shoegazers on the road, part 1

So here's what I did: i took a black Mead Composition notebook with me on tour. It spent a lot of time tucked into the back pocket of the passenger seat of John's van. The rest of the time I wrote in it. What will follow is a transcription of that with my own added memories or things I forgot. We got home and I didn't finish the summary of all the shows so I'll do that when I get there. Anybody from Airiel or Hartfield reading this can comment and add their part. In fact, please do!
9-17-05 by John. (John wrote the first thing in the van some place in Ohio while Cory drove)
My van is full of people, musical equipment, and a steadily amassing pile of road detrius - empty soda cans, gum wrappers, and the like. I just got finished with a shift driving for 4 hours so I could sit in the back of the van and chart out Hartfield songs for my performance with them later tonight. That's right, I sitll don't know the songs. This should be fun. God, I need a drink.
9-18-05 by Arturo
We got to the practice space at 8am yesterday. I slept like 4 hours the night before after a nice send off at Lava Lounge from my fellow Mexicans. We made it to Pittsburgh by 7:15, home of Andy Warhol and "donn-tonn". It's very hilly and pretty and you gotta love a city with a section called Polish Hill. Awesome. The venue, Shadow Lounge was really cool. It wasn't a rock venue but more of a cool cafe/lounge. There are 2 rooms, one of which reminds me of Rodan. The other had couches, tables, and the stage.
The opening bands were good and we saw Hartfields's 1st US show!!!! The rhythm section was filled out by Cory and John from Airiel. They did a great job and the songs are all poppy and good. Airiel rocked out as always and it was nice to see my new beach video for the first time projected so big. Funny, that was shot 3 days before at North Ave. Beach. now it was being projected for an audience of strangers in Pittsburgh.
Right now, we're over an hour away from Philadelphia where we are going to play the PopNoise Festival. We've had lots of fun so far. John shaved his beard off in a backyard in Pittsburgh by tiki light with a wall mirror being held up by Jeremy as 3 jerks, an American expat, and 2 Japanese musicians looked on.
Last thing I'll mention before I look out the window at all the pretty mountains of PA is Chris. Chris is filling in for the tour since Griff couldn't do it because of work. Chris is now known as PineCone TempSub 1. A baptism of gravy is set to happen in the near future at the Pine Cone Restaurant so he can fully become one of us. He witnessed the last ever Tequila Screamer last night, now all that's left is a meal at the Pine Cone Restaurant.