RED FANG

MastoEurope Part two!

2012-01-24T10:19:00.000-08:00

Bremen, Germany 1/18/12The best part about traveling to foreign countries is learning about the cultures. Take for instance the fact that Germans absolutely hate the Scorpions. Bringing up an affinity for the Scorps will get you a look normally reserved for someone who just had their finger rip through the toilet paper—a combination of disgust and sheer disappointment followed by anger. People get mad, like normal conversation in English one minute to screaming at you in German the next type mad.

Brussels, Belgium 1/19/12
First of all, I’d like to say, “Fuck yes Brussels!” Never have been treated with such an overwhelming response. We thank you from the bottoms of our enlarged, aorta blocked by of piece of cheese, tar ball bouncing around the chambers hearts. It makes me wish I had been able to leave the venue and check out the city. That is, besides the outdoor urinals in the alley behind the club.
But no such luck. So instead I want to take this time to introduce you to our driver, Jozef:
Look at that handsome son of a bitch. The Czech Republic’s finest. We weren’t in the van ten minutes when I noticed him digging in his nose like he had an mosquito bite on his brain, pulled his finger out, grabbed the stick shift and shifted gears. Not even a courtesy wipe on his pants. I knew right then that we were going to get along great.

Now you may be looking at that RV and thinking wait all six of you are living in that thing? Yep. Three bunks, six dudes—you do the math. That means that Jozef up there has to crawl into bed every night with the one and old Bryan “The Snuggle Bandit” Giles. Known from Stockholm to San Diego for his tendency to embrace anyone within a three-foot radius while snoring out an alcohol fueled mixture that could take the varnish of a chair. Being the pro that he his, he didn’t even bat an eye. A true road dog, badass driver, and a great person to talk to while staring out the window at the amazing European countryside. Glad to call him a part of the crew.

Paris, France 1/20/12
We didn’t even have to play this show, when we got there we found out there was a Chinese cover band filling our spot:
So we took the day off and went and sucked in the sites, starting with some traditional French cuisine:

Hoped the Metro on over to the Eiffel Tower:
Looked at some art:
And caught a show*:
Then it was nothing but wine, cheese and berets for the rest of the night…

*On serious note: This sign creeps me the fuck out. All I can think off is one of those little assholes coming to life and chasing after me with a butcher knife.

San Sebastian, Spain 1/21/12
We should have known this was going to be a wild one when the flyer for the show had what appeared to be a dead David on it:

I can tell you what happened at this show was one of the best things I have ever witnessed in my life. Ever.

The boys are banging through the set and the crowd is going crazy. Mosh pits, crowd surfing, Futbol style Red Fang chants just pure awesomeness. They start Into The Eye and all of the sudden the crowd grabs David of the stage and starts crowd surfing him. While he’s still playing his guitar! I go running over to try and get a photo but the crowd wont’ even let me near. I look on stage to see a guy feeding David’s guitar cord out to him next to a totally hysterical Aaron. I look back as someone from the crowd puts a homemade beer helmet (Ala Prehistoric Dog) on his head and they surf him back on to the stage, put him gently on his feet and he finishes the song. My brain almost blew directly out of my head due to the awesome over load. I don’t have a baby, but I think that this would be better than seeing my first child be born—mostly because there wasn’t any slime or blood.

Lisbon, Portugal 1/22/12
Never in my life did I think that I would say my most memorable experience in Portugal would be at a McDonald’s. But sure as shit…

So we have to do this sort of mad panic load out at the end of the show and end up being done after all the places around are done serving food, so we head out on a mission. After dragging our out of shape asses up we seemed to be a completely vertical hill, we find nothing but a old man bar that closed as soon as we walked in the door. After about another twenty minutes we decided that whatever we saw next was going to have to work. What do you know, but the next open spot we see is the golden arches, the house that Old Dirty Ron built.

The first thing the floored me was they were selling beer. I was so excited that I had to take a picture. Which the girl behind the counter was none to happy about.
Once I explained that I was going to put it on the Internet she changed her tune and even posed for me:
So we’re hanging, eating our Scottish food and getting bugged by the type of people who would hang out at a twenty-four McDonald’s when we notice this guy who has an assortment of different condiments, what appears to be an airline bottle of some strange bright yellow liquor and a spoon laid out very preciously on top of a garbage can. He then came over and asked us for a lighter. After a shrugging “no” he went over to some other people, got a lighter came back to the garbage can, broke the flint and wheel off the lighter, pulled out a tennis ball container sized can of butane from his bag and refilled the lighter.
At this point Aaron, Bryan and I have completely stopped what we are doing and are transfixed, mouths agape. He then dips the spoon into what looked like some honey mustard, poured the yellow booze on top of the mustard, grabs the lighter, and sprays the butane all over the mixture. Next he grabs the spoon, stares at for a second as if they were old adversaries that ran into each other at a wild west saloon, sticks the spoon in his mouth, yanks it out and starts dancing like a raver on bad E.

There was nothing anything any of us could even say or do except grab another beer and watch him start mashing leftovers into a fry container…

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Europe Week One

2012-01-18T09:14:00.000-08:00

Stockholm, Sweden 1/14/12I did a lot of thinking at this show. As I stood in the middle of a crowd made up of 2,000 screaming Swedish fans I thought back to the first show that the boys ever played six years ago on new years eve in David’s basement. I thought about the first tour in a van dubbed “brownstar” that had no seats and a wicked exhaust leak. I thought about me singing songs at shows because the clubs wouldn’t give drink tickets to non-band members. I thought about playing to three people in a bar in Alameda, California that had used sex toys in the vending machine. I thought about all the cat piss drenched couches, concrete floors and sidewalks we’ve slept on. The thousands of hours we’ve spent driving from one side of the U.S. to the other and joking about “when we go to Europe” never actually thinking it would happen. I though about how proud, excited and happy I was of the four boys on stage giving it everything they got and I started to tear up.
Then I thought maybe after twenty hours of travel, thirty hours without sleep and a couple beers is not the best time to be thinking about this.

Oslo, Norway 1/15/12
I tell ya, it going to be tough doing the blog on this tour for two reasons. 1) Who the fuck wants to sit on a computer for hours when you have shit like this to go look at:
And 2) The entire base of this blog is me making fun of the environment around me. In the U.S. it’s easy because, well, it’s the U.S., our idea of culture is reality TV shows about obese thirteen-year-old mothers who are proud to be both. Over here, you can’t walk a block without running into something that makes your jaw drop. Even the shitters require some sort of thought:
After a couple hours even my camera was like “Fuck you, this is the old country, I’m only shooting in black and white.”
Copenhagen, Denmark 1/16/12
If there is one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that some of the worst ideas are also the best ideas. Take for example deciding to wonder the streets of a strange city at three AM after ingesting a few million beers. If we hadn’t done that we wouldn’t have gone to that crazy bar with the girls dancing on the tables. We probably wouldn’t have met the guy with the prison tattoos on his face who got madder and madder about the plot line of the movie Blow. Even though no one was talking about the movie with him. We wouldn’t have got to see the world’s biggest bong:
Or seen this awesomely misplaced signage:
Aarhus, Denmark 1/17/12
The flip side to the story above as that I also wouldn’t have woken up feeling like a garbage truck ran me over, backed up, dumped all the trash on to my face, the driver then got out, doused the mound with jet fuel, lit it on fire, ate some asparagus and tried to pee said fire out.

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Mastodon Week Five

2011-12-13T13:51:00.002-08:00

Where the hell was I? Oh yeah…

Buffalo, NY 11/26/11

Okay, so we stopped at Niagara Falls, and it was great and beautiful and all that shit:
But the best part was the signs that they have all around the park. While we only spotted maybe three that actually told you anything you wanted to know about the waterfall (that fact that 650,000 gallons a second gave over that bad boy was pretty badass) there was a few others that really got us thinking. Here’s a couple favorites.
If you really need this sign to tell you it’s a bad idea to crawl over the fence, well—maybe you should climb over the fence.
And it turns out, if the sidewalks get wet up there, it makes you dance like an extra in the Thriller video.

Washington DC 11/27/11
On the way to the show we got stuck in a traffic jam that lasted close to three years. When we finally got moving (at this point we were already an hour late to load in and close to two hours from the club) the lady behind us was nice enough to rear-end us. At the time, I was kinda pissed at the lady, but looking back I feel bad for her. This is how she saw it:

She gets out of her car and sees three long haired, bearded dudes running towards her, none of them say a word to her, open the rear of the van, look at what seems to be a bunch of large wood boxes, look at each other, say “Fuck it, let’s roll” get back in the van. The van drives off. She is still standing in front of her car with the bumper pushed in. No one has said a word to her.

Norfolk, VA 11/28/11
Yes, this show happened.

Asheville, NC 11/29/11
One of the best parts of the road is getting to hang with old friends, and it’s especially awesome when you have friends that are willing to drive a couple hours to do it.
You know it’s love when you can get all up in the beard:
Thanks for driving down homies! It was great seeing all of you.

Charleston, SC 11/30/11

I have no photos for this night so how about terms we are trying to big back/ work into other peoples vocabularies on this tour? No? Well, too late.

Jamin-z Deutsch (e.g. Dude 1:“Should I grab the Ipod?” Dude 2: “Hell yeah, I need to jamin-z Deutsch” or Dude Me: “Hey guys, stop crying. You have ten minutes to get on stage and Jamin-z…” )

Weezin’ The Juice (e.g. “What, we’re out of beer already? Who’s been weezin’ the juice?”)

Shit In One Hand, Fart In The Other… (e.g. Dude 1: “I would love if we could stop soon I really gotta piss.” Dude 2: “Well—shit in one hand, fart in the other…”)

G’day Mate! (e.g. Dude 1 who just woke up in the van: “Where are we?” Dude 2: “ Texas.” Dude 1: “ Oh, well then, G’day mate! Throw another shrimp on the Barbra!”

Slappadabass (e.g. Dude 1: “ Hey what does the dude with the long hair, beard and glasses play in Red Fang? Dude 2: “Aaron? He slappadabass.”

Stems and Seeds (e.g. Dude1: “How long was that drive?” Dude 2: Ten hours. Harsh toke! Dude1: “You’re telling’ me. Stems and seeds bro…”

Now let’s try to put it all together.

“Where is the show tonight? The Boston House Of Blues? Well G’day from the Big Easy! We should get in there before the other bands weeze all the juice. Remember the other night when I got done slappadabass and there was no more beer and the promoter was all ‘Shit in one hand, fart in the other?’ Stems and seeds man, stems and seeds.”

Orlando, FL 12/01/11

This is what we pulled up to:
First we play with Barney, now with Mickey Mouse? What the shit?

Atlanta, GA 12/02/11

This was the last show of the tour with Mastodon. If you feel a good cry coming on I’ll give you this time to go grab a box of tissues. That’s right, let it all out. I, of course, would never cry myself because I’m a man and if there is one thing I took away away from the ‘80’s it’s real men don’t cry, or eat quiche.

That being said the show was a real barn burner as the kids say. In addition to the normal line-up, Tiger Tiger, Monstro, and The Black Lips were on the bill. Yeah, like I said, a real barn burner. So, for the last chunk of the tour, we had been getting up on stage with Mastodon for their last song (Creature Lives), but being it was the last show the Masto-dudes wanted to do it right. They got all the bands cloaks to wear.

Everyone came out to sing in cloaks as 3,000 balloons dropped from the ceiling. It was an amazing sight. All these people we have come to consider family, arm in arm singing, huggin…
What?!
I am not crying!

It’s my allergies.

I’m allergic to my feelings.

Baton Rouge, LA 12/3/11
If there is one thing I will never forget about this show it would be the conversation with a guy at the merch booth that all the sudden took a right turn at the Whatthefuckville exit. We’re just chatting, the normal “Do you guys really drink all that beer in the Pre-Dog video” convo that goes down and out of nowhere he just drops “I was on the run from the law for about two years. You know Crime Stoppers and shit…”

The part that struck me as strange was not that he was on the run, I mean, to each his own, do what you gotta do. But the way he delivered the Crime Stoppers line seemed to say. “You know, you’ve been there. We all have.” Am I missing something? Is being on Crime Stoppers in vouge now? Should we flush the band idea and turn into a group of traveling criminals, driving around the countryside, pilfering unsuspecting people of their beer and cheap smokes? We could call ourselves the Fangalareos or the Bloody Tooth Gang (not because for the Red Fang pun, but due to all of our rabid gingivitis).

Yeah, I like this. First thing’s first, we’re gonna need some zoot suits…

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Mastodon Week Four

2011-12-13T13:32:00.000-08:00

Okay, we gotta lot of ground to cover, so let’s get to it:

Indianapolis, IN. 11/17/11

Yeah, this really happened. Barney the fucking purple dinosaur was doing a show in the same building. I know what your thinking, and the answer is yes, he does have really good weed. (Just kidding Barney’s lawyers, I have no idea what his weed is like.)

Pittsburgh, PA 11/18/11

There was a time when I’d take notes about what happened in every city so I could remember any funny shit that went down. This was not one of those times.

New York, NY 11/19/11
1,800 people in the door before the boys went on. 1,800! Now, I’m no mathamagician but that’s almost a million.
Aaron got so excited that his pants broke out in a thick brown sweat:

Philadelphia, PA 11/20/11

This is our old friend Paula:

She’s a total badass. She’s played bass in Whipped, Tourette’s Lautrec and a bunch of other bitchin’ bands, she’s one of the founding members of Camp Fantasy, a world traveler, has beat the big C and is now a lawyer. She took us out for an amazing dinner. We insisted on paying ourselves but she wouldn’t hear of it—so we ordered another round of drinks.

Boston, MA 11/21/11
So after the show we get a hotel outside of town and I notice a CVS across the street. This is great news because my dogs have been barking for the last couple days, that is to say, my feet were killing me. That and there was a couple nose hairs that were making it look like a tarantula was hanging half out my face. So I tell everyone the plan and make for the door, at which point the orders start flying. Hot Pockets for Aaron, microwave burrito for John… This is all fine until I realize that there is a seven-foot high fence dividing six lanes of traffic between me and the goods.

Not to be discouraged I summon all the shit I learned from watching the Rambo series over and over again and scale that bad boy, surprisingly with the crotch of my Levi’s still in tact.

Once inside the store it’s a blood bath, I’m buying junk food I have never heard of just because it’s there. I end up with almost fifty dollars worth of crap. Now it’s time to figure out how to get it back over the fence. I tie the bags to the fence and try to get a running start at it but a bunch of cars come. So now I’m stuck just staring across three lanes of traffic at all the snacks, hoping that a cop doesn’t drive by and see me staring at a bunch of plastic bags on a fence. My homeless look is already to the point where I have been given change on street corners before, so this could be drunk tank time.

I finally make it over and back to the room, come busting in the door, ready for my hero’s welcome, and everyone was asleep.

Burlington, VT 11/22/11

Let it be known that the staff at Higher Ground rule. If you ever make it in there, tell ‘em we sent you and you want a hit man. (We are not responsible for any DUIs or dry cleaning bills after said drink).

Montreal, QUE 11/23/11

The hotel we stayed in advertised a bar, which it did have, kinda. There was a physical bar, but that’s about where it ended. There was a locked beer cooler, where certain beers we not beer:

And a flat screen fireplace:

Which is pretty fancy—but not what we were banking on. Don’t get me wrong we still drank there…

Ottawa, ON 11/24/11

I had this whole thing about Thanksgiving in Canada planned out, but those last two took a lot out of me, so, yeah.

Toronto, ON 11/25/11

Since the last “on the road how to” went over so well with one whole response I figured I’d keep it going with a little something we call “Bag ‘O Salad.”

Step one: Throw some salad in a bag.

Step two: Add Dressing

Step three: Shake.
Step four: Dig in. If you want to get all fancy you can pour it on to a plate and use a fork, but we keep it real.

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Mastodon Week Three

2011-12-12T18:38:00.001-08:00

Chicago, IL. 11/11/11
What the hell did happen in Chicago? It must have been a good one because I have no photos or memory of anything.

Milwaukee, WI. 11/12/11

What in Paul’s bunion did John do to make the photo look like this? Does he have a “Gary Busey’s brain” setting on that thing or what? Wait! We were trying to figure out why our green room looked as if Keith Richards’ interior decorator got hold of some bad E:
Maybe the entire club was cloaked in Timothy Leary’s ghost.
On mushrooms.

Sauget,IL. 11/13/11

I wish that we were a crappy art rock band so that I could just put up this photo I took of the power plant behind the club and write a poem about the bands dark brooding feelings.

All the while twirling the end of my scarf with my fingerless glove clad, imported cigarette-clutching fingers. You would be able to feel the angst we harbored towards our parents for not getting us leather seats in the Lexus we got for high school graduation in every line. It would be deep!

But on the high side instead of a bunch of kids worrying about if their hair is sitting across their face just right, I get this:

Kansas City 11/14/11

Sometimes on the road you miss the little things. I mean sure, you could spend your whole time out living like a brute. But there are times when you want to class it up a little, you know, live on the nice side of the tracks, if only for a second—times when you want a little refinement. Here’s how we do it;

1st) Throw your finest bottle of Jåger on handful of ice cubes taking that bad boy from “next to the van floor heater vent” hot to a tasty “tepid.”

2nd) Clean the fingernail scrapings and burrito clingin’s off your pocketknife.

3rd) Pour out a bottled water (never drink it, only poor people get dehydrated) and get a paper plate.

4th) Using your knife, cut a water bottle in half and put two wholes in the plate big enough to hold the plastic goblets.

5th) After placing the goblets into the plate, fill your chalices with some vintage ‘Meister. It should now look something like this:

All that’s left to do is take off your top hat, find your closest chum and get classy.

Detroit 11/15/11
Our long time friend Michael Illick happened to be in Detroit while we were there and even though he couldn’t make the show he took the time to come back and do an amazing portrait of John on one of his drumheads.
I know, right? It’s like an HD photo of him! Never has anyone, with just a Sharpie and a blank canvas laid down such a perfect likeness of another human. You know what it’s like? It’s kinda like that shroud they wrapped Jebus in and his face got burned into it. If he had a real crappy mustache.

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Mastodon Week Two

2011-12-12T18:14:00.000-08:00

Well John lost his camera again, big surprise. So most of the photos in this edition of the blog are what I could piece together from our phones.

11/5/11 Portland. OR.

One thing I have never understood is the lack of women at Red Fang shows. Think about it, there is never a line for the women’s room, you know that there is always going to be a surplus of t-shirts in your size and there is a ton of single men. Sure the majority of them look like this:

But hey, at least you know they have a lock on all the good spots to eat in town. For that matter you’d think there would be more Bears at the shows, hmm…

11/6/11 Seattle, WA.
You know, now that I’m thinking about it maybe we should turn all the shows into singles mixers. It could be a speed dating type thing, but instead of sitting down at a table and talking for two minutes you have to do the old yell in each other’s ears trick and switch at the end of every song. Then if you like the person you say “Hold my jacket, I’m going in the pit!” and if they like you back they’ll do it.

Because everyone knows that’s the sign of true love.

11/7/11 Boise, ID.

Most people at our shows see the boys on stage playing their gem encrusted instruments and ruby laden clothes and think “Wow! Those guys must each have there own solid gold tour bus!” But actually we are still in a van, without a trailer. Trying to cram all the gear plus merch and five dudes makes for some tight squeezin’, so we have become pros at packing light. That being said I thought I could share Red Fang’s guide to packing for a tour with you:

T shirts= Number of weeks on tour plus one (Just in case)
One hoodie
Two Pairs of pants (The second pair is just in case you rip the crotch out of the first pair, a lesson learned the hard way)
Warm Jacket
Swim trunks (These are multi-purpose PJ’s/swimming/ and underwear in a pinch)
Toothbrush (this is just for show)
Computer (for writing blogs that no one will read)
Camera (see above)
Gold Bond powder (shower in a bottle)
The rest of your bag should be stuffed with as many pairs of socks as you can fit.

1/8/11 Salt Lake City, UT.

We played at The Depot in Salt Lake, for those of you that don’t know The Depot was once a old train station. This makes for an awesome building but getting to the “backstage” area like a scene out of Spinal Tap. Mostly because it was nowhere near the stage and took a secret elevator code ala Get Smart to make it down there. Once you were downstairs you had to follow a series of arrows and instructions through a subterranean labyrinth ‘til you found the room with your name on it:
11/9/11 Denver, CO.

Oh Denver, we love you so much. From your awesome bartenders who are not afraid to zest up your drinks with flaming umbrellas:
To Aaron’s folks who, even though they were out of town, still took the time to make sure we knew how to toast the bagels they had left for us:

Can you do me a favor Denver? Don’t go changing.

Tune in next week to see if David can finish this entire candy bar without going into a diabetic coma:
—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Mastodon Week One.

2011-12-12T18:03:00.000-08:00

11/1/11 Los Angeles ,CA.

Let’s not pull any punches here folks the first show of the tour was a little shaky. Like a hobo in detox type shaky. You see, keeping with the on going theme we have of either van or health problems, Bryan had to get to teeth yanked a couple days before we left, leaving him a little loopy when he got on stage (AKA whacked out on goofballs). There was a point during their first song (Hank Is Dead) that I thought he was going pull out his phone and Shazam the rest of the band to see what song they were playing. Actually it wasn’t that bad I just like to use every chance I get to publicly embarrass my closest friends. ‘Cause we all know that when you blow out someone else’s flame it makes yours shine that much brighter.

I hope he doesn’t get mad at me—he is so sensitive. Look at him:

What do you think he’s thinking about while staring out that window? His own Mortality? Things he could do to make the planet a better, kinder place? My money is on cigarettes. He likes those.

11/2/11 Sacramento, CA.
You know there was a good party the night before when you wake up, walk downstairs and this is the first thing you see:

Totally off the subject here, but can we talk about something that has always stupefied me? A little something called Tour Pocket. If I was at home the most there would be in my pockets at any given time would be three bucks in loose change, keys and a phone but some how after two days on the road the contents of my pockets, in just my jeans keep in mind, equal this:
The part that scares me about all this is I think I’m a step away from being one of those crew guys I used to make fun of with the utility belts that make you look like a bloated road-worn Batman. I guess it time to start auditioning sidekicks…

11/3/11 San Francisco, CA.

I had this whole bullshit story about our friend Alex showing up to the show and shit going from this:
To this:
But the more I think about it, the more it’s obvious that what best describes not only this night, but the first week of tour is this photo:
—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

Just because we had to drive from Portland to LA yesterday doesn’t mean that we couldn’t dress up for the drive. We spent hours digging through thrift stores and combing online auctions to put together the best outfits possible. But don’t take my word for it:

David was Rip VanWinkle…

John was Dwight Schrute…

Aaron was the fat kid from that show about the dudes that pop wheelies and shit…
Bryan was Rob Zombie…
And I was a Homeless woman.
For the total effect, look at this photo while a large handful of garbage cooks in your microwave.

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Holy crap! We're on tour again!!

2011-10-30T21:46:00.000-07:00

Tour with Mastodon and Dillinger Escape Plan starts Tuesday in LA! We start driving first thing in the morning.. Here we go again! See ya soon. TOUR DATES!

NW weekend 9/1 - 9/4

2011-10-14T19:05:00.000-07:00

Added these crowd shots from our last NW run to Facebook, but totally forgot about the blog! So here they are.

9/1/11 Plan B, Portland

9/2/11 Lucky's, Eugene

9/3/11 Bumbershoot, Seattle

9/4/11 Sunset Tavern, Ballard

Mayhem Festival July 9th Through Whenever It Ended, I Can’t Remember

2011-09-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

So I feel like I owe you guys and gals an explanation on my lack of bloggin’ over the course of the summer. I had this whole big rant planned out where I was going to tell you how as the band grows so does my responsibilities and blah, blah, blah but the truth is, I was just too damn lazy.

The days were long and for 99% of the tour it was earth core temperatures out there, so by the time I got done the last thing on my mind was trying to do anything that did not include the sound of a cold beer opening and remaining as still as possible. Don't believe me? I'll give you a run down of my day, everyday, for most of this summer.

9:15am: Alarm goes off

9:30: Alarm still going off

9:35: Finally get out off bed, dust the Wheat Thin dust and dried ramen noodles off my chest. Put on my shoes to find three cigarette butts, a bottle cap and a handful of guitar picks because I made the mistake of leaving them next to Bryan’s bunk.

9:40: Step outside into 95+ degree heat to unload the trailer

9:42: Yell “Fuck, you again!” at contents of trailer

9:45-10:15: Mutter swear words to myself while loading gear on to stage. Sweat a lot.

10:20-10:45: Unearth’s Tour Manager, George, and I wander around in circles trying to find catering and production. Usually arriving ten minutes after breakfast has ended. Catch John leaving who gives me a blow-by-blow of what I missed.

11:00: It’s back to the trailer to count merch and drag it up hill across a gravel parking lot, set up the tent, all the display shit. Sweat a lot.

12:45: Back to the bus for twenty minutes of AC before the gates open, fill a cooler with some ice and as many waters as I can find. Curse my life decisions.

1:30: Gates open, time to man the merch booth. It’s now 103 degrees with 80% humidity. My balls are in a broth of sweat and Gold Bond.

1:45: Drunken sixteen year-old pulls her smoke out of mouth long enough to put down the baby and ask “What the hell’s a Red Flag?”

2:35 The Boys play. Still sweating a lot.

3:30: The boys do a signing at the merch booth, while I hide in the back trying to keep any part of my body from touching any other part of my body.

4:00-6:30: Headbangin' and shirt slangin’. And sweating, lots of sweating.

6:35: Start breaking down as fast as possible in hopes of making dinner.

7:40: Missed dinner. Catch John leaving who gives me a blow-by-blow of what I missed.

8:00: Back to the bus to deal with paperwork for the day. Sweat a lot.

9:00: Think to myself “Today is the day I’m going to catch up on the blog, but first a beer.”

9:45: “Just one more beer.”

9:50 “Oh, shots!”

10:00: Myself and the rest of the Merch Mafia start taking fools money playing dice.

11:30: “I was suppose to do something…”

12:15: Buz from Unearth and I are riding bikes of unknown origin to an unknown destination.

1:00 Alex, Unearth’s merch guy, fakes being hammered, all the way down to puking on the bus, to chase some shitty girls away.

2:15: Watch David and Slo start packing all the shit in the trailer I should have packed four hours ago.

3:00: Bus call.

3:10: Standing in the moving bus trying to eat a jar of peanut butter using Wheat Thins as a spoon while listening to both bands have a battle of the Ipods. Which usually ended with ten back-to-back yacht rock songs.

3:45: “No way we still have some Ramen?!”

4:00: Realize I have to be up in five and a half hours and head to my bunk promising myself that I am not going to do this tomorrow.

9:15am: Alarm goes off…

You might notice that there are no pictures. That has nothing to do with the laziness mentioned above, but my current streak of at home laziness. But that will all change when we go out in November. That’s right, big news is on the horizon. Stay tuned.

—Coyle

Tour To Live!!!!!!!

Phoenix, AZ 7/16, Albuquerque, NM 7/17

2011-07-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

I somehow lost all the photos from Albuquerque. Classic Coyle, I know…

So, as you may or may not know we had to get a bus for this tour. While this seems very glamorous the truth is, we have to pay for the damn thing and the price tag is one that instantly gives any sane man a blood shitting, stomach eating ulcer. Seeing as we are still the same broke assholes we were thirty days ago we couldn’t afford to do it alone (hell we still can’t afford it), so we are sharing the bus with or new favorite homies ever Unearth.

All we knew about these guys coming into this tour was this. Needless to say we thought they may be out of our league so to speak, but we were way off base. These dudes fucking rule, down to earth, funny motherfuckers who just want to crush cold ones and rock. Just look at ‘em:

Buz:

Slo:

Trevor:

Alex:

George:
I don’t have any photos of Justin or Ken because Justin spent the last couple days barfing out of his top and bottom holes and Ken was probably to busy saying something horribly offensive/ incredible funny to someone.

Don’t you just want to go out for some hot wings, a pitcher of PBR and talk about Kelly’s Roast Beef with these Massholes?

Like I said before, this summer is gonna rule.

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Auburn, Wa. 7/13/11 Nampa, Id. 7/14/11

2011-07-14T20:32:00.000-07:00

Man, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me today, I just can’t get the juices ‘aflowin. I mean, Christ, there is more than enough fodder to do this but nothing’s coming out. Look at these photos:

Dudes doing daffys on motorcycles…

The girl is wearing two small dogs for shoes and I got nothin’!

BUTTS! GIRLS BUTTS! Damn photo looks like a postcard that you got from a buddy that went to Florida when you were in college, but all I can think about is how much better that hot dog I just ate would’ve been with more mustard on it.
YOUR welcome?! Really?! There is so many questions I have about this that I have no idea where to start.

I gotta lay off the sauce…

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

San Bernardino, Mountain View CA 7/9-10

2011-07-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry it took me a couple days to get this up, this Mayhem fest is no joke. We're talking load in at 8:00am type shit. Which is he most asinine crap in the world. Isn't the whole reason we flushed our lives down the crapper was to not have a real job? I usually don't get to bed 'til five am, and now you want me able to deal with other people at eight? I'm not sure what's stupider the fact that it exists or me for doing it.

Anywho, I got some good news and some bad news:

The bad news: John already lost his camera with the crowd shots on it (and a bunch of photos that I took) and the only photo I have on my camera is of some guys masking taped together shoe.

The good news is that there will be tons of people like this for me to look at all summer:

I guess it's not as funny unless you know that the thing he is swinging is a one of the two canes his wife needed to walk. Oh, and that seconds before this his buddy tackled him, bending the cane. And that they were both well over fifty-years-old. And that they both had obviously brand new eyebrow piercings. That were big spikes. Over both eyes.

This summer is going to fucking rule.

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

East End Block Party 7/3/11 - PDX

2011-07-04T02:20:00.000-07:00

Danava killing it!

The crowd at the end of the night.

Another great East End Block Party!! If anyone has rad photos, let's see em! Thanks, Gabe, and East End crew and all the bands that played. This town is awesome.

SLED ISLAND FEST - Calgary 6/24 - 6/25

2011-06-30T15:07:00.000-07:00

SLED ISLAND! Hell yes, Canadians know how to PARTY! Our first show was at the Palomino - a killer BBQ joint and rock club. I have never seen as much broken glass after a show. Wild times. Bryan had someone else's blood on him, but I think it was happy blood. I didn't see anyone crying.

Ice cold KOKANEE!

The next show was at the Distillery. Another total RAGER!!

Big thanks to Black Mastiff and Biblical and, of course, the Sword for blowing ears and minds. We can't wait to get back to Calgary!!

EXTRA EXTRA special thanks to our man, Ari, for housing us and taxiing us around for 3 days. You are the shit, buddy!

OK. I'm done. Coyle! Get back on this. It's hard.

Sherman

EUROPE!!!! 6/17-6/20

2011-06-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

Kassel, Germany.

After the show, we were taken to a hostel kinda spot to crash. To get to it, we had to walk through a crazy multi-level party spot with several bars, dance floors, black light ping pong rooms, and all kinds of weirdness. We knew the next night we had to leave and drive overnight right after the show, so this was the last chance we had to throw down. And throw down we did. There was crowd surfing, euro dancing, unnecessary shots, and tons of laughs. End of tour style..

Brugge, Belgium.

Our good buddy, Loopy, showed up! He just happened to be getting off a tour and decided to swing down and hook up with us.
This was the last night with Intronaut. Cool dudes, stellar musicians. We'll see you again, dudes!!
After the Brugge show, we drove all night to...

HELLFEST!

I wish I had a better crowd shot - it was INSANE!!! I also wish I had more pics of the festival in general, but I was having too much fun and totally sleep deprived and just kind of forgot about my camera. Until JUDAS PRIEST played!! Look how close I got!

Rob Halford's voice is still amazing.

Maybe the best show I've ever seen - definitely blew my mind.

HELLFEST CROWD!

What a whirlwind of metal. I figured we couldn't top this day, but we had one more show to play before heading to Calgary for Sled Island.

La Harve, France.

Holy shit. This was absolutely the most sweat soaked, punk rock, party show of the whole tour. Check out the photos from the front lines here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2184809498668.2133899.1199910770

Thanks to all the rad bros in La Harve for making our last night in Europe one for the books. Can't wait to come back!!

I'll post a quickie about Sled Island tomorrow and be caught up. Coyle is back on the job after that, so posts will be not be as boring. Right, Coyle?

-Sherman

EUROPE!!!! 6/14-6/16

2011-06-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

Bologna, Italy. We played some kinda youth center that was surrounded by this awesomeness.

Peaceful, beautiful creek.

The dudes weren't sure how to take in all this tranquility.

So, we headed back to unload the Ocean's "Trailer of Chaos" - these dudes haven't learned the science of Trailer Tetris yet.

Bologna crowd - a wild bunch.

Danny Intronaut and Tour Manager Marco caught in a tender embrace. Not sure what was going here, but you can smell the love.

Even in Italy, NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO DICE!!

Trieste, Italy. This place is awesome. Right on the water - the Adriatic, I believe - and super pretty. It seemed kinda touristy, but not shaved chest, Oakly blades, wet t-shirt touristy, more old lady sippin' on wine in the street touristy. I like.

So, Martin, Louis and I hit the town for some sight seeing/ street drinking. CLASSY street drinking - not pounding Four Loco under the bridge street drinking.

Some boats right behind the venue.

Trieste crowd.
Trieste really was the shit. Great homemade food, super nice folks and a BEAUTIFUL setting. It was also the only chance we had on tour to swim, and swimming in salt water is the jam! Big thanks to Joe Intronaut for teaching me how to dive. Summer of firsts!!

SHOTS!

Stuttgart, Germany. Holy shit. THIS was my all time favorite meal of the tour. I think? You can't tell from this photo, but trust me - everyone was freaking out over this. The sweet girl that made this meal for us also offered up wine from here father's vineyard. SO GOOD!

What are these things called?!? I want them every day! Some meaty goodness wrapped in some other goodness fried up and served with grilled onions... Oh my goodness.

Stuttgart crowd. Well, mainly Aaron, but they're back there somewhere.

Had a blast hanging with these dudes. Woulda remembered your names, too, if you hadn't made me do all those shots!! Good times.

More coming soon...

Sherman

EUROPE!!!! 6/10 - 6/13

2011-06-25T16:09:00.000-07:00

Salzburg, Austria Crowd shot:

I don't remember much about Salzburg, but I'm sure it was great.

I TOTALLY remember the next night in Winterthur, Switzerland at Gaswerk! It was AWESOME!!! The Ocean was booked a t a festival, so the rest of us played this club, Gaswerk. Super cool club - friendly folks, great food, showers, LAUNDRY! We felt welcome and relaxed as soon as we got there. We were a bit nervous what the crowd would be like since none of us had played there...
And we were TOTALLY STOKED!! The crowd was one of the best, most energetic of the tour.

The great thing about sleeping at the venue is not loading out - just finish your set and start partying. Sometimes things get weird.

And when things get weird, the next day you just gotta sit on the dock, stare at the clouds and take deep breaths. It was a good night.

Munich crowd. Don't remember much about this night either. I heard tale of a food fight which was evidenced by sticky floors in the morning, but I missed it. Kids these days.

Milano, Italy. Finally some good pizza!!!

That's the kinda pizza oven I like to see.

Another super energetic crowd, and one of my favorites on the tour. Can't wait to get back there!
More to come.. trying to get caught up quick.

Sherman.

EUROPE!!!! 6/6 - 6/9

2011-06-11T10:39:00.001-07:00

Liepzig, Germany. Every night we get fed, which is awesome. But some nights we get fed SUPER well! Tonight was one of those nights. I tried to take it easy and not eat too much before the show, but every single thing they offered was amazing. Growing up in the southern US of A, I've had my fare share of fall-off-the-bone chicken, and this was up there with the best of them. Food!!

Leipzig crowd.

Bratislava, Slovakia. In case you didn't know, the Randal Club is a "live & wild rock 'n' roll music club. For reals, y'all.

Another awesome spread of bread, meat and cheese awaits us!

Earthship ruling it.

Bratislava crowd. Sorry, bros - forgot to turn on the flash!

Louis (The Ocean) takes the stage to the crowd and blows minds.

These dudes couldn't stay awake.

The worst "tequila" in the world! DO NOT DRINK. Trust us!!

Wien, Austria. TOTALLY AWESOME. The Arena is a huge compound with at least four stages and tons of rad people doing rad shit. Super fun night. Too fun...

Wien crowd.

It was so hot, Aaron had to relax in the cool down lounge for a bit.

Our "day off" the following day in Wien consisted of us following our new bro, Thomas, around the city to see some sights and drink some brews.

First stop was a brewery that offered killer Wienerschnitzel and potato salad. I wish every time somebody said "potato salad", this is what they were talking about!

Freshly brewed beers!

Another round before hitting the road...

Seeing sights makes you thirsty. I decided to class this one up with a glass of Austria's finest white.

Ok, another cool bar we must stop at!

"Hey, does horse meat taste good?" "YES! Let's get some!" "OK!"

Horse meat sandwich. FOR REAL! Pretty damn good! Taste like hot dog.

This is where you get a horse meat sandwich for about 2 euro.

Let's stop at this cool bar in the subway, for another round!

Oh, yeah - our new bro, Thomas, also hooked us up with a pick up show at the Viper Room Vienna (no relation, I think). All our tour mates came out and we partied. Good times! THANKS THOMAS!!!!!!!!

EUROPE!!!! 5/31 - 6/5

2011-06-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

Keeping the text to a minimum on this one because there's way too much to cover (remember), and I'm not nearly as witty as our dearly missed Road Chief, Chris Coyle. He'll be back on the Prehistoric Blog for the next tour, don't worry!

This tour, we are in in Europe with the Ocean, Intronaut, and Earthship. Here's the bus we're sharing with the Introbors.

First show was Wiesbaden, Germany. Totally bitchin' in every way. Jet lag schmet lag!

After the show we partied with the locals and our new tour mates.

Things got bromantic quickly.

Next show was Bochum, Germany. I'm not gonna keep telling you what a great show every night was - just trust me, they have all been amazing!

Now the lack of sleep is catching up, but the schedule at the beginning of this tour is brutal, so we catch whatever little cat naps we can.
Lyngby, Denmark. Nuts!

We had to leave super early in the morning because we had 2 shows this day. The first was a festival show somewhere in the middle of the woods in Germany. David tries to catch a nap beside a fire pit.

We were the very first band to play this stage, but there were already a ton of eager rock fans being weird. I wish I had better pics of some of the outfits... dammit!

Off to meet up with the rest of the gang in Bremen, Germany. Road soda!! So nice to not have to drive on this tour!

Bremen crowd.

After the Bremen show we had to stay at the bar (I know, boo hoo) and just hang out until it was time to drive to the airport for a fly-in show to Athens, Greece. By this point we have averaged about 2 hours of sleep a night and things are getting weird, but we a professionals, dammit! Luckily, there was a super sweet bartender that matched us shot for shot.

On the way out, Bryan almost lost an arm to the ancient stone version of himself.

No sleep. Delirious at the Frankfurt airport, but SUPER excited to see Greece!

I thought I was seeing things, but it turns out there really WERE about 2 dozen girls in matching turquoise hats and shirts. Never did figure out why. But I like it. Do I? I don't know.

That's Greece down there.

The Athens crowd was INSANE!! So much fun and totally worth no sleep. I figured we'd get a few hours that night before we had to leave in the morning- but, no. Had to stay up and eat amazing food. Again, totally worth it.

Maybe I can sleep on the plane? No.

Berlin crowd. Super fun.

And after this show we finally got a solid 6 or 7 hours of sleep. I wish I had the energy and memory to go into detail about how crazy it is and all the awesome people we've met so far, but dinner is ready and I gotta eat! I'll get caught up on the rest soon.

Missoula, MT 5/27/11

2011-06-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

H.O.L.Y. F.U.C.K.I.N.G S.H.I.T. M.I.S.S.O.U.L.A. That show was off the chizzy. Fo’ shizzy. There could not be a better way to end a tour than that show. Well, that’s not true, but The Zepp isn’t getting back together anytime soon and I’m not exactly sure how you’d make beer bottles out of hot wings, so…

We met a new friend in Missoula named Jason:

It was like hanging out with a gigantic Teddy Bear all night.
A twenty-five beer drinking, whole chicken eatin’, a mosh pit clearin’, bass playin’ Soundgarden crankin, Teddy Bear.

Thanks for the hospitality buddy!

As you read this, the boys are traipsing around the European countryside and I’m hoping that someone (hint, hint) is taking some photos and will start putting them up. That is, if they are not to busy eating brats and pouring schnauzer sized bottles of amazing beer on their faces. But even if that doesn’t happen keep tuned in because we have another big tour coming up in July. This time we will be heading out on the Mayhem Fest tour. It should be a blast.

Until then: Thanks for all your support, we can do this without you, (we tried once and it sucked) stay sick, keep fighting the good fight and we’ll see you out on that ol’ dusty road!

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Fargo, ND 5/25/11

2011-06-02T17:36:00.001-07:00

You know, lot’s of people complain about how hard it is to eat right and stay in shape on the road, which is why we tour with a home gym strapped to the van everywhere we go. Some might think it’s a little weird that we show up three hours early to every show just to make sure we can assemble it and have enough time to get our proper amount of pump in, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Rock and Roll ain’t about fun, this is business and part of that business is making sure their bodies look as good as possible for the millions of tween girls who spend their hard earned money on posters of the boys for their bedroom walls and locker doors.

Aaron mostly works on his Hairybackulous muscles.

While Bryan throws down about fifty lung push-ups.

David goes with the full beard press.

And John works on his Gluteus Napsimus.
I know it looks brutal, but hey, no pain, no gain, right?

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Des Moines, Iowa 5/24/11

2011-05-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

So we’re driving across on I-80 when all the sudden this thing comes ploppin’ out of the sky.

A real life twister! And don’t start with any of that “Oh that’s just a dust devil…” horseshit because this thing was huge. See those white dots on the bottom left and right? Those are houses. I was waiting to see Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton come running across the road. We were minutes away from having our own “I can’t believe I survived” specials.

Then about twenty minutes later we got pulled over for, well, nothing. They originally told us it was for illegal tint, but as it went on it turned out they were looking for “Huge amounts of drugs and cash.” Seeing as none of us wanted a prostate check with a Billy club we kept from laughing in their faces. After searching the van and finding nothing but two half-full piss bottles and ninety-three empty fast food bags they sent us on our way.

After a while we stopped to get a sandwich and heard over the radio that there was a extreme weather warning. Not knowing where we were, the news was brushed off. Until we walked out side and noticed the wall of complete black about one mile down the road.

We spent the next thirty five minutes in the heart of the storm was to be later dubbed (and by later I mean right now) Cyclone Bristle Free because it was like being in a really pissed off car wash. Like if you tried to get your car washed in that movie Maximum Overdrive.

Now if we could just find a weather phenomenon that would get the foot and nine-day-old-sandwich-under-the-seat stench from the inside we’d be set.

—Coyle

Tour To Live!

Milwaukee, WI 5/23/11

2011-05-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

Man, I gotta start taking notes. The ‘ol memory is going the way of the pay phone these days, hard to locate and usually soaked in bum grade booze. Let’s see, the show was at The Cactus Club, that place rules, uh— dammit, what the hell happened?

It must have been a good one, because I can’t remember a damn thing.

—Coyle

Tour To Forget!