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Good morning, all. Our great trip continues, and great weather… nice 70-degree air blowing through the van windows right now as we make our way North to waaaay upstate New York for the show at St. Lawrence University. Anton’s driving, Beers is hitting his practice pad in the shotgun seat, Fred’s snoozing on the 1st bench, I’m sitting in the 2nd bench, and Jay is playing his bass w/headphones in the back row. We stayed outside of Syracuse last night, grabbing the last two available rooms in the Comfort Inn… unfortunately they were smoking rooms, so we’re all a little funky today. Our hotel room bathroom was interesting… toilet didn’t flush without overflowing, and the shower flooded up to mid-shin before starting to drain. Fun times. Sunny blue skies above, though, and we’re making really good time right now… should be getting there a bit early so we can chill on campus for a bit.

We’ve made a habit on this tour of missing the continental breakfasts at the hotels (but the positive side of that is that it means we’re getting decent sleep). We’ve also had a couple of left-behind items, which is a bummer. Fred left his $100 headphones in the room last night, and I left my wireless internet antenna at the Best Western in Columbus, OH… meaning that I’m on a significantly weaker signal for posting these Road Journal updates… but on the East Coast the coverage is typically much better, so we shouldn’t miss a beat here.

The scenery is definitely putting us in “East Coast” mode… driving through acres and acres of woods, rivers, streams, etc… and the occasional big open field… but mainly woods on all sides right now. Really nice.

We have an hour long set tonight, not sure yet what we’ll be playing, but most likely some stuff that we can open up and jam on a bit, as we’ve gotten word that the crowd will likely be into some open tunes. Our contract says that the show is outdoors, weather dependent. I think it’s safe to say that the weather is just about perfect… it will feel like a summer festival. Woot.

The university is putting us up in a hotel somewhere near Potsdam tonight, along with feeding us. These are the nice contracts to get. We have tomorrow (Sunday) off… no show, nowhere to be… so we’re thinking about heading into the Adirondack Park Preserve to hike and camp for the night. It will depend on the weather tomorrow, as we don’t have any camping gear, so we’ll be sleeping out under the stars if we do it. A nice campfire and open air snooze sounds really good. Monday we’d have about a 3 hour drive to Burlington from there, so not bad at all. Enough time for us to get a good sleep, cook some breakfast on the fire, and get to Burlington in time to hang some fliers and maybe do some busking downtown to promote the show.

More later… I’m going to upload Anton’s photos now… all in this batch are from around the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame.

Fun gig at Edinboro this evening, while dedicated students walked ’round and ’round  in laps around a track in front of us to raise money for the American Cancer Society. We donated our time + $200 from the SoundRabbit Backstage Community (you!), so thanks for your support! We opened the set with ‘Life During Wartime,’ which was a first (it’s usually a set closer or late/mid set). We also played ‘Marula Binge’ for the first time on the tour. ‘View From Way Up Here’ is becoming one of the strongest songs in the set… Anton is absolutely killing it in the middle jam 6/8 part. Solid again today.

load-in at Edinboro

loading out at Edinboro

fred. tables. trailer.

We’re driving east on I-90 right now, somewhere between Buffalo and Syracuse, New York, where we plan to spend the night. That will leave us about a 2.5 hour drive tomorrow to load in at 1:30pm EST at St Lawrence University. There’s a pretty nasty lightning storm happening up ahead of us, and it’s pitch black dark right now, so it’s quite a cool display for us. The whole sky is lighting up about every minute or so. First non-clear weather we’ve seen on this trip.

We’ve been cruising at around 70-80mph the whole way across the country… but the lovely state of New York has a 55 mile per hour speed limit, statewide. How ridiculous. I feel like I’ve been transported back in time about 15 years (maybe more). They also have tolls… frequently… with slow-moving people handing out tickets. I wonder if New Yorkers visit Colorado and think that they’ve been transported to 2084, with our machine-delivered toll tickets and 75mph speed limits.

Anton’s got a super nice camera, and he’s sitting in the bench row in front of me right now, going through his pics from the tour so far… the pics look incredible. He’s going to throw them on a thumb drive for me to upload here to the Road Journal. It will supplement the pics you’ve seen so far… a different angle on things.

Fred’s playing DJ right now in the passenger seat (Jason’s driving, Beers is sleeping in the way back bench row)… we’re listening to a combination of NPR “All Songs Considered” podcasts and other stuff (The Cure is playing right now).

Had a big dinner at McDonald’s tonight. We don’t typically stop there… but it was our only non-sit-down-fancy option at the pulloff. The German food earlier was definitely the culinary highlight for today (no offense, McFlurry!).

Another fun fact: we’ve heard The Fray played at 3 out of 4 establishments on this trip. They were being played at the venue in Columbus last night before our set… at the restaurant where we got sandwiches in Columbus… at a packed bar/club that we walked by in Columbus… at the German Restaurant when we were eating (before he put our CD on)… and at McDonald’s in Buffalo. No comment.

Going to sign off and give my eyes a rest for a bit… I’ll get Anton’s photos up here as soon as possible, maybe tonight from the hotel room (though if there’s a pool at the hotel, we’re all planning on taking a dip for much of the evening).

Hasta for now…

Had a great pit stop at the Rock ‘n Roll Hall Of Fame. They’ve got some great museum items there, some of my favorites being

• the original notebook paper with the handwritten lyrics to “In My Life” by John Lennon
• the actual tape machine used by the Beatles to record the “seargent peppers” album
• original crayon drawings made by Jimi Hendrix when he was a little kid
• harmonicas and schnazzy suits from Stevie Wonder’s closet
• the acoustic guitar played by Eric Clapton in the “Unplugged” session
• the actual jacket and ‘wolf’ mask worn by Michael Jackson in the “Thriller” video

And the best part? We were at the counter paying for our tickets when we first got there, and the total came to $122 (plus parking)… we were in the process of paying, and the woman asked what we were doing in Cleveland. I told her we were on tour, and she said, “well then it’s free for you to get in! you just need to give us a copy of your latest album.” So I ran to the van and got a copy of TTA, and she took it, saying that their policy is to let bands in for free so long as they give a copy of a legitimately produced album… and the Hall of Fame keeps that album in their archive in case the band is ever inducted… the museum can then say that they have an “original early work,” etc. Awesome.

After the Hall of Fame, we hit the road and stopped for some authentic German food (peppered chicken sauce poured over mashed potatoes with soft fluffy white bread and butter… mmm) at a little cafe in Willoughby, Ohio… about 20 miles outside of Cleveland. The proprietor, John, came over and sat down with us for our entire lunch, talking about his home country (Germany), about living in Salt Lake City and how he loves Colorado, and about how he wants us to come back sometime and play a show in the parking lot of his cafe. We gave him a CD at the end of lunch and he put it on the house music system, and it was still playing when we walked out the door to the car. Great guy, great food, great break from the road.

We’re now driving in Pennsylvania. We should be at Edinboro University in about 15 minutes, in time to load in, soundcheck, and play the show right on time. We’re going to drive another 2-3 hours tonight after the gig, to knock off some of the distance to upstate New York where we play with Keller Williams tomorrow night.

Here are some photos from today from Fred’s camera:

outside the hotel – spring has sprung

gas station office

outside the hotel this morning – blue skies

outside the hotel

draining the cooler (old ice water = mold = bad times)

leprechaun house

leprechaun

anton the photog at the rock ‘n roll hall of fame

r ‘n r hall of fame

cleveland indians’ home, lake erie, big boat

cleveland downtown

cruising

george harrison eyeball

the ramones

neil young artwork

anton + fred @ r ‘n r hall of fame

anton ready for his induction

glass

glass

glass

boss

I also just added a couple of photos to the post-Columbus-show entry below… the 2:45am one.

Catch y’all with another update after the show…

Greetings from Cleveland (Rocks!) Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie (which we’re staring at right now). We’re coming in to the city right now on Hwy 71. Absolutely gorgeous sunny day, nice breeze blowing through the van, and we all had a good night’s sleep last night in Columbus. Felt good to wake up at 9:30am. Fred and I (Russ) have to share a bed in the hotel rooms because we’ve known eachother longest (going on 16 years now)… touring with 5 people is a big jump from touring with 4. A whole new comfort level.

So… we’re heading to the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland to walk around for an hour or so before heading on to Pennsylvania and Edinboro University. Should be about a 2 hour drive to Edinboro from Cleveland, so all in all an easy day.

More updates later, my computer battery is about to konk out on me… I’ve got pics to post from yesterday and today, so check back latah… hasta.

Had a great show in Columbus tonight, though a bit short because we ran super late getting here. We were supposed to play from 9 to 11pm, but we didn’t even arrive until 9pm, so it ended up being about an hour long show. Fred will post the setlist to the forums here in the van on the way to Pennsylvania later.

We got prime parking next to the venue again, though we had to move a port-o-potty to get it. Fred and I were bracing it and keeping it vertical while Anton bumped it forward with the van, foot by foot (eventually moving it about 25 feet). That could have been a very nasty update to the Backstage (photos included)… but luckily we kept it vertical and got our prime placement for the van.

The venue staff really dug the set and asked us to come back in the fall, so we’ll probably make that happen. We grabbed some sandwiches downtown and took a walk for a few blocks, checking out the OSU campus and High Street (the main drag). After grabbing the bite, we headed over here to the hotel, a lovely Best Western near the airport in Columbus.

I’m going to sign off and catch some zzz’s, as I’m the last one to go to sleep as usual and I’m literally dizzy from the long day… but no form of ‘dizzy’ I’d rather be… doing our jobs as musicians – driving, carrying stuff, playing music, carrying stuff out, driving… rinse and repeat.

We’re going to hit up the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on our way to Pennsylvania. Beers has been there, but no one else, so it should be fun. Pictures will be posted here for sure…

Oh, and we were run off the road earlier (after the post below) by a semi truck while trying to merge onto the freeway. Jason luckily kept us all alive… but we literally went off the freeway and bounced the trailer tires through mud puddles and dirt off the shoulder of the highway… then made our way back onto the concrete. We didn’t have an “Almost Famous” moment… no one confessed any transgressions (not aloud, anyway).

Hasta for now… bed.

Just finished loading out of the venue, headed to our beds for the night. Really fun show, felt really good to play after 10 hours of driving. Fred updated the setlist in real time in the forums here on the Backstage as the show progressed. He’ll do that for all shows ongoing where we have wireless at the venue, so if you’re curious about what we’re playing as we’re playing it, you can log in here and go to the forums to see the play-by-play. The owners of Java Joe’s want to have us back this fall, and we’ll look forward to it… really cool room (215 capacity) and they just invested in all new sound equipment.

Tomorrow morning we head to Columbus, Ohio… another 10 hour drive. One thing to look forward to is the World’s Largest Truckstop, which we’ll hit on I-80… and we hear that the World’s Largest Cuckoo Clock is somewhere on our route, too (in Ohio).

Here are some pics from tonight… after the show / loading out a few minutes ago:

beers and the coffee man

the room after the show

fred going through our things for loose change

trailer. gear. bags. loading out. beers.

barking orders. distorted lens. sloped head.

cool bird stencils that were all over the alley (someone tagged doors/signs)

Catch you in the morning from the road…

Hello from Des Moines… we’re just pulling into the city from 10 hours driving on I-80. I actually wrote a nice long Road Journal post way back in Lincoln, Nebraska, and when I hit “publish,” it erased the entire thing… so we’re not entirely slackers here, just had some bad technical luck.

We’ve had great luck with the weather today… clear skies and 70’s the whole way. All of the band members took shifts, with Jay driving right now and me (Russ) in the passenger seat updating the Backstage and calling out directions from Google Maps.

Fred’s been taking photos along the way… check ’em out below. Some highlights from the trip so far… stopping at a creepy gas station on a dirt road and noticing two gravemarker-esque wooden crosses behind the building (pic below)… stopping at a “food court” (not sure you can call it that) near Lincoln, NE and trying to tell the woman behind the counter that I don’t want french fries as a side with my spaghetti and meatballs (she thought I was crazy to say ‘no thanks’)… Beers playing with toy animals somewhere in western Nebraska… a “live show rabbits” sticker on a van we passed… and our favorite sign on I-80, the “outlaw sodomy!” sign painted in white paint on a black tire hanging on a ranch fence in middle-Nebraska. We see that one on every tour, it really jumps out awkwardly from the countryside.

More updates later… we’re about to exit and find the venue… pics for now:

packed up and ready to go (from colorado)

uhh… let’s just use the bathroom and get out of here

live show rabbits!

this is a lot of what we saw for 10 hours today

the boys – laptops and mp3 players

jay and anton solving the world’s problems

red van, white trailer

our power supply for laptops, chargers, etc.

beers sane

the big archway in nebraska… some day we’ll stop at it

beers insane (those are little animals)

your photographer/roadie/friend/dj… fred.

Hello, all… Russ here, taking a break from packing for tour to put my eyes on the Backstage website for a quick minute. My original plan was to be in bed by midnight (ya right), a goal which has now shifted to 2am. We’re meeting at Anton’s house at 6:30am to finalize the trailer packing and hit the road to Des Moines. Some last minute preparations for tour – clearing all memory cards for cameras, backing up laptop data to external hard drive in case it’s dropped while on tour, going to the store in a few minutes to pick up snacks, 9-volt batteries for guitar pickups, bottled water, and a few bouqets of flowers for my wife who cheers these tours on from home… and with any luck I’ll be in bed by 3am for 3 hours of sleep. Wait, did I say 2am was the goal?

Doh.

Oh, and the itinerary has changed a little bit from the post below… we’re now playing in Columbus, Ohio on Thursday night (not Madison, WI). Last minute booking, hopefully some people will come out.

Catch you live from I-80, at or before the World’s Largest Truckstop in Walcott in a matter of hours.

Well, we’re not technically on the ‘road’ yet, but we’re preparing to leave in two days, so I figured I’d fire up the Road Journal again to get it warmed up for some updates over the next two weeks all over the US of A.

I discovered that the Road Journal module here on the Backstage website has a character limit (doh!), and that it begins deleting content when the character limit is reached (BIGGER doh!)… so we actually lost the Road Journal entries from our Southwest tour last March (Tempe Music Festival, Arizona, New Mexico, etc.).

As a result, I’ve archived the 2008 Road Journal stuff to the SoundRabbit server… you can click here to check it out ongoing. We’ll start the 2009 Road Journal entries here on the Backstage and then move them whenever we need to, as the character limit is approached.

Can’t wait to hit the road and get woodshedding on the new material from Tree Trunk Airplanes. We’ve had a few shows here in Colorado to try them out, and they’re coming along… but tour always has a way of really getting us to dial in the arrangements and chops.

Our buddy Fred is flying in tonight to Colorado, and he’ll be helping us on the tour with merchandise, lighting, sound, carrying lots of stuff, photo/video coverage, etc. We’ll be very glad to have another set of hands/ears/eyes at the shows (and another driver!).

We’ve got the van and trailer tuned up, the gear is being audited and counted to make sure that all cables, stands, instruments, etc. are in order, and I’m currently emptying all of my memory sticks for my cameras (and finding stuff to post here on the Backstage from prior tours in the process).

The route is shaping up as follows… leave Colorado on Wednesday morning the 22nd, driving 10 hours to Des Moines, Iowa for a show that night at Java Joe’s. Leave the next morning (Thurs, 04/22) for a 6 hour drive to Madison, Wisconsin for a show that night at Alchemy Cafe (though as of this minute, it hasn’t been finally confirmed yet; gotta love the DIY booking process). We’ll stay outside of Milwaukee on Thurs night and on Friday morning, drive 9 hours to Edinboro, PA for a show at the University there. We’ll stay somewhere in western PA that night and then drive up to the Canadian border of New York for a show with Keller Williams on Saturday night. Sunday we’re planning to go to Montreal/Quebec, if Anton’s passport gets renewed in time! Monday we head to Burlington, Vermont for a show at Nectar’s. We’ll stay in Burlington that night and then drive down to Boston on Tuesday morning to hang out at the farm (see prior Road Journal entries for pics of our whiffle ball tournaments there). Tuesday night is our show in Waltham, MA, and then Wednesday morning we drive 10 hours down I-95 to Charlottesville, Virginia for our show at Bel Rio. Thursday morning we drive 12 hours to Memphis, Tennessee, and then another 8 hours the next morning to Yellow Springs, Ohio to play at Peach’s. They put us up in a lovely little house near Peach’s (stayed there last year), which is very nice and comfortable and makes for a well-rested band to drive the 8 hours to Kansas City, Missouri the next morning. One more show that night (Sat) at the Canoe Club, and then it’s homeward bound to Denver on Sunday the 3rd. All in all around 8,000 miles logged in 11 days… fun times.

Catch y’all on Wednesday as we pull out of town…