. He was merely buying some hot water (which is typically free) when the cashier accused him of lying and that she saw him add half n' half. To which he replied, "I've been to 1000 gas stations in this country and half n'half is ALWAYS free."

"35 cents!"

A whiskey tango foxtrot was called on that lil' experience and we were on our merry
way. Little did she know we made off with at least 40cents worth of paper towels from the restroom, easily 50 cents in hand soap, and 15 cents in straws. Score! We're gonna case out a mcdonalds next in Bellingham, I think we're running low on bbq sauce.

We got to our load in 30 minutes early, so we killed time listening to reggae and throwing frisbees at each other in a nearby car park. I believe the childhood game was called, Butt's Up?





The show was rockin. Big thanks to all those who came early to watch us and apologies to the person who requested High On a Hill.

love&merplesurple

lil'onez

to Vancouver

For the record, Minneapolis to Vancouver = 26hrs of pure little ones enjoyment! We did this trek months ago during the winter and we must say it's much more enjoyable sans snowstorms. We finished our first book on cd together, Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. At some point we posed the idea of installing a sensory deprivation tank in the van. Here's a rough schematic...







Lee, Edward, and Ricky...


Vancouver was great fun. We were able to watch and hang with both hands. This tour is the first time we've ever met the Walkmen, whom of which are all very nice dudes. We had met some of the Kaiser chiefs the last time we were in the UK. A bit surreal that we are now on tour with them. It's truly a privilege to be playing gigs with both these bands and are thankful for every minute of it.

rock!
lil'onez

Minneapolis, MN - Trocaderos

Lets try time stamping day 2...

7:00am
Leave from Chicago for Minneapolis, post haste! Approx. 6 hours and 42 minutes. Rather uneventful drive, we picked up a new tire to replace the one that was ripped open by th exposed Chicago road bolt.

6:00pm
We arrive at Trocaderos for load in. Notice Bobby Brown is playing there in 1 week!

7:00pm - Soundcheck.


7:35pm - the queue begins!


8:00pm - Hit the dressing room and hang with some of the Walkmen for a bit.


9:00pm
This is the part where we play. Alas, no pics as we're too busy playing. We'll try
some onstage camera action in Vancouver. I can say this. It was kinda like that scene in Crossroads(80s not Spears) where Ralph Macchio guitar battles one of the devil's minions, played by Steve Vai, for the soul of his friend. Yeah, it was a lot like that. Minus the Karate Kid, and the boxing ring, and a 7 string Ibanez that weighs less than my forearm.

10:00pm - The Walkmen


11:00pm - Kaiser Chiefs


At some point, Ricky jumped off stage, hugged Ed and Greg, and then leaped onto the adjacent bar.



At this point it all becomes blurry.

love&biscuits,
thelittleones

Chicago, IL - Vic Theatre

En route and on time, or so we thought. First day of joining the Kaiser Chiefs tour and we were hit with some mild backluck. At the tale end of a long haul from Columbia to Chicago we hit a wee bit of traffic getting into the city. It was one of the those scenarios where you have to load directly onto stage, do an accelerated sound check, sprint off stage, clean up a bit, then go back out and start the show. I think we all would of wished it were that easy. Instead, we were line checking our equipment while doors opened. Which isn't bad in anyway, it's just odd when there's a crowed already forming at the front of the stage and half of us are trying to figure out how to setup the absent band members'equipment. All the while the attentive eyes at the front of the stage are growing exponentially. Meanwhile, the missing band members are attempting to park the van and trailer to no luck at all. 10 minutes till stage time and a call comes in from Lee, "we're still trying to park aaaaaaaaaaand one of our tires just blew up". I think it was at that point we asked ourselves what the hell else can go wrong today.

Nothing did, no broken bones or equipment. Only the remaining questions: "So how did it blow up? and where the hell's the van?". The $60 question(s). 60 being the amount of money we spent on rounds for the lovely couple that helped us out. The tire blew up due how most tires blow up...you now, a random bolt sticking out of the ground ripped it open?!?!?!?!?! Anyhow, luckily one of the security dudes from the Vic was on his way out and he and his wife offered to help us out in exchange for some drinks. We were happy to oblige.

Off to Minneapolis...barring any catastrophic events.

glitz&gravy,

lilonez

p.s. no pix were taken from the show due to our frazzled state. so here are some transit pix...





gregory with a Kaiser Chief background...

Columbia, MO - 9:15am

Happy Earth Day! It's early in the morning and we're scrambling, frisbee throwing and loading up for the jaunt to Chicago to meet up with the tour.

here we come!

Columbia, MO - 9:15am

Happy Earth Day! It's early in the morning and we're scrambling, frisbee throwing and loading up for the jaunt to Chicago to meet up with the tour.

here we come!

come on, really?

When the flat topped manager swaggered up to us the other morning at our complimentary continental breakfast, we thought she was merely shooting the shit as they say. However, what we didn't know was that her detective styled sitting, you you know, backward chair with arms folded on the back (lee calls it the Duane Wayne), was in fact a 10am interrogation. What started as a "how'd you boys sleep last night" quickly segued into, "so why does your room smell like pot?"

Okay, it was at this point we completely thought she was joking aside for the fact
that when leaving, her parting words were "well, thanks for being honest". uhoh.

Fast forward 5 minutes and our rooms are filled with Utah's finest. Now, this isn't a story of stoners that slid past johnny law. Cuz that's just a dumb story. But the meat here is that we were in fact falsely accused of...a crime? So that's
how it feels. Later we ran into a couple of the police officers at a gas station. We had a laugh over our mutual stereotypes and were on our way.

Bye bye Richfield, UT. If we EVER see you again it will be way way way way way way way way...
too soon.

waiting, anticipating, vonneguting...

2 days till we embark on our journey to Chicago to meet up with the Kaiser Chiefs & Walkmen tour. We had a laugh when we learned that the leg of the tour we would be participating in started in Chicago. The reason being that our prior 2 North American tours both started there as well and I think we finally accepted it as our Chicago Curse. No offense to chicago as we're all more than looking forward to some sweet deep dish action. Not to mention a stop at ol' Roger Miller museum in Oklahoma and of course those lovely New Mexico mornings. However, this will not be the case as the curse has been lifted and we find ourselves traveling to Chicago by way of the North. We will be making camp in Denver and Columbus (for our first time) for some shows on our way out. I think we're all looking forward to driving the van as well. In the UK we were obviously unable to drive, that is, for the sake of the entire band's safety that is. So there was no tour driving done, well, save for mine and Ed's brief parking lot practice at a Travelodge in Oldham. Fun stuff.

On a sadder note, Kurt Vonnegut died Wednesday night due to injuries suffered from a fall. I'm in no way any sort of uber vonnegut fan or anything, but it was of course sad to learn of his death. Although from what little I know of him and his life I don't think he would see it as a sad thing. Anway, it reminded me of a couple things that I've taken from him and his writings and how they pop in and out of my life...

1. Almost 10 years ago I came across Welcome to the Monkey House and found a short story in their titled "Long Walk to Forever". (In fact it's still bookmarked with a spoken word flier from the 90s) An autiobiographic account of how he and his wife came to be. Sweet, rich, and so unlike his his work he's most famous for. Although I forget about it for years at a time, it still remains one of my all time faves.

2. A DVD tester friend once told me about a documentary he had to test at work. It was called 1 Giant Leap and was about music, art and culture, globally, and general cosmic themes: time, sex, inspiration, death, etc.. He mentioned an interesting quote from an interview with Tom Robbins. I, by some small miracle, remembered the title years and years later and netflixed it. I've had that disc for easily over year now (sorry netflix) and came across it when packing for our last UK tour. On a drive from Manchester to London I finally watched it. And although I was keeping an eye out for the Tom Robbins segments, I came across a Vonnegut interview where he talks about musicians. It went something like this...

"Musicians are so lucky because every writer i know wishes he was a musician instead of a writer. Because as long as they are performing, they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. And there's no question about them making good use of their time on earth."

:) see you on road.

ian/lilonez

looking back at the Troubadour

Been almost a week since the Troubadour show. WOW! A bit of an odd time leading up to it as we realized days prior that we had not played LA in almost 4 months.

On top of that, we usually play at the Echo or Spaceland, so it was a new stage for us all. We feel it went pretty well. The crowd was in good spirits, got to see a lot of friends and even tried out some new songs: O-A, Forgive Yourself, Unlock the Door and Oh My Morning Tide.

We've been home for almost a month now and will be leaving in less than a week. It was certainly nice to get to play a home show while here and are ridiculously thankful. Looking forward to the next...

Thanks everybody.

ian/lil'onez

some nice words and pictures...

losanjealous.com

la times

floating away

duct tape

fun with duct tape, in van, in wales. by the little ones