Tour Blog : Part 4

This blog entry is longer overdue and contains at least 1,151 miles worth of documentation.

First off, I have to thank Subway sandwiches for keeping me, and the band, alive with their tasty $5 footlong subs. The best part is, not only do they will throw piles of tomatoes on their sandwiches, these sandwiches last not one but TWO MEALS if 6 inches at a time fills your stomach (which for me it does). Next time around I must look into a corporate Jared-like sponsorship that would supply us with unlimited sandwiches and would allow us to eat more than 6 inches at a time.

WEDNESDAY

SAN DIEGO.
We played a very cool room called Le Stat’s in our first visit to San Diego and played with a local band called Fusse. During the day before the show, we dropped Jonathan off with his lady friend Mari and the rest of us went over to the beach at Torrey Pines State Reserve. While we were there, we talked mostly about future recording though we did stare deep into each others eyes and watch the sunset too.

We were lucky enough to crash for the night with a friend of mine who I met playing in Monterey a couple of months back. He is a songwriter named Jakob Martin – check out his music at : http://www.myspace.com/jakobmartinmusic



THURSDAY

I played a bad trick on Jason’s fiancée Carey. Jason and Carey got engaged at the end of December and they have just begun to get the details in order. While Jason was off taking a shower, I left Carey a facebook wall posting saying how happy I was to be Jason’s BEST MAN (not true btw) and she in turn wrote me this:

“Aw, Andrew. It does mean a lot to have you in our ceremony--your friendship has meant so much to Jason, and of course to me now, too! :) Thanks for everything, especially for taking care of Jas, and I'm really excited that you'll be a part of our wedding day! Take care! :) :) :)”

Once Jason was informed of my devilish activities, he immediately tried to correct the situation though we all got a good laugh about it.

IRVINE.
We returned to UC Irvine’s Anthill Pub for a show on Thursday night with our good friends LINKS. The Pub at my college alma mater was PACKED with people. My friends in the a cappella group Deceptive Cadence joined us for Morgan, the Conqueror and She’s Suddenly. Eric Frank was able to play with the band for the night.

FRIDAY

After being graduated from UCI for a year and a half now, I finally picked up my diploma. The woman at the admissions desk had a good laugh at how long it took me to get that fine piece of paper but I have a feeling she has seen worse.



LIVE on KUCI
In a band first, Jason and I played a duo gig at the UC Irvine radio station KUCI.

LOS ANGELES.
I am not sure why I even stop in Los Angeles anymore. The venues pay you nothing, it’s like pulling teeth to get anyone to show up and the sets are short. I understand it is all due to the fact that the ration of performers to venues in LA is out of control and venues can make their own rules. We even had to pay for our band photographer Alex Dita to get into the venue.

We played at ROOM 5 in LA. There was a good amount of people and playing was a lot of fun. Eric Frank joined us on percussion and back up vocals for the set as well. But the show was a bummer as it was 30 minutes/6 songs of playing for our fans/friends to see us at $10 a piece; money which we see nothing from.

SATURDAY

YOSEMITE
The story of this gig will be one I will tell for quite some time. Planning the tour this year, I wanted to make a stop somewhere on our drive back from Los Angeles to Sacramento. The show we booked for this stop was at the Yosemite Bug Resort in Midpines, CA.

This show started out with extremely poor turn out to the point where we ended up playing to no one by the end. We had been very fortunate up to this point in the tour to not have any shows where we didn’t have a good crowd but this show was rather laughable. By the end of our set we joked that the little pay, excellent food and rooms to stay for the night were the little saving grace of the gig. It was especially a downer since this would be our last gig before we dropped Jason and Kellen off in Sacramento and Jonathan and I headed north for Oregon and Washington.

But as we were about to wrap up our set about 45 people, mostly Americorp volunteers, showed up. They were there specifically to listen to music, drink, dance and be merry. We just sat there shaking our heads as moments earlier we had been the only ones in the lodge. Very quickly, it went from being on of our worst shows ever to a very good one.



OREGON

We said goodbye to Jason and Kellen in Sacramento on Sunday morning. Jonathan and I had a couple of days of rest before driving up to Portland for our show at the University of Portland. Thanks to my good friend Brian Dezzani, we played to a room full of students at UP for 2 hours on Wednesday night and have many new friends in the Portland area. The UP students helped me confirm that Myspace is old news and everybody is doing Facebook these days.

We have another show in Portland tonight and head up to Seattle and Bremerton this weekend. Playing on the University of Oregon campus next week headed back to California.

More to come soon,

-Andrew

Tour Blog : Part 3

So it seems as if Maurice has come and gone (if you missed the earlier blogs, Maurice was the name given to the flu that was traveling around the band). Kellen ended up having a bout with it; though Jonathan and Alex (our good friend and photographer) were able to slip through with full health.

To Recap the last couple of days:

linnaea's jan 17-09
--------------------------
fort bragg
roads
sit and stare
molly
lions park
so cal
morgan
goodnight
last dance with mary jane (tom petty cover)
may it's raining
broadway
she's suddenly
fine

For anyone who has stopped by Linnaea's in San Luis Obispo, you know that it has the smallest little stage in the entire world. There was only enough room to fit Jonathan and his drum set and the rest of us stood on the floor. We had a great turn out. People were standing out in the halls and sitting out in the back.



The moment of our SLO stay came when Jonathan convinced Kellen and I that there were ghosts present at the house of the Papathakis' where we stayed the night. A light mysteriously flickered and answered questions by flashing once for yes and twice for no. At one point the fan that was attached to the light started spinning and I swore for the first time in my life that I was communicating with the dead. Kellen and I were tripping out until Alex Dita realized that there was a remote control. Jonathan had been controlling the fan the entire time with his foot.



Before we left SLO we took some pictures at GUM WALL ALLEY



VIEW PICTURES HERE

We played a great house show for some great people in Santa Barbara hosted by my good friend Brennan. We set up and played in his living room right in the world of crazy 20 somethings in Isle Vista and it is safe to say that if we hadn't tricked Kellen into getting into the van to leave, we may have lost our bass player for good. Girls in bikinis in the middle January on the beach is close to his own personal heaven.



VIEW PICTURES HERE

After a day of rest and driving to LA on Monday, we went to Disneyland on Tuesday thanks to my friend Megan Rabone. This was Kellen's first trip to the magical kingdom (that's what they call it right?). Our "Set List" for Disneyland went something like this:

Indiana Jones ---> Pirates ----> Big Thunder Mountain ---> Space Mountain ----> Buzz Lightyear (jason had the best score) ---> The Matterhorn. A pretty natural progression from ride to ride if you know Disneyland.

Then from there we went over to California Adventure and ended the day with Tower of Terror and Soaring over California.



-Andrew

Tour Blog : Part 2

Special Blog written by Bassist Kellen Garcia

Here is a link to all the pictures from PART 2

The cold, I'll call it Maurice, has been taking it's tool. He (now that I've named the cold, I feel it necessary to use personified pronouns) first infected Heringer, and then moved on to Jason. I first felt his icy touch last night but I, unlike my weaker band-mates, have vowed not to let Maurice win the battle against my immune system. Maurice is a crafty one, so I've enlisted the help of Airborn and and Andrews King size bed. We'll see what happens.



The gig last night was fun. The Crepe Place had a really intimate vibe. We played some funky Heringer tunes and the Matt Masih & the Messengers continued the funk until last call. we got home late. Jason was bummed, he wanted to party till the break of dawn. Gotta go. I have some X-files to watch.

"May your foreheads grow like the mighty oak..."
- Sir. Kellen heir to the throne of Garcia

PS I've come up with an alternate name for Heringer's song, "Love to See You Smile". I'd like to rename it: "It's A Good Thing That Your Parents Invested In Braces".

Tour Blog : Part 1

We started out the tour at the end of December in my hometown (as well as Kellen and Jason's) with 2 sold out shows at the Cozmic Cafe. We set up in the round which provides a really cool energy and focus to the performance. the set list for night one was:
Goodnight
fort bragg
brooklyn
roads
socal
broadway
lions park
sit and stare---->
molly
tree (with Morgan)
racecar
love to see you smile
so in love
ocean
summer roof
=================
fine
as you can see there are a lot of new songs in there. we ended up changing around the set list for night 2 during the set itself so i can't give a good listing of that show at the moment. my sister, morgan, joined us for some songs as well as our good friend marlana sheetz.






after a couple weeks apart to celebrate new years, a new engagement (congrats jason), and to go skiing in tahoe we joined back up in Sacramento on the 10th and drove down to Monterey. With a little extra time before the gig we walked around the wharf in Monterey and I got my picture drawn which looks a lot like chuck norris.


We got over to Monterey Live about 7 and set up. We played a great show with Matt Masih and Sarah McCoy and played to a very full room. the set list went something like this:
Sit & Stare ------>
Molly
Roads
Fort Bragg
Southern California
Broadway ----->
California Stars
She's Suddenly
So In Love
Summer Roof




Sunday, I got up far too early and played three songs Live on KPIG. The three songs were Roads, Fort Bragg and So In Love. The complimentary Bagels and Odwalla drinks were a nice way to start the day but I was feelng a lack of sleep from the night before. I am someone who doesn't do well with limited sleep and the 4 hours from the night before didn't sit well and though I got through the set and the living room show we did later on in the day in Carmel Valley - I have needed the 3 days of down time to recuperate from getting a bit of a cold.


if you aren't familiar with living room shows, we literally set up in a living room and play for an intimate crowd of 30 people. the shows provide a nice mellow contrast to the high energy shows we do in the venues like monterey live.

We hit Santa Cruz (the Crepe Place) and San Luis Obispo (Linnaea's) later this week. One exciting thing about the shows so far is the difference in attendance - it is an obvious step up from last year's tour. Come out to a show and bring your friends!