photos from the road

After returning home from a 2-week grassroots tour of much of the Western Continental US with Mouse Kills Tiger and My Imaginary Friends, I expected some adjustment in getting back to the daily grind of things.  To my surprise and to the delight of the gods of irony, I realized that my life was actually more structured, and I got better sleep, while on tour than back at home.  But that’s only because lately my daily life is so utterly unstructured and my normal sleeping habits are so poor.  It takes a whole LOT of discipline to be a self-employed artist, so I am going to have to go back to writing a daily schedule, short & long term goals, and weekly review (which I never should have abandoned due to laziness in the first place).  Some of my friends may remember that several years ago I was an early champion of the Getting Things Done book and the “carrying around a stack of notecards” school.  What happened?

But back to the tour–it was definitley an amazing experience and well worth it.  Denver was an unexpected highlight for me, with great record-shopping, tasty food, and a really cool venue.  The Pacific Northwest was as lush and green as I had imagined it, and Seattle wins hands-down for the coolest looking and most vibrant city.  The most surreal scenery was probably the drive through the Utah salt flats accompanied by a thunderstorm.  Although I tweeted a handful of pictures, you’ll find a whole slideshow of photos taken on my trusty cell phone camera here.

on tour!

I never thought applause could be hostile.  Last night Mouse Kills Tiger played the El Cid in Silverlake.  It was the opening slot.  The El Cid, unlike a lot of venues, has an actual “real” stage.  Like, with hardwood floors, a raised stage, a red curtain, you know, the works.  We loaded in through the back and set up on stage behind the closed curtains, so the whole time we didn’t actually see the audience.  Just before we were to start, the promoter/manager turned to me and asked, “hey, are you like, a hard hitter?”  I shook my head, “no I’m not…”  “Because,” he explained, “people are still finishing up their dinners, so sometimes if the band is loud we wait to let the grandmas leave.”  Well, schedule didn’t permit us to wait.

The curtain opened, and instead of a standing-room-only dance floor, we looked out at a bunch of folks sitting at dinner tables, staring at us.  After our second song, which climaxed in a thunderous-hells-yeah roar of guitar noise, overdriven electric piano, and smashed cymbals, we started playing our quiet, atmospheric song.  And a bunch of people at one table started clapping ridiculously loud, in time, but not in time with us–like some sort of effed up collegiate home cheer.  It was pretty bizarre.  After the gig was over Patrick, our bassist, commented on the strange episode–he thought it was on some sort of heckling tip.  I just thought they were celebrating and didn’t give a fuck, but who knows.  At any event, after we finished playing the dining crowd cleared and the place became the kind of boisterous rock club you’d expect.  Y’know, Flight of the Conchords don’t make this shit up, it really happens.

Regardless, it was a fun night.  We played well, including the brand-new tune we tried out.  And My Imaginary Friends, who played after us, tore shit up with their catchy-yet-epic folksy songs and excellent singing.  Oh, and did I mention, this was the first night of our West Coast TOUR?

Yes, we’re going on TOUR.  Mouse Kills Tiger and My Imaginary Friends are embarking on a tour up and down the western region of our nation.  We are leaving for San Francisco on Tuesday morning and from then on it’s Bay Area to Oregon to Washington to Utah to Colorado to New Mexico and then finally to Vegas.  I probably won’t be blogging (what else is new) but I’ll try to keep constant updates of our shennanigans via tweets, hopefully with pictures.  I may have to upgrade my bare-bones cell phone plan for this but it could be worth it.  I’ll make it worth it.

I’ve listed all the dates on my website, so if you know any folks in those cities please help spread the word!