Missoula has become a second home town for my band. The people who come out are always more into it than any other place we've played. In three years, we've played nine shows there.

One of these shows was at a house, at the end of our tour with USS Horsewhip (featuring frequent poster here, Horsewhip). We'd already played one show that night, and at 1:30 as people began coming to the house from the bars, both of our bands played. No cops came. But some bros did almost beat me up.

I met my girlfriend of the last three years there, on our first tour. I used to drive the 10 or so hours to go see her, and always enjoyed myself.

Ear Candy is an excellent record store.

Sparks is cheaper than any other place I've been.

We're playing at the public library in April. What town lets a rock band play their public library, during the day?

There is a sandwich place which cooks it's bread in coffee cans, then cuts out the middle, and stuffs the sandwhich makings in. They also sell the cut out portions as "guts". Excellent eats.

I could see it being not the best place to grow up in, but the towns I lived in Moscow and Washington were far smaller and far more CRAP.

So Missoula, for having good shows for my band and supplying me with a mate and producing ab odd but delicous sandwhich, I say NOT CRAP!

Missoula is where my great grandparents went to die after completely fucking themselves in the mines in Butte. I got to stand in front of all of the houses (every one still stands!) they lived in about three summers ago. It was pretty neat.

If anyone can get me a phone book from the turn of the century from Missoula or Butte, without screwing the libraries, I'd really appreciate it.

My friend Bryan lives there (he plays some exceptional noise guitar with Ex-Cocaine and Poor School); I visited him a couple years ago for his wedding and really liked the place. Big enough that there's some cool stuff going on, small enough you still get some of that Montana Big Sky. Good stuff -- I say a thorough Not Crap.

i spent two nights out there this summer and two nights in billings as i was making my way around the country. it's actually a very quaint little area. a lot of nice people. some interesting bars. really nice and austere scenery. glacier national park and all that.

i remember there being one very long "main drag" with some good food and inexpensive local beer, both of which were excellent bargains. and there was a cute girl at a bagel store that i flirted with for a while. i remember that, too.

i also remember a lot of anti-crystal meth advertisements and signs all over the city, which i thought was interesting.

I very much miss Jay's Upstairs. I have told the story about IfiHadAHiFi's show at Jay's Upstairs many times, but i will now relate it again. Skip ahead if you've heard it.

Jay's was kind enough to book us sight unseen, but due to the unseen part, unfortunately booked us on the "last show ever" of white-boy funk maestros "The Original Booty Burglars." As we sat at the bar before the show, we regaled the bartenders with tales of Wisconsin and our own warped imaginations. At one point, the bartender looked at us and said, "you know, you guys are hilarious, i really hope your band doesn't suck." We all laughed heartily.

We opened the show for the Booty Burglars--excuse me, The ORIGINAL Booty Burglars, to a less-than-enthused response from the audience, which was comprised solely of the friends and family of the funksters. During the very first song, my ride cymbal stand collapsed, so after the first song was finished i picked it up and hurled it off stage into what would have been the center of the crowd, had the crowd been anywhere near the stage. The end of the song was met with dead silence, save for a *CLANG*CLANG*CLANG* as the stand met its fate. I yelled, "Thank you Missoula, we've got twelve more!" We played about 6 more songs and then finished as per our usual set time, to a similar response throughout.

The bar employees apologized for the audience and exclaimed, "You guys were FUCKING AWESOME!" We were paid $150 of the Original Booty Burglars' money, and were fed free whisky nonstop the rest of the night. Somehow, someone in our entourage was sober enough to drive our van to one of the bartenders' houses, where we planned to sleep for the night before embarking on the long drive to Portland the next day. When we got out of the van, Yale Delay threw up an entire black bean burrito that he had eaten earlier in the night. It looked completely undigested, and i'm sad that i didn't look for the tortilla on the road next to it, or i would have tried to scam Yale into thinking it was a completely new burrito the next morning.

90 minutes after we went to sleep it was time to wake up and start the 11-hour drive to Portland. I staggered upstairs and was greeted by the bartender as he snorted a line off some plastic kitchenware, Moulin Rouge blaring out of the television. "Oh, excuse me," he said. "How rude of me to be doing hard drugs in front of you. Want some?" "No thanks," i replied. "Are you sure? It's six o'clock in the morning, and you've got a long drive." In my sleep-deprived state, this made sense in my head for about 2 seconds until my brain snapped back at me with a "STOP IT! THIS IS HOW BANDS DEVELOP DRUG HABIT! THIS IS HOW IT STARTS!" So i again politely declined, and when everyone else got up, we thanked him profusely for his hospitality, and departed for Portland.

We learned later that jay's Upstairs closed shortly after our show there--apparently in part because the bar lost money by giving away too much free booze to bands.

It should also be mentioned that it was during our drive to Missoula that EA forum member Mandroid2000 and her boyfriend--one of the two guys that had been projecting films over us during the tour--decided that they were going to get married in Vegas at the tail end of the tour. Ask her how that turned out sometime!

Last year we finally returned to Missoula and played a house show. We got there late, and we had equipment problems, and the living room was cramped. We played four songs and then stopped, as our late arrival shortened our playing time, and we were kinda sucking it up anyway. But people still inexplicably loved the set and bought a bunch of shit. We were given $70 from the door and made even more money off merch, which in Milwaukee is unheard of for a basement show. Then, our host, Niki, took us to an excellent diner and put us up for the night.

The next day we drove to Havre, MT, and played a very strange bar with Satan's Slaves, the worst and greatest stoner metal band ever. Before the show, WWE Monday Night Raw was on. Upon WWE female wrestler Lita's appearance on the show, one of the patrons remarked, "I'd pee in her butt."

Missoula, Montana, by god, you are NOT CRAP.

Been a while since I was there, but I like it when I go back. Didn't like it so much when I left.

The proximity to truly awesome nature is really nice. Less than 20 minutes out of town, you can feel like you're alone in the world.

Nice hint of lefty culture, many loose women, pride taken in baking pie... Missoula, you have a lot going for you.

DrAwkward wrote:Last year we finally returned to Missoula and played a house show. We got there late, and we had equipment problems, and the living room was cramped. We played four songs and then stopped, as our late arrival shortened our playing time, and we were kinda sucking it up anyway. But people still inexplicably loved the set and bought a bunch of shit. We were given $70 from the door and made even more money off merch, which in Milwaukee is unheard of for a basement show. Then, our host, Niki, took us to an excellent diner and put us up for the night.

This may be the same house we played at last spring.

We've had a couple instances were we've sold as much merch at a party after the show as we did at the show itself. Our singer is very good at tricking drunk people to get their money.

I've never seen as much rampant alcohol use in one town as in Missoula. People there drink a lot a lot of the time.

I am hoping that Horsewhip will chime in on this thread soon, as he has a great story about our time there, but tells it better than I.

It warms my heart to know so many of you have Missoula experiences.

I lived there most of my life growing up.

I don't think I know anyone from Missoula who ever gets the town out of his or her system completely. Not that one would want to do that.

tallchris wrote:This may be the same house we played at last spring.

We've had a couple instances were we've sold as much merch at a party after the show as we did at the show itself. Our singer is very good at tricking drunk people to get their money.

I think that was part of it with us, too. Drunk people kept asking us about band stuff, and we kept reminding them we had stuff for sale. Yale is particularly skilled at that. In any case, i'm sure it was the same house--it didn't seem like there were a whole lot of options for places to play in town, but i could be way off there.

I've never seen as much rampant alcohol use in one town as in Missoula. People there drink a lot a lot of the time.

Tour Wisconsin sometime!

I spent a weekend in Missoula once, holed up in the Thunderbird Motel, reviewing a Chris Offutt book (about a Kentuckian who ran off to Montana) and spending way too much money on vinyl at Rockin' Rudie's, so much so that I had to mail a box of records home. I felt immediately comfortable in Missoula, and the natural wonders of the area are staggering.

The afternoon I spent lounging on the grass on the banks of the river (is that the Missouri already?) in the shadow of a bridge, listening to a reading by environmentally conscious authors is one of the more pleasant non-sexual experiences I can bring to mind. And the relative diversity--the absence of black folks notwithstanding--is impressive in a city of 60,000 or so: cowboys, Indians, bikers, hippies, dykes, mountain men, intellectuals, townies.

Even more impressive was how this diverse population celebrated together, twisting and shaking their rumps, old and young, fat and skinny alike, to a fairly decent 50's cover band that played for free outdoors in the courtyard of a hotel at the end of the city's main drag. That was a pretty great communal experience, even if I didn't know a soul.

I also ran into a former student of mine--a poor student who came to class high every day and who I'd failed, as I recall--who informed me that my influence had encouraged him to move to Montana to write and live closer to the land. His bright eyes shined with a joy that was not lysergic, and his words made me happy and proud.

Missoula: if your people had Southern accents, you just might be the perfect college town.