Mandroid2.0 wrote:Nope, though my good luck charm pendant thingy miraculously turned up at the bottom of my make-up case along with my lightning bolt earrings.

If someone nabbed it, things could have been much worse. My iPod, two pairs of prescription glasses, camera, etc. were also in my purse, so at least I didn't lose any of those items.

Ah well. Someone in Portland likely now has a shit-ton of awesome barrettes and some Jackie O' sunglasses.

In a large way this tour was a “getting back in the swing of things” tour for us. For a lot of these non west coast places we hadn’t been back in 5 years… which in the world of rock and roll is several generations. In some cases people remembered us and heralded us as returning heroes, in others we were completely forgotten or ignored. Still others were places we hadn’t been to at all.
It was the first big tour we’ve ever done as a 4-piece, after being a “power trio” for 7 or so years.

Touring when you are pushing (in my case) or over (everybody else) 30, is a different story then touring when you are in your mid-20s. To quote the peace corps recruiting slogan: It’s the toughest job you’ll ever love.

As a band we are in a completely different place then we were the last time we came out so long ago, we’ve watched old bands and contemporaries break up or become irrelevant, we’ve watched new bands sprout up and, in some cases collapse back down again. We become one of the centers of a very strong local community that expanded, contracted, expanded, contracted and is back to expanding again.

Through it all though, we’ve never lost sight of who or what we are.

We exist somewhere between so called “heavy” music, indie rock, arty noise, big rock, and whatever the hell else.
My tag phrase for this has been:
There are many tour diaries, but this one is mine.

And it’s partly facetious and partly not. There really aren’t that many tour diaries these days, it almost seems to be a lost art in the world of twitter blogging and myspace bullitens. There are, however, a hell of a lot of bands, and most of them are mediocre to bad.

I feel comfortable that we bring something to the table to give back musically. The ass kicking that we have received, we do our best to give back, one big communal experience you know?

The problem is signal to noise, signal to noise.
I joke that I wanted to call MACHINES WILL ALWAYS LET YOU DOWN “Fuck you, still here.” but the sentiment is definitely true. The BABYLAND idea of outliving your enemies becomes more enticing the more you do this crazy thing.

In a way we are somewhat known in our smallish subsect of a small subsect of the underground, but let’s be fair here.
You don’t hear Replicator on commercial radio or see us on TV, and you are very unlikely to.
That’s also not our end goal, we make music that we love and that drives us forward, and put on the kind of shows that we would like to (but rarely do) see.

We throw it out there and play as hard and as pure as we can, even if it feels like ramming your head against the wall.
I think that makes the difference.

No, I think that makes all the difference.

Sometimes, most times hopefully, we bring the Awexome, sometimes we bring the Bummer, sometimes it’s somewhere in between.
It’s always a work in progress, and a state of constant improvement.

the 14 hour drives, the stomach turning road food, the rough sleeping situations, wait… sleep?
oh yeah, the total lack of any restful sleep, the asshole sound guys, the loneliness and seperation from home and those you love, the people who are at shows and don’t even seem to be interested in music, the venues who look at bands heaving their very soul out there as something to add value to their local drunks, all of it…

It’s all completely worth it for that one bright and shining moment when you go somewhere else and truly achieve something on higher plane of existence for however brief of a time that is.

Then you get in the van and do it all again.

Thank you to Joie and the whole Superstarcastic crew for asking us to do this lil’ thing here, I had a blast doing it, even if it was the bane of my existence at time, trying to type in a bumpy van under less then ideal conditions. Thank you to everybody that put us up for the night, let us use their shower, booked a show, rocked with us, came out to one (or more!) shows, bought a cd or t-shirt, fed us, or was just generally kind to our band of surly, sarcastic Oakland noiserock types in whatever way possible.

Aaaaand, thank YOU for reading.
Until next time:

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