"how are things on the west coast?"

I had the title of this blog in my head from hearing the new Interpol single a lot lately. Things on the west coast are just fine. They're so good, I wish I was still there. It's been a while since the last post and we've already done our east coast tour so it's about time I finished the west coast tour report.

After LA we hit San Francisco which was super cool. I love it there. We caught up and stayed with friends from Chicago who lived there and went around Haight Ashbury, had great Japanese food, and did some shopping. I couldn't play the show at the House of Shields that night because there was no back wall to the stage, which was lofted above the rest of the bar. It was a cool bar that reminded me of something we'd see in the south Loop here in Chicago.

I was okay with not playing the show, so I had no other alternative than to drink heavily and early. Some drunk texts and drunk dials later and I was walking around Market Street looking for the Del Taco the dor guy sent me to. Fish tacos never tasted so good. I came back to shoot video of the show, which was pretty good and the boys rocked out. Back at the house Ben, Roger, and I went looking for a late night pizza place that hit the spot. Walking through the fog in San Francisco and waking up to it covering the hills of the city is always so damn cool.

The next day we made our way to Portland. I was excited to see my friends Julie and Joe who moved there. This is also where we met Nick. Cock Thirsty blew a tire just outside the city and we pulled into the nearest gas station for help. We didn't have the right size wrench for the trailer, but Nick did and he even screwed the fender back on. We gave him a CD and he was totally excited and even got his kids food from Mc Donalds while we dealt with changing the tire. Thanks Nick. A song was dedicated to him that night. We made it to the venue on time and the show was fun. The Tonic Lounge is a great venue. We played with a cool dance rock band called The Slants and hung out with my friends and we crashed hard when we got to their house. The next morning we got the trailer tire replaced and were on our way to Seattle, KEXP, and a surprise visitor.

We get to KEXP and it's a little building that you'd never guess holds a world class radio staton inside. The interview went really well and the performance was awesome. Cory was looking for the bathroom and turns a corner when he literally runs into our friend Arunas. They come back to the group and shocked hugs, laughter, and smiles went all around. It was so good to see a familiar face from home. I knew about his visit and told him what time we'd be there. He had Darkroom business at KEXP, an old friend in Seattle and he wanted to see our show so we all hung out the rest of the day. The show was fun and we returned the favor to Arunas of getting us drunk at Darkroom all the time and got him wasted. The poor guy wasn't able to stand straight by the end of the night. Good times.

We woke up very early to start our nightmare drive straight home to Chicago. We blew a van tire in Cheney, Washington that set us back a couple of hours but gave us time to check out Carl Jr's. Jeremy loved the Teriyaki burger and I had a killer shake from there. I slept a lot and we ended up in some scary gas station in the middle of the night in North Dakota (I think) where there was a drawing of Death holding glitter gobs of crap with the words "Meth Kills!" or something. I took a picture of this amazing public service announcement. That reminds me, pictures will be posted very soon of both tours.

In the middle of the afternoon the next day, just outside of Fargo, ND we blew the other tire on Cock Thirsty. After about an hour John's insurance sent a towing guy to come and change the tire, Jeremy and I realized we weren't going to make it to work the next day as planned and called in. We got to the nearest automotive store finally bought a wrench for the trailer and Jeremy learned how to change a tire. The people at the counter of the store had a bet that we were a band. Was it really that obvious? Yes it was. I think it was the smell and greasy hair. After driving the rest of that day and night, I got home at like 4am and slept in my own bed again.