August 2010

Greetings from DePere! We had a long, scenic drive across Wisconsin today – about 4 hours, with the vast majority of it on one-lane roads through cranberry bogs, spruce forests, and sopping wet marshlands. Anton was saying that it reminded him of northern upstate New York and Vermont. I thought it looked a lot like Alaska. Everything is super green and it was raining the entire day, so it was actually a nice change of scene for us “300+ sunny days a year” Colorado boys. Some of the driving was pretty sketchy, with semi trucks barreling the opposite direction on narrow, wet 2-lane roads – but we made it. DePere is an interesting little town, from first appearances. It looks like St. Norbert College (where we play tonight) is the town. The college has its own hotel, the “Kress Inn,” and that’s where they’ve put us up for the night. Really nice little hotel with big-ish rooms and cookies, wine, and cheese in the lobby. We’ve got about a half an hour before we head over to the Campus Center, where we’ll be playing at 7pm. Not sure what the room will be like, but they have lots of music and entertainment at this school, so it may be pretty cool. Here are some pics from the drive today… more updates later after the show:

Greetings from La Crosse! Just got back to the hotel from a night out on the town, and may I say that Hampton Inn has done a fantastic job stepping up their brand and services. Wow. Super nice rooms, super nice staff, and evidently a breakfast to look forward to in the morning (not just the usual cereal carousel). Woot.

The gig tonight at The Root Note was fun, though completely different from Madison. It’s more of a coffee house atmosphere (full stage and house sound, but coffee house) – so we had to hold back a bit on the more rockin’ (read: “fun”) tunes. But there were a good number of people who heard our music for the first time, the staff was great, and we played well. The highlight of the night was local artist Sam Gavic, a University of Wisconsin La Crosse student, who came out to do a live painting during the show. He was set up over in front of Anton’s side of the stage (stage right), and had the canvas facing the room for the crowd to watch him at work – but we couldn’t see it from the stage. When we finished the set, we stepped off the stage to see his rendition of “Goodnight Moon” (the children’s book), with the rabbit tucked into bed. The only deviation from the book artwork is that the rabbit is wearing an iPod, listening to SoundRabbit. Nice! We bought the painting from Sam and took it with us in the van. I can’t wait to hang it up back at the studio in Colorado.

We went to a bar called “Bodega’s” after the set and visited with Sam and some of his friends, including the owner of The Root Note. We enjoyed classic Wisconsin Reuben sandwiches and beers, and now we’re settling in back at the hotel for the night.

Tomorrow we head to De Pere (near Green Bay) to play St. Norbert College. It’s about a 4 hour drive across rural Wisconsin, so we should have time to post an update or two. More then…

We’re driving up I-90 to La Crosse for our show tonight at The Root Note. Had a fantastic time in Madison last night. The club was great, the staff there loved our stuff and invited us back for a weekend night in the spring, and there was a good little crowd of new fans. Madison seems to be a great place for us to plan to try and build in over the next year, similar to Charlottesville (Virginia). We spent the night last night at a beautiful lake house outside of Madison, and spent the day today out on the lake on a boat, enjoying the breezy, sunny day. Really helped to recharge our batteries.

On our way out of town, we stopped by The Kiltie, a classic 1950’s Wisconsin drive-in diner. We enjoyed some cheeseburgers, onion rings, fries, and frozen custard – the quintessential Wisconsin “ice cream.” It’s like soft serve, but much creamier and richer (I believe it’s got eggs and heavy cream).

No one seems to be regretting it yet, a couple of hours later.

Beers is driving right now, and we’re about an hour outside of La Crosse. We just passed an exit for the Wisconsin Dells, which we’ll have to skip on this trip, but could be a cool “RBT” photo opp for next time. This area is super cool – lots of pine trees and big rock outcroppings that almost look like what would be typical of the Colorado/Wyoming area. Strange to see them in Wisconsin.

Rock spires south of La Crosse

Gas.

The show tonight is at a smaller place (The Root Note), which is more of a listening room than a rock club (last night was definitely a rock club). It’ll give us a chance to pull out some of the mellower tunes like Blame and Park, etc. A student from University of Wisconsin La Crosse is going to come out and do a live painting during the show. We met him at the NACA Convention in St. Paul back in March, and he helped us set up the show. It will be awesome to have him there, and his artwork is really cool.

Here’s how the set lined up last night:

Eoghan, Late Saturday
Turn My Egg (with a new ending!)
Emil
View From Way Up Here
Story Of…
Relief
Diminished Returns >>
Life During Wartime

More later from La Crosse… hope you’re all well.

Greetings from Madison! We’re absolutely loving this town so far… never been before, but we’ll be back to play here again for sure. We parked near the UW campus and took a walk down to the lakefront. The Student Union building of UW backs to a big concrete patio and grass hill, full of tables/chairs, running down to a big lake. Students are laying out on the docks, swimming in the water, and playing on the boats. Looks more like a vacation spot than a college. We strolled the downtown area, which is bustling… and we’re about to head over to the venue to grab dinner and load in. Demographically, the town definitely seems to be a great spot for us. Tonight’s show is a bit funky (multiple bands, short set, short notice), so it remains to be seen how it will go… but I think it’s safe to say that we’ll be paying another visit to Madison with more notice/promotions, at the same time next year, or maybe in the Spring semester. Really, really cool town. More later after the show… we’re staying about an hour away at a lake house for the night, planning to relax lakeside tomorrow. Woot.

 

Crossing the Mississippi River at the east end of Iowa

Fred & Anton

Jay & Beers & Gear

Classic View on this drive.

Some of our new furry friends on tour. The Funk II, his blue brother, and Spiderman.

Spiderman.

Blue Funk.

Driving thru Wisconsin

Almost to Madison!

Good morning. Hanging out in our suite at the hotel, watching Cable Guy while Anton practices guitar in the other room. Anton, Fred, and I (Russ) are sharing one suite, while Jay and Beers share one a few doors up. Nice setup, actually – big rooms and no asbestos warnings. Fun show last night at the University of Dubuque – here’s how the setlist turned out:

Emil
Diminished Returns
View From Way Up Here
ZED
Hazel
From The World I Have Known
Marula Binge
Nightlite Jesus
Story Of…
Don
IIOKYN
Flume
Turn My Egg
Eoghan, Late Saturday
Obey >>
Life During Wartime

Nice stage and lighting rig, and the kids from DBQ were awesome. The weather was in our favor for the outdoor show on the quad, with clear skies, a light breeze, and 70 degree temps. After the show, we loaded out and headed into downtown Dubuque for some drinks. Fred ended up arm wrestling a construction worker, and meeting a 40-something woman who claimed to have spent a night with Pauly Shore (yes, Encino Man). Suffice it to say that the scene in Dubuque was pretty strange – felt like we were in the Twilight Zone. We settled at a table at The Bank, the place that had the least amount of people in it, where we could relax and have a chat… and we were back at the hotel by 1am – where there were a couple dozen people in their 80’s playing cards in the lobby. At 1am.

Today we drive a couple of hours to Madison, Wisconsin – nice easy day. We’ll check the town out for a bit and then load in at 7:30pm or so for our show at The Frequency at 9pm. It will be nice to play a club with house sound, where we don’t have to load all of our gear. We’ve been told that Madison is the “Boulder of the midwest” – we’ll see!

More from Madison…

We made it off of I-80, now northbound on I-35. This road goes up to the Twin Cities of Minnesota, but we’ll be getting off at Rt 20 to head East to Dubuque. We should be there in a few hours. Lots of grain silos and farms. Same scenery that we’ve had since we left Colorado, but with more trees and hills. Haven’t hit any traffic at all, which is nice but expected out here. The van is running really smooth, which is great – we had it tuned up before we left, and it makes a huge difference. Waiting to see if we get pulled over in Iowa, because we’ve pretty much never made it through Iowa without getting pulled over (see road journal below, with Anton sitting in the back of an Iowa state cruiser).

Just passed a Barilla pasta factory, but the air doesn’t smell like pasta. Just passed Iowa State University, too. And now more silos and cows and corn. Sign says “Mason City – 82 miles.” I don’t think we’re going that far North before turning East, though. Can’t wait to get out, stretch the legs, unload the gear, and start setting up the stage. We’re headlining a “Welcome Fest” event on the quad in the middle of the University of Dubuque campus. Should be fun, and we’ve been told that it’s going to be almost all freshmen, which means that we can mold their minds to join the SoundRabbit fan army. It’s massive. Just passed a sign that says, “St. Paul – 209 miles.” Funny that we were just here in February, and will be here again in 6 months, driving this same road to play St. Thomas University. To that point, this tour has a different feeling – and not just because Fred now has an official “2010 Goodbye Summer Tour – SoundRabbit Crew” t-shirt. We’re all feeling really settled in the van and on these roads, missing some of the nervous/jittery excitement that we used to have, exchanging it for a “we’re doing exactly what we should be doing” feeling – which I have to say feels very, very good. Far from being rockstars or anything of the sort (wondering if there will be 10 people at our show in Madison tomorrow night), but feeling completely at home in the role of touring musicians. Pretty awesome.

Okay, enough stream of consciousness – if you’ve made it this far, you win “fan of the century” and we owe you a drink at the next show that you attend.

More pics and updates from Dubuque in a few hours, unless something exciting happens in the interim – like seeing a cow fall in a hole.

Got up early to push on East, after enjoying the continental breakfast in the lobby of our hotel. French toast, English muffins & jelly, and little boxes of cereal where you can pour the milk straight into the bag. Mmm. Beers is taking the early shift, with the rest of us checking emails and fighting our bodies’ “hey, I was in the middle of R.E.M. sleep!” instincts. Everybody Hurts.  (wokka wokka)

We’ve got about 10 hours to Dubuque today, covering the rest of Nebraska and all of Iowa, end to end. The landscape changes a bit between the two, with Nebraska lacking in hills and Iowa having plenty rolling away from the interstate. For those of you who haven’t made this trek, I-80 is dead straight for as far as you can see. We basically set the cruise control at 80 and the van gets us there. Almost zero traffic west of Chicago, just lots of blurry cows and corn stalks out the side windows.

We had absolutely perfect driving weather last night – 60’s and clear with a slight breeze. It’s a bit warmer today, but still nice… 70’s right now, I think. We’ve got all of the windows open in the van and we’re all feeling quite good.

Gothenburg, which we just passed, has a Pony Express station from the 1800’s. I remember stopping to check it out a few years ago on a road trip with my dog. Pretty cool to think about those guys riding this same route back in the day.

Here are some pics from the van this morning… more updates later.

Beers at the wheel.

Jay and the Funk’s older, stretchier brother.

Franton comes alive.

Crew.

Nebraska.

Hello from our hotel in North Platte. We were hoping to push to Kearney tonight, but we were all too beat to push another hour, so we’ll be spending the night here and getting up a bit earlier in the a.m. to head on to Dubuque.

Here’s the setlist from Golden:

Park
From The World I Have Known
Story Of
Hazel
Nightlite Jesus
Don
ZED
Heat
Marula Binge
View From Way Up Here (somewhere over the rainbow)
Turn My Egg
Life During Wartime

When on tour, we always have to look for the best deals for hotels by shopping the massive flashing signs that are viewable from the interstate – it usually doesn’t make sense to book online in advance, because we don’t always know exactly where we’ll be spending the night. That said, tonight we saw a sign for a Ramada with” $59/night rooms & a BIG pool!” Sweet. We need 2 rooms, with 2 queen beds each, non-smoking. Simple enough. So we pulled off and headed in.

Turns out the only $59 room (yes, one) they had was a smoking room with a single King bed. Awesome.

Rather than get back in the van, though, we settled for their $80/night rooms, and walked up to find Room 214 and 216. As we approached the rooms, we noticed that the hallway appeared to be under construction – looking like the end scenes of E.T. As we got to our rooms, we were greeted with a “Danger! Asbestos!” sign closing the hallway beyond our doors. Fantastic!

Fred documenting the E.T. stage set.

Sleep tight!

So we’re sitting in the room about to grab 4 hours of zzz’s… taking deep breaths and questioning the water on our toothbrushes.

More from the road tomorrow!

Greeeeetings from the foot of the Rockies. We’re kicking off our summer tour with a ‘local’ show here in Colorado before hitting the road tonight to Dubuque, Iowa. It’s about a 14 hour drive and we have to load in at the University of Dubuque at 6pm, so we’ll be making a good push tonight after the show and then driving all day tomorrow. We’re just about to set up our gear on the stage here, and the weather looks like it may hold out to be a beautiful evening. We’re playing on an outdoor stage at a park, under some big old Cottonwood trees. Awesome setting. We play from 7 to 8:30pm, and we expect the crowd to grow as we get later in the set, so Fred (who flew in on Wednesday to help with our rehearsals this week and now the tour) is writing the setlist accordingly… leave the most fun stuff for the last half hour or so. Fun times. We loaded up the van like a game of Tetris, leaving enough bench room for one person to sleep horizontally if needed, the other 4 sitting in the front seats and first bench row. It’s super nice to be getting back on the road, and we may be road-testing some of the new material from the Virginia album.

Gotta run to the stage, more updates from the road later. Thanks again for all of your support and interest – the adventure continues.

The van is packed.

Departure shot. Ready to hit the road.