My friend Mike Ciazzo has alerted me that my use of commas has been abusive. I have no experience in writing or expressing my thoughts in text besides my lyric writing which can be slightly ogreish and minimal so any criticisms are appreciated. With that said we just played 3 shows in Sacramento, San Francisco and Oakland. I guess I've sort of been slacking on updating this thing but I try to wait until I feel I've gained a whole experience from a place or places before I write an entry. Sometimes a whole experience is achieved after one show. Usually it seems it's been about every two shows. in this case I guess it took 3 shows and 4 days to feel like I somewhat have a grasp on the bay area. I was very excited to go to the bay because most people I know that come to new York from there like to act like there is some sort of rivalry between NY and SF. I guess there are legitimate reasons to feel that way but now having gone there I find it really funny because they are so similar to me. I think it was the similar feel to NY that threw me off at first. I've really been enjoying being in smaller towns/ city's, so when we first arrived to the mission in SF it was was a bit overwhelming and for the first time i could understand why anybody would choose to live outside of a city. To be honest I was a little sad that we were about to spend 3 days here with that first day being a day off with no show and nothing to do. I don't think it was the actual fact of san francisco that was bumming me out as much as it was just feeling lost in such an urban setting. I've found it very exciting to be in these smaller towns, not knowing anyone or anything But being in SF sort of felt just like being in NY except nothing was familiar, as if I was lost in my hometown. Kind of like in a dream when you see A close friend but they look completely different, yet somehow you still know its them. Maybe I'm being overly dramatic cause this fucking heat is frying my brain, but whatever. Anyway, I guess I should actually talk about the shows? Sacramento was set up by our friend Marilyn, who's sister Jen currently lives in NY but was out there for the summer. It was nice to see familiar faces and also nice that it was our first house show of the tour. We played with a band called Crimson Scarlette who I was excited to see because we had heard good things about them from multiple sources.The show went good but As much as I love playing in punk basements, I'm not sure were really as effective in such a setting. We take up a lot of space with all our gear and I need room to move bak and forth from the mic and the synth/ drum machines. The basement, while having a great vibe to it, was just a bit too small. Playing was kind of like running through an obstacle course having to duck my head down to dodge a pipe everytime I needed to get to the electronics and the space was so shallow that I was basically screaming at a wall. We pulled it off though and like an obstacle course is meant to do, we are hopefully improved because of it.
Two days later we played with crimson Scarlette again in SF at a club called retox. I was glad we got to see them again because their drum machine wasn't loud enough at the first show (a problem we empathize with) but they defenitely killed it at this second one. Third show was in Oakland at a long standing noise venue called TERMINAL ran by Ryan from Deathroes. Most of the people i asked about the venue the previous night had either never heard of it or had heard of it but never been there so i had no clue what to expect.The show was with Altar De Fey, an 80s death rock band that just recently started playing again. I'm not usually one for reunions, but this seemed very humble and I was glad to be playing with them.
Terminal turned out to be a pretty awesome one room DIY space with a huge wall-of-amps sound system and beat up velvet couches. It's got a lot of history and you can feel it.
Driving to LA now to play at the echo. The heat in the van is fucking killing me ughhhhhhhgggh I can't write anymore
Photos: some of the speakers at TERMINAL, us at the coast, altar de fey
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