We’re hanging out at lovely little club/waffle house in Syracuse, NY right now called, approtriately, “Funk N Waffles.”  They have wireless and nice music and some books and board games available, and it’s nice and Air Conditioned.  We’re playing with Norway’s own No Torso tonight.  It’ll be nice to actually play a show with other punk/ska ish bands.  Matt just ate a burrito from down the street that looked pretty decent, and I think pretty soon I’m going to take the nice girl behind the counter up on the free waffle offer.  Possibly the salmon/feta stuffed variety?  I don’t know.  Maybe I should just get a grilled cheese, play it safe.  But shit, you only live once.

Tour has been pretty wild so far.  We couldn’t have gotten off to a much worse start.  We hit traffic in every major city on our way to Trenton, and then cleared out a bar full of people who were not interested in hearing live music, much less live punk/ska music played by us roughagins.  Morale was low that night.  I was not sure how I felt about being back in the saddle, three weeks of shows to slog through…if all of them were going to be this bad, it was going to be a long tour.  We collected our gas money and made a prompt exit, driving to Philly to stay with a friend of Jon’s.

We didn’t have to play again until 2 AM Sat night/Sun morning, so we basically had the whole day off in Philly.  Our gracious host completely spoiled us with delicious food, and adorable puppies.  Matt mowed the lawn while I videotaped…look for that footage coming soon.

The show Art All Night Festival in Trenton ended up being really cool.  It was a huge warehouse filled with all sorts of strange paintings, sculptures, videos, a couple cars (I don’t why those were there) and two stages, one indoor and one outdoor.  We saw a couple cool local bands play, drank some free beer, and then took the stage outdoors just after 2 AM.  It was definitely the latest set I have ever performed.  It was quite surreal, standing on a huge stage in Trenton, NJ, looking out an empty parking lot, illuminated by a bonfire and a couple people blowing glass.

We ended up playing a really fun set to a small, but appreciative audience.  It got us headed in the right direction after our dismal outing on Friday.  We were probably pretty sloppy, but we had a blast, and made a few new friends in the area.  That’s about all you can ask I suppose.

We left right after the show, and drove through the night towards Syracuse.  I made it just over the NY border, but after seeing two live deer, and two or three carcasses on the side of the highway, I decided it was a better idea to stop somewhere and finish the drive later.  We slept in the van for a few hours at a rest stop, then Matt finished the drive to Syracuse.  I slept in the van for a little while longer, then we wandered around in search of entertainment, with no luck.  Apparently Syracuse doesn’t have a whole lot going on in the summer.  We’ve been eating a lot of power bars, apples, and drinking V8.  We’re trying to concuct an elaborate scheme to enjoy chilled V8 in the van.  More word on that as it becomes available.

We’ve been trying to stay active, doing pushups and calisthentics at every stop.  The toughest part though is finding a clean space to get on the ground and bang out some push ups, you know?  You gotta fight through it though…it’s important to stay fit in this day and age, with gas prices the way they are and all.

Another week to go before we’re back in Boston for a day, all ages afternoon stylee at Bill’s Bar.  That should be a fun one.  You can get tickets in advance here:
http://www.rockonconcerts.com/events_detail.asp?Show=340

UPDATE:  Jameson has ordered and is eating the Salmon/feta waffle, and says it’s delicious.  He is a brave leader, and I think I’ll follow in his footsteps.

until next time,
steve

Jameson just finished laying down the first four bass tracks. He used a slightly different version of his funny old head, through a little ampeg cab, into a Distressor. Nice and round and bassy the way he likes it, but it has a good amount of punch too and is working with the kick drum. Our engineer Ethan is doing a great job keeping things flowing, getting good sounds, editing when it makes sense, but not all over the fucking place. Editing drums on Pro Tools HD is fucking insane. The way I’m used to it, fully editing a drum track is at least a couple hour process, but with this shit, it takes about twenty minutes. It’s kind of scary. Bass and drums are going down on legit two inch tape before going into Pro Tools, and it makes all the difference. This is the first time in the studio that I’ve been 100 percent confident that we’re going to have a totally solid rhythm foundation to build off of. Having the bass and drums this tight leaves room for the guitars, and that’s when shit starts to sound huge kids.

It’s around five oclock and we’ve been here since one. Ethan stepped out to get a bite to eat, and then it’s on to guitars. We’re going to go in four song chunks, rather than doing all of each instrument on the same day, so Matt and Jon don’t kill their voices doing 13 vocal tracks at the same time. The studio’s small but comfortable, it’s cheap as hell, everyone knows what they’re doing and has a good attitude, no pretentious bullshit, and the gear stacks up to anywhere else. I don’t know why you wouldn’t record here. We came in prepared, and it shows…things are moving really quickly. Since we decided last minute to do an extra 3 songs, making it 13 rather than 10, the gameplan is probably going to be to spend the whole week tracking, then come back in August for mixing…it’ll cost a little extra, so we just have to okay the money situation with everyone. Definitely takes a little pressure off knowing we don’t have to mix everything this week, and can take our time getting everything right. Shouldn’t affect our schedule too much since we weren’t planning on really touring to support it until January anyways, but taking the extra time will definitely push the release date back a bit. Better to take the time and get it right though.

Things between our new manager and the label seem to be working out well so far. Not sure how much I can talk about, but suffice it to say that it seems like everyone in the band and on the business end is on the same page. Last week was stressful, but the van is all set…insurance was way less expensive than we expected, but the sales tax was way more, so it ended up about where we thought it would. Barbara at Commerce Insurance was awesome, and Wanda at the RMV was totally not awesome. It’s all done though, paid for, insured and in Matt’s name. Still have to get it inspected, so we’ll take care of that Monday morning. Hopefully they don’t make us replace the windshield because the crack running down the right side. Definitely takes a huge weight off our shoulders knowing that shit is done. Now we can focus on making a great record, and take some time promoting the shows before we leave in a week.

Kevin and I finished recording a couple songs he’s been working on, and I finished mixing the first two the other day. One is an over produced, glossy, death cab style pop song. It’s kind of ridiculous and unlike anything we’ve done before, but it sounds great and it was a lot of fun. The other one is a rootsy alt countryish song. The recording and mixing is really straight forward, I don’t think there are more than 10 tracks. The two songs really couldn’t be more different but it’s cool, I had a good time working on them.

Shira’s first three songs are mixed and mastered and up at mypsace.com/milkhouseengineersteve. They came out really well. We’ve started work on three more, so I gotta find the time to get some drums down on them sometime this week.

Emily’s next song is coming along too. It has a Rock and roll country vibe to it, more upbeat than her last one. I have to edit bass and drums and mix it this week as well. Don’t know when I’ll have the time to do it, but I’ll make it happen one way or another.

Before the show, we spent a couple hours in Allston with Nicole Tammaro (www.nicoletammaro.com), taking some pictures. We’ve been needing to get this done for a while now, so it’s a big weight off my chest. If we want to get this record out in a timely fashion, we need to have all our ducks in a row before we leave for tour in a month, and we made significant progress on Saturday. Still a lot of work to be done though.

The new T-shirts came in just in time, too! Matt thinks the graphic is way too small, I think it’s just a little small, Jon thinks it’s right on, and Jameson, I don’t know…he seemed content. Unfortunately just the white and black ones made it in time for the show (yellow ones should be in any day now.) Jon and I spent a couple hours folded and sorting and taping, getting them ready for speedy access in dimly lit rock clubs.

Load in for the show was at like six, so I had plenty of time to kill before our 9:30 set, but still, I always feel like there’s too much to do and not enough time when I get to the club. Set up my drums, organize/setup the merch, get the guest list together, say hi to the other bands, get drink/meal tickets, eat, drink a bunch of water, drink a beer, warm up with my practice pad/metronome, stretch, drink another beer and a bunch more water. It’s a lot to do in three hours. I don’t think I had enough time to stretch properly, and it affected my performance.

It was just one of those nights that I couldn’t get comfortable. Playing first is always a little bit awkward, but usually I don’t care. With this band, playing these songs, I can usually have a blast no matter where we are, how many people are watching and whether or not anyone is dancing. Last night, we were at a great club with a good sound system, there were a good couple hundred people there, and a decent number of kids were moving, and yet, I never really got in a groove, and as a result, couldn’t enjoy myself. It was like I was riding the beat, just barely hanging on, doing everything I could to avoid stopping in the middle of the song to get my shit together. But, I made it to the end of the set without f*cking up once. Jon’s vocals were a little quiet, and everyone played well. We were definitely tight, but I don’t think we had the same energy that’s been characteristic of our shows lately. I feel like we all looked a little bored up there. We need to work on being excited even when the crowd is kind of awkward.

Westbound Train was really good. The crowd was more into their set, but not by too much, they still seemed kind of dead. Our last show with them, upstairs in November, was definitely a little crazier. Their new songs sounded f*cking great though. They seem to be finding a sound that’s completely their own They’re already picking up a lot of steam, playing shows with Rancid, Less Than Jake and Goldfinger this summer, and I think this new record will bring them up to the next level.

It was the first time I’d heard The Pietasters, aside from a song on a Give Em The Boot comp, and they were a lot of fun. They’re last song went something like “la de da, I’ll have another one, drinking and driving is so much fun.” I appreciate their honesty.

We did pretty decent on merch, but not quite as well as I’d expected. There were probably about the same amount of people in attendance when we played as at our last Boston show (with Time Again on April 6^th), but the all ages punk shows are definitely more fruitful for us, as opposed to the 18+ ska/reggae shows. The good news is I think we impressed some people who might be in a position to help us out significantly, so we’ll see what comes of that.

I had a good ole time at the Hooker St. after party. It was mostly Healey’s work friends, but I met some cool people, took a lot of shots for our youthful invincibility, and rocked out with Matt to the usual punk jams as the night was winding down. And I was responsible and crashed on the foldout couch rather than driving home at 4 am. It was actually quite comfortable.

I got an email from a legit sounding promoter who wants to have us in Rochester on June 23^rd, so assuming that works out, we only have July 1^st left to fill. Over a month to fill one date? Definitely doable. The Canadian guys also confirmed another show today. If they fill the two remaining holes over there, we’ll only have one day off in between a run of twenty something shows. With only three drivers, that’s a little daunting, but, I think we’re up for the challenge.

Like the pro that she is, Nicole gave us all four CD sets of the 600+ pictures we took at the show on Saturday. It was like a five hour turn around time. That is fucking absurd. So, I spent a lot of time today, in between a lovely mothers day dinner with the family, getting the new pictures online at webshots and www.myspace.com/havenotsboston. They came out really good, though it’s amazing how hard it is to get four dudes looking not-retarded at the same time. But, there seems to be at least one or two shots where we all look decent in every set we took. We’ll be dishing them out online over the next couple weeks, so as to create more action on the space. Building the web presence and all that.

We’re done playing shows, pretty much, until we leave for tour on June 20th, so that we can get ready to record. It’s relieving to have less on my plate, but now it’s hitting me that this is happening for real. We have one month to get all of our shit in order. We need to work out every little kink in every song we want record (which means at least 2-3 practices a week), get all the artwork and insert layout done, write a new bio, organize our Myspace friends, get a real website and a proper press kit together, pay for the van, fix all our equipment, ship some merch to Canada, book one or two more shows, get a tour flier made, promote the entire tour online and on the streets, and possibly start booking another tour, all before June 13th. When you throw the shitty economy and the outrageous gas prices in the mix, it’s enough to become overwhelmed. BUT, more than that, it’s exciting.

We left from Hooker St at around 3:30…it was a pretty nice, leisurely drive. Being my birthday, I was relieved from driving duties for the weekend, which was a very nice change of pace. So, in between navigating for Pru, I got some much needed sleep. Hadn’t done that in a few nights, partly due to drunken debauchery, and partly due to some bullshit weighing on my mind. Everyone seemed in relatively good spirits, myself included. The view from the Throngs Neck Bridge of the city was pretty gorgeous, but aside from that, there wasn’t much to look at. The old MA->CT->NY route is pretty routine at this point.

We were the first band to arrive at Mr. Beery’s, a nice little dive bar in the Framingham-esque downtown Bethpage. The staff was nice, and we were satisfied with the venue for a couple reasons.

1) the stage folded out from the wall

2) It was pretty much a slightly bigger Midway Café

3) There was free Budweiser on tap for us

We ate at the diner right next door, which was pretty underwhelming. I paid almost four dollars for a cheeseburger with no fixins. The deluxe cheeseburger, with Lettuce, tomato and fries would’ve been an extra three dollars. Fuck that. About halfway through our meal, Matt’s mom and her boyfriend arrived. They live right down the road, and apparently she grew up on Long Island and went to the prom with Eddie Money. Sweet lady and nice guy. We were glad they came out.

Went back to the bar after dinner, as the other bands were starting to show up. We were under the impression it was just us and The Fad, but we were glad to have another band. I forget their name now, but they were good. One of the dudes from ASOB, I think I heard someone say. They played straight up, fast rock and roll. No bullshit.

We went on a little before 11 I think. There were people there, but I guess it was a bit of an off night for Mr. Beery’s, due to other events going on in town. But people watched out set and responded nicely, and I had fun. Had my chops together, feel like my timing might’ve been a bit off though. My kit was set up weird and it threw me off a bit. People seemed to like it and we sold a couple t-shirts…not a bad show.

I had been informed earlier in the night that at Mr. Beery’s, for one’s birthday, it’s customary to take 5 free shots, all in a row. So, after we finished playing and I packed up my shit, I sold the bartender a tshirt, and then told her it was my birthday. It was right as The Fad was about to start playing, so she yelled at them to hold on, then rang a bell at the bar while they made an announcement. I put half a shot in my mouth, and she kept telling me to wait (for what, I have no idea.) So I sat there like an idiot for a mouthful of whiskey while Doyle said something and the crowd kind of cheered. Taking five shots of whiskey back to back wasn’t as hard as I expected. I didn’t feel sick after, or even all that drunk. I felt like I was waiting for mushrooms to kick in or something, but all I got was a healthy buzz. That’s probably a pretty efficient way to drink.

The Fad were great, as usual. I guess they’ve been practicing three times a week since they can’t tour right now…they had a bunch of cool segway’s between songs, and played all the hits, plus a couple covers. I really like that band. We hung around the bar for probably another hour after their set, drinking and fucking around. The bartenders were great to us and welcomed us back anytime, and one of the dudes from The Fad said we could crash at his house…definitely worked out better than the van.

We said goodbye to the rest of The Fad, and then followed them about 15 minutes to D’s house, a pretty sweet little apartment in a nice looking neighborhood. He had some friends from the show over, and we stayed up till three or four playing beer pong and taking shots of Jager with their guitar player. He was bad mouthing the patriots and that along with the Jager, got me a little riled up. The were some cute girls there but we were all well behaved. One of them was in college and said I needed to keep drinking because it was my birthday, and I agreed, because I was having fun and it was also getting my mind off of the issues from home that had followed me to Long Island, and had been swirling around in my head for the whole weekend. Finally, I ended up quite drunk, which seemed appropriate. Eventually Jon and Matt went to sleep in the van (Jon wanted to guard the van, responsibly, I don’t why Matt chose the van over the house…didn’t make a whole lot of sense.) I don’t really remember going to sleep, but it wasn’t too much later. I kind of just sat down in a reclining chair, and vaguely remember D throwing me some sort of blanket. I slept well, uninterrupted until the morning, which felt really good. R from The Fad was passed out on the floor next to my chair, and there were some other randoms scattered about the rest of the living room. It was adorable.

We woke up pretty early the next morning, mostly Jameson’s doing I think. I was pretty much still asleep, but made it to the van. We gave R a ride back to his car at the bar, and ate breakfast at the same diner. I was more satisfied with breakfast than I was with dinner. The morning is very hazy, and everyone was pretty haggard, but we had a good time. Mad enough money between the door and tshirts to cover our gas, so I can’t complain. Pretty solid for a one off in Long Island. Hopefully we’ll see those guys again soon.

We were going to play at Pearl St. in Northampton this Friday with The Stolen Records (Jameson and I’s old band), but I just got word that the show is cancelled. It’s a good club, and it would have been a fun time, but I wanted to go down to DC for the weekend anyways, so this makes my life easier. There will be other chances to play in the Amherst area.

Now the Pietasters show at the middle east on may 10th is our only gig left before we take about a month off to get ready to record. Set up a photoshoot for that weekend, so thats one less thing on the to do list, but we need to get crackin on an updated bio, and the artwork for the record.

It was fun though, and that’s the important thing. You take the good with the bad. It’s tough remember sometimes. I think we only sold one t-shirt, but we didn’t bring any of our own gear really, and thus didn’t bring the van, so the small amount of cash we made covered gas costs. At least we didn’t lose money on the show.

And I think we made some new friends. We’ve got more than a couple people in Providence now that might come back. The club is really fucking cool, great vibe about the place. I have a feeling playing to a full room in that place would be pretty incredible…sent a couple emails out about getting on the Darkbuster show there on May 3rd…we’ll see what happens with that.

Brunt of It was fucking awesome last night. Great catchy punk rock with a little bit of ska. They have a sax, but it’s not overwhelming. Their singer can hit the fucking notes, and sounds like the dude from Bad Religion. He’s been at it for ages, and is still doing it, having a blast and helping the scene in anyway he can. Great fucking dudes. 30 people or 300 people, they give it their all. Can’t wait to have them up to Boston. B said that we’ll be doing something on June 29th in Providence, it’s just a matter of where. I guess the national booker at the living room grabs up as many holds as he can, and doesn’t release them until like the week before, so we probably need a different venue. Perhaps Club Hell, or even the parking lot at The Living Room. Either way would be fun.

I really enjoyed watching TFT as well. They put on a great performance. I can see why the kids go crazy for em.

The gas station we stopped at right outside of Norwood, MA, was the cleanest, best maintained Shell station I’ve ever been to, I think. The bathroom was impeccable, and the dude working the register was cheery as could be, at one AM. We’ll definitely be thanking him in the liner notes on the record.

Got one more confirmation for the Canadian tour today, as well as the two Jersey shows on the 20th and 21st. June 26th in Jersey looks possible as well. If we wanted, we could have three CT shows, June 30th-July 2nd, but that might be a bit too long in CT. Might work out to our advantage though. Wouldn’t spend a lot on gas and could build it up a little bit in the area, perhaps. We’ll see. Things are coming together though. Should have the booking wrapped up sooner than I expected, so we can start promoting and looking towards August, getting out on our own.

I sent the t-shirt orders in the other day, too. I got the proofs back from the company, and my only concern is that the graphics might be too small on the shirts. Hopefully it works out. I’m figuring out how to use Photoshop, slowly but surely, but I still aint no graphic designer by any means.

But, sometime after our soundcheck and before doors opened, someone told me that there had been over 100 presales. Confident that the room would be at least half full, I was able to relax and enjoy the day. We took advantage of the half price food, and I enjoyed some delicious Eggs Benedict for about two dollars. I don’t know if the others would agree (I heard rumors of sour eggs), but I was satiated. After brunch, we were told that our set was being pushed back from 1:15 to 2:00. As any opening band will tell you, having your set pushed back means a better chance of playing to a full room. More importantly, for me anyways, it meant I actually had time to sit down with my metronome and warm up.

Ah, the rudiments. Flams, single strokes, paradiddles, double strokes RLLL (I don’t know what the hell you call that one.) Nothing has made a bigger impact on my drumming, in my entire life, than discovering about a year and a half ago that practicing the shit every drum teacher tells you too practice really does make all the difference in the world. Sitting behind the merch booth, with our hand made tshirts nicely laid out (rolly brush + fabric paint + beers in my basement = about 25 smashing shirts, and 5 or so bargain-bin fuckups), practicing my rudiments for about thirty-five minutes, gradually working up to 145 bpm with no trouble, the room filled right up, and I was confident we’d kill it.

The first two songs of our set were about the tightest I’ve ever felt on stage. I was in a groove, felling nice and loose, the mix onstage was good, the room was packed, and the crowd was moving from the first note. The entire set kicked ass, but as we played on, my arms tired. The adrenaline rush of stepping onstage always catches up to me in this band. The music’s so fast, when my blood starts pumping, I forget to focus on my form, I hit to hard, and my wrists tense up and start to hurt. It got pretty bad towards the last third of our 40-45 minute set. I still played well, about as well as I ever have with this band, but it’s not as much fun when I have to pour all my energy into holding onto my sticks and not fucking up because my wrist hurts, rather than having a good time. We blew through the songs, then tacked “Pusherman” (a SB song) on at the end when the kids wanted one more. Despite my physical ailments, it was a great set overall. Pruitt shaking his ass at Cauztik while soloing was entertaining from my prospective, and there were some good looking jumps thrown in for sure.

Time Again was really, really fucking good. I was probably more apt to like them because they genuinely humble and nice dudes, but man, they killed it. I was standing on a chair watching their set from behind our merch table, and there were several points when I had to go over to their shit and find out the name of the song they were playing. I think the final count at the door was around 180, and the Time Again dudes seemed honest when they said it was one of the best shows of the tour.

Overall, it was definitely one of the better shows I’ve been a part of upstairs. About 15 people away from a sell-out, which is pretty fucking awesome considering it was a Sunday afternoon. We sold a good amount of shirts (made a profit already), and hopefully will have some good pictures to show for it, possibly to use as artwork for the live iTunes EP that should be coming up soon. From the brief snapshots I saw on people’s cameras, the banner Jon made looks sweet…hopefully there exists a decent shot of the whole room.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind playing more shows during the day. It was really, really nice being loaded out and ready to go, with a slight buzz by like 6 PM. Went to Hooker and unloaded, then got some food at 88 with Pru, and still had time to get home and do some work.

All in all a good Sunday. Off to Providence tonight and I’m looking forward to it quite a bit. There’s a good little punk/ska scene going on down there, and I’m excited to get back. And it’s so fucking gorgeous outside right now, I really could enjoy anything…certainly beats the last time we went to the Living Room, in February, freezing our balls off the whole night. The fact that classes end on Wednesday, and we’re almost done booking the first part of the June tour doesn’t hurt either.

I’ll add some pictures from Sunday to this when we get them, hopefully soon.

I also write because I enjoy writing, sometimes. I used to be really good at it, but without practice, like all skills, my ability fades away. So hopefully with practice comes new ideas and with new ideas comes a voice. Everyone and their mother seems to have a blog these days, and most of them are terrible. But, some of them are incredible too. I won’t judge my own, I’m just here to do some writing.

I’ll probably end up writing a lot about the latest goings on with my band, Have Nots, because that’s what I spend a lot of my time on. We’ll be on the road a lot in coming months, and writing is a great way to kill time between shows, I ‘ve found. Other possible topics include cool music I’m working on, either by myself or for other people, music I think is cool (this doesn’t happen too often because most of the music I like was made in around 1994), and maybe even musings on music and life in general.