Check out the most epic thing we have ever done
We were give a chance to rage it on the loudest stage in the world a few days ago, of course we said “fuck yes!” I promise ill get around to writing a long ass kick ass blog about how this totally epic tour has been going for us, just been too fucking busy, but in the meantime check this out, us playing on The Revolver stage in Hartford, CT at Comcast Center….EPIC……..
California Music Adventure 2
We fucking love Redding, because Redding knows how to party! There were literally 30 people wearing Athiarchists shirts at the show and our friends were lining up at the merch booth to support us. The show was out of control and fucking amazing as it always is there, I had about 5 shots of fireball whiskey and was fairly trashed by the end of our set. I didn’t last long at Johnny Rock’s afterparty, as soon as I walked in the door some dumb drunk bitch started talking a bunch of shit to me because Matt pushed me over the couch, so I threw my handful of Frito’s in her face, I said “HOWS IT FEEL BITCH….HOWS IT FEEL….HOWS IT FEEL”, I then told her that it takes a lot for me to throw my Frito’s at someone, because I really fucking love Frito’s, as I exited right out the door I had just walked into, passing out 2 minutes later in the mobile stage.
I woke up the next morning to Dano and Bekka sitting on the couch looking pretty relaxed. Apparently they ate Johnny Rock’s weed brownies, and they were pretty potent. Bekka was sitting upright on the couch staring at the TV, half way passed out as I asked her “you ready to drive in about an hour?” She goes “OH SHIT!” And then I told her that it wasn’t really a drive by show today, we were going to just park in front of the skate park and rage it.
People in Red Bluff were stoked and ready as soon as we pulled up, the door was open in under 15 seconds and we were raging it! About 6 songs in I look to stage right and there is a police officer standing there. I quickly stop playing, get Dano’s attention and he stops, then there is about 5 seconds where we both stood there in complete silence staring at the officer, I then turn around and hit the close button on the door and it is like we were never playing a show. I crawl out the back to see the officer has woken Bekka up from the marijuana coma she was in in the passenger seat.
Before the officer could even look at me I yelled “I’m the one you want to talk to, it’s in my name, yes we were playing a show, and yes were done.” The officer was really nice and she let us hang out and talk to everyone before heading south to Modesto. We pulled into our good friend Brent’s(from Better Left Unsaid) driveway and hung out for the next day. The mobile stage had a bunch of loose ends so it was good to have a day to work on it and fix shit up. The next night we went down to Spinnaker Lounge in Modesto and raged it outside in the parking lot between all the bands. It was pretty damn cool, everyone was really stoked on it, and the police never showed up. I think we played 4 or 5 sets out there, then headed back to Brent’s house.
As we reached the residential area, a Stanislaus County Sheriff pulled right on our 6 and stayed there until we pulled into Brent’s driveway. I immediately got out and was kind of pissed off. Was he worried that a fucking mobile stage with a fancy looking wrap complete with a band name on it was going to break into someones house? He pulls up beside me and just wants to talk. It didn’t take him long to realize I was sober and not even stoned at all…Then Dano walked up.
Turns out Dano is friends with the motherfucker. Says he met the officer when he pulled over his friend the other night on one of his late night missions to party. Then he just wanted to sit there and talk, which is cool with me, whatever, I am always stoked when police are nice to us, but at 3AM in a residential neighborhood after scaring the fuck out of me(because you never know what the police are going to do to you) is not my idea of a good time. We were talking about everything from smoking weed to the Lakers game, I am truly convinced we could have handed him a joint and he would have smoked it. After 30 minutes of this the officer goes to leave, then starts up another 15 minute conversation about how Oregon grows a lot of good weed. You know those kind of people that just want a……friend? The kind of people that won’t end a conversation until you physically walk away. That was this guy, and honestly, it has already shown what goes around comes around, because since we were nice to that officer, and had a nice self esteem raising conversation with him, all the police we run into are in very good moods!!
Southbound and down to Bakersfield we go the next afternoon. To play a house party that some new friends of ours set up. The only other time we have played Bakersfield was for the Rockstar Uproar Festival last September at Rabbobank Arena. I hope everyone understands by now that we will literally fucking play ANYWHERE. A huge stadium parking lot full of thousands of people, to a house party in a garage that holds about 30 people, doesn’t fucking matter, never fucking has.
Everyone was pretty stoked at the house party when we rolled up in a fucking mobile stage. I just love pulling up to places with it, or even driving through town, people know what is up! I had a couple Narural Ice”s and a hot link….stupid idea for someone that had an ulcer a year ago, I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. By the time we were loading in to rage, people were pretty slammed. Our friend Alan that set up the show for us was getting pissed on because he passed out with his shoes on….Don’t fuck around in Bakersfield!
We raged our asses off for about 5 songs, then waving hands and people yelling to stop….the cops are here. Why oh why oh why do asshole neighbors have to call and complain, I mean really, we were in the hood, who the fuck cares? Our friends Cuntry Control from Bremerton played after us, after the cops left, which felt good that they still got to play, because the last house party we did, the band after us didn’t get to play because of police. We passed out on the side of the road and headed towards Phoenix the next morning, I really need to install a urinal in the mobile stage, it just doesn’t make sense to piss in a home depot bag inside of a 5 gallon bucket, and pissing in gallon jugs looks too much like apple juice.
We stopped by our friend Elia Popov’s manufacturing shop the next morning in Valencia, JFM Manufacturing. They are the bad asses that cut out that sweet looking Athiarchists sign that is hanging above the drums. We gave them the tour of the new mobile stage, and they are going to make us a sweet custom cut front grill for the front of the stage. They really specialize in pyrotechnics, as we look over and see a fuckload of pyro equipment with “METALLICA” written on the side of it. Who knows, maybe one day, you will see some pyro on the mobile stage…..hmmmmmm
Onward to Phoenix, AZ as we have a show there the next night at The Big Fish Pub. The drive wasn’t too bad, not very much wind through the Palm Desert. Some traffic around Indio because Coachella was going on, we didn’t even try to pull into there because we are planning on doing the Big 4 show at the same place this weekend, and didn’t want to be shut down and not able to do it again.
It was awesome rolling into Big Fish Pub and seeing the looks on everyones faces. Everyone kept referring to it as a tour bus. It is so amazing how much nicer the other bands are when you roll up in a mobile stage that looks that legit, compared to rolling up in our 2000 white ford econoline with a missing window. Phoenix always surprises me, it is honestly the only music scene in the world where all the bands sound really tight and good, but literally make their fans wait outside until the band before them finishes, then pack all their shit up and bounce before the next band even starts, taking their crowd with them. Like the promoter is going to see that they brought 33 people and the band after them only brought 25. No shit, I watched a band set up their merch for 45 minutes, then pack it up and leave not selling anything. People need to realize that if everyone had all their fans stay there, the bar would be a lot happier, and the music scene would be way stronger. Our good friend Marshall Fucking Beck set up the show for us, and made a sweet radio ad for it with No Call/No Show playing in the background, so we were stoked.
After the show we headed southeast on I-10 to a truckstop for the night. We needed to be in Tucson the next day and it was only a couple hours away. Woke up to about 100 degree heat…wow Arizona. It was about an hour to Tucson where we were playing at Tucson Raceway Park under the Metal Mulisha ramp. We were early, like we always are, and had about 5 hours to kill, so we fired up the 4000 watt generator and sat there in climate controlled comfort.
Went in to the pits when people started showing up and found out we were going to rage a 20 minute set under the ramp in front of all the cars doing autograph signings, then after the race at 10:30 in the snack bar area. A lot of families were there with young kids so we edited the earlier show and kept it kind of mellow, at least as far as the vocals were concerned. The later show we let the fur fly and people were stoked! 5 year old kids were telling their parents that they think they like heavy metal music. This is also after people were coming up to us with this awesome picture of us with the logo on it and everything, that the track photographer took and printed up 100 copies to give people for free, for us to sign, it was awesome!
Back to Phoenix after eating a bunch of racetrack food, then off to Los Angeles the next morning. Today is the day our episode airs on MTV and we were kind of planning on raging some shows around town, but then we realized that if we raged it around town, we would miss the episode. So we went to Shanes and celebrated the episode being on by watching it a couple times and smoking copious amounts of marijuana with our friends from Redding that came down.
The next day our friends Winds of Plague were having a CD release show at The Key Club, so we thought that would be a perfect place to rage it. We stopped by One11 Ink on the way down to show them that the sweet wrap they put on the van was still looking good, even though it is dirty as fuck and we are afraid to wash it because every time we wash our vehicle, it breaks down. Our friend Rob at One11 called his band mate that is the stage manager at The Key Club and got us on the list, party.
This is the day we decided that it is pointless for us to pull up in front of a venue and park, you have to constantly feed two meters and hope to find a 2 hour parking spot, plus security starts getting sketchy sometimes. We need to just rally into town, rage the show when we arrive, and drive away still raging the show. Here is why it sucks getting there early.
We parked around the corner and walked up to The Key Club. People were talking to us about seeing us on MTV and taking their pictures with us, asking us where the mobile stage is. Just then 2 parking spots opened up right in front of The Key Club. Dano Grabbed the cones, Bekka stood in the empty space, and I drove around the block. As soon as I parked and went to pay the meter, head of Key Club security asked me “WHAT ARE YOUR INTENTIONS”…I said….”what?” He said “WHAT ARE YOUR INTENTIONS!!!”….I said….”WHAT?”…..he said “I know this thing plays music, what are your intentions”….I said…”I know this thing plays music too, but we are here to watch the show right now”….He said “I don’t think that would be a very good idea” as he turns around and is all nice to this half naked drunk chick…I don’t blame him. I guess to be that guys friend you have to have a pair of tits and/or not show up in a mobile stage. There is still a certain amount of respect I gave him for just doing his job, but there is no need to be a prick to me, especially since last time we were in front of The Key Club the manager was totally stoked on what we were doing and even asked us why we never have played inside, I obviously said “because we are from Oregon and refuse to sell $500 in tickets.”
As soon as the stage was parked in front everyone starts saying “THE BLEEDING FROGS ARE HERE!!” People were taking pictures of themselves standing in front of the stage….It was a truly epic moment. We let everyone know that The Bleeding frogs actually weren’t here tonight, and that because security were being dicks, we were going to circle around and play The Rainbow instead, because they actually appreciate it when a band parks up front and plays. Plus we knew Vince Neil was at The Rainbow, and after reading “The Dirt” we had no problem with raging a show for the greatest pimp daddy extrordinaire of all time!
About an hour after the WOP show got out, and everyone was all drunk partying at either The Key Club afterparty or The Rainbow, Bekka looped us around the block and we raged it down Sunset! Stopped in front of The Rainbow for a song and a half, then rolled out of there, still playing, right by the front of The Key Club as I see the head security guard standing out front, I tell him some shit over the microphone about how we respect them and we actually didn’t play in front. I saw a smile on his face, he was just doing his job, there was a smile on my face too, but that was because I was breaking the law.
This was by far the best Rainbow drive by we have done. The place was fucking packed, saw a lot of our friends right up front, and people were literally running from all directions to take pictures and see it. Normally we would have played like 4 songs and waited for the cops to chase us out, but we do things a little differently now…We keep them hungry, and we try to stay out of trouble. Not only is leaving after a song or two better as far as the police are concerned, it raises more uncertainty on to just when The Athiarchists will show up and rage it…adding to the mystery of the mobile stage.
Little did we know what was waiting for us the next day….The absolute hands down greatest mobile show ever.
I always get nervous when people tell us we are fucking stupid, crazy, and are going to get arrested. But nothing could have prepared me for what was going to happen this day. We are going to play down Figueroa Ave in downtown Los Angeles, in front of The Golden God Awards at Club Nokia, followed by the Lakers playoff game at Staples Center a block up the road. No fucking around today, no parking, no feeding meters, no dealing with pricks on a power trip, just straight letting the fur fly all over the place.
We were smashing down 110 south a couple miles from the exit when Bekka yells back “OLYMPIC IS CLOSED!!”…FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK, now time to re route, and anyone that has tried to use a cel phone/google maps in downtown LA knows that they don’t work at all, because there is no bandwidth. After exiting on 4th avenue we then realized that Figueroa is a fucking one way street, going the wrong way! At this point I wasn’t even sure if you could drive down Figueroa facing the right direction, what are we going to do, rage a show driving the opposite way, playing for the buildings across the street, and let the sound reflect back? FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK, turn left here, turn right here, no fuck I fucked up, turn right again, turn right, turn right, alright now go down to Olympic and take a right, then a left on Figueroa, Figueroa is still a one way going the wrong way, wait I see a turn lane, but it still looks like a one way…no its a two way now, YES YES, FUCK YES WE MADE IT, were still 15 minutes early but fuck it, there are police everywhere, lets rage it!
We opened the door to a cop car, police everywhere, almost blew out William Shatner’s ear drums as he exited a limo. Behind that was a sea of people waiting to get in, in front of that were a bunch of officers taking pictures of us with their camera phones…people were fucking STOKED!! Without even batting an eye we switched from the middle of No Call/No show to Go Lakers Go as soon as we could see Staples Center, where there were even more people waiting to get into there. After that we raged it up the 110N, to the I-5 North, all the way to Valencia where a CHP politely told us over his PA “hey you in the truck, could you please stop playing music on the freeway, I don’t particularly care at all, but someone called and complained” Thus being the coolest thing a police officer has ever done for us, thank you LAPD and CHP, you guys are alright! I’m not going to let the bad apples ruin it for the good ones anymore!
So whats next for us? Hanging out for a day or two getting caught up on videos and blogs, then heading down to Indio, CA for The Big 4 Show at Empire Polo Club, and do we have permission to do this? No…at least not yet, but we have a good friend of ours working on it for us, and are crossing our fingers that everything goes well, if we are kicked out, we will at least play on our way out of the parking lot, and the freeway all the way back to Los Angeles!
Other than that we have nothing else planned, just going to go where the wind takes us, well be in Los Angeles until May 1st then we will be up in Seattle right after California Music Adventure from May 7th to the 13th, then will be back in Oregon preparing for Mayhem this summer.
What we have realized more than anything right now is that we can play for any crowd at any show anywhere and people would be stoked. I am fully convinced we could roll up on a Justin Beiber Show and people would be stoked. We have always mixed our music up with literally any kind of music that wants to play with us. We just love to play music, and we love to play music to people that appreciate what we do, which we can accomplish now with the push of a button and a 10 minute drive. Never seeking money, never seeking fame, always remaining true to ourselves while making our own creativity, and at the same time without even trying, making our own luck.
Assholes and Elbows
Alright, I am a little behind on the blogging, and not really sure if I should talk about the shit that has happened in the last week, or start off from the beginning…..Ill start off from where we left off, but first we would like to say this:
We would truly like to thank Rob Dyrdek, the entire cast and crew of Fantasy Factory, and everyone at MTV for believing in what we are doing enough to give us the opportunity of a lifetime! To everyone that has been messaging us asking us “is that exactly how it went down, you just showed up and started playing?”. Or another good one is “they scripted all that out didn’t they”, or “so who hooked you up with MTV?” People always want to know an excuse for why they can’t do something, go out and “make your OWN luck”. I can assure you that we showed up at the right place at the right time doing the right thing. They saw the passion in what we were doing and videoed it, everything that happened after that was as real as it gets, there were no re takes, there were no do overs. There were no plans or scripts, we weren’t on The Real World and we weren’t on Road Rules….We were on Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory, one of the few truly real reality TV shows left. How could it get any more real, an independent band shows up on the set of a network TV show in a mobile stage to perform for someone who truly inspires them and is thrown on an episode at the last minute, sounds pretty fucking real to me.
So we returned home from California Music Adventure 1 with a completely pimped out mobile stage. It is very difficult trying to conceal the absolute hands down most amazing thing to ever happen to you in life, for 2 months, until the entire world gets to see exactly what we are about because the absolute hands down most amazing person you have ever met believed in what you were doing and gave you a chance. Especially when you are driving around in a mobile stage that now has a vinyl wrap on the outside of it that is worth more than the van itself. So what’s the first thing we do when we get home…Drop it off at the mechanic for a few weeks to make sure the engine is going to hold out, abandon the plans for building a new mobile stage this winter, smoke weed, and come up with some crazy ass idea to move the drums to stage left, and my guitar over to stage right…
It has always been hard for us to find descent mechanics, it just sucks not knowing if you are being fucked over or hooked up. You know how they say a pharmacist is more trusted than a doctor…well an auto mechanic is less trusted than an auto salesman. No offense to any auto mechanics out there, but when I found out the fuckers that installed our motor in Albuquerque didn’t replace the rear main seal or the spark plugs, among other things, and charged us for them, after I told him to replace everything that was remotely questionable, really fucking pissed me off. That obviously explains why it started leaking oil after 2000 miles, why it ran like shit all summer, and why we had to pay about another $2000 to have the motor pulled out again and basically rebuilt. Oh also, we had been running 15-40 in it all summer long, like the motor builders said, come to find out it uses 5-30. Bill with Cars Inc is who we ended up going to in Eugene, after our good friend Crackerbox recommended him. He was like the best mechanic we have ever dealt with, was honest about how much everything would be, fixed everything on it from the springs to the motor…even to the missing hood bolt that had a zip tie in its place.
Our next priority with the mobile stage was to smoke copious amounts of marijuana and stare at it for about a month. We built this thing with no plans, and somehow, when we smoke copious amounts of marijuana and stare at it, we can kind of visualize the plans…in our minds… We finally came to the realization that moving the drums and guitars around wasn’t going to work. Also we realized that all the wood structure that we originally installed was pulling off the walls after 8 months of rough roads. On top of this I finally took it to a weigh station to find out it weighed 20,000lbs, 2,000 lbs over it’s current registered maximum vehicle weight. We solved the legal weight problem by registering it as an RV, which is measured in length….It’s kind of hard to go over your length limit! It was a tough decision looking at this freshly painted pimped out interior complete with drapes, microwave, refrigerator, and new beds then having to rip it all out, but it needed to be done. Keep in mind we had been planning on building a new bigger mobile stage, with one more bunk for a driver, so we also had to make more room in this one somehow.
Even though it is now an RV and weight doesn’t matter, it still doesn’t make sense to drive around with 1000lbs of 1 1/2″ plywood decking on the floor, so we were forced to gut absolutely everything out. Next thing to happen was to replace the Cerwin-Vega TS-42’s with Cerwin-Vega CVP-121’s as well as replace the Crown XLS 5000 running the subs with 2 Cerwin Vega CV-2800’s. The folded horns that we had in there sounded great, but just took up too much room and weighed too much.
We also wanted to put another 4000 watt generator in to run a rooftop A/C unit so we don’t die this summer in the humid heat. 2 weeks before we left I thought it would be a good idea to drive down to Onan and see if they can squeeze us in for about 100 man hours worth of work at the last minute. Everyone at Onan was fucking stoked and ready, drop it off in 2 days, well get it back to you in 5 days at the earliest, but probably more like 8 days. For some reason it didn’t even cross my mind that it is Monday evening, and we are leaving next Saturday….12 days away and the mobile stage is about 5% built on the inside, everything is still gutted out, including the entire electrical system. I got out my phone “Hey Dano…who’s holdin’ right now, lets get stoned and stare at the stage”
I threw a coat of spray paint on the wood so it at least looked like it was a little more complete, now 5.5%. About 8 cans, enough to get me high enough to walk into walls. Picked Dano up in the morning, went to the U-Haul hangar, sat in our practice room which is really a foosball room because we never practice, stared at the mobile stage for awhile, pulled away the docking bay, closed the door, and took it in to Onan the next morning…5.6% complete.
We received confirmation that we are going to be on the entire Rockstar Mayhem Tour this summer again, playing in the mobile stage before doors, under the Metal Mulisha 3 times a day, as well as afterparties. Blinded by good news, we decided to smoke weed for a couple days and at some point over the weekend I realized that if the mobile stage comes back from Onan on Friday….and we leave on Saturday…….hmmmmm. First thing Monday I called Onan to try and get a better idea of when it would be done, they pushed some buttons, pulled some strings, had everyone in the shop work on it, and had it back to us by Tuesday afternoon.
Believe me when I say Onan turned our mobile stage into a true motorhome! It now has 2 generators totaling 16,500 watts of power with 80amps, a 2000 watt inverter, a rooftop A/C and heat pump unit, a 50amp transfer switch with external plug for shore power, both generators charge the inverter batteries to a maximum of 350 amp hours, and remote start/stop switches are in the same spot conveniently located above the power amps next to the inverter computer panel, in front of the air conditioner/heat pump thermostat control…bitchin.
Now it is time to build everything inside, and I mean EVERYTHING. Weld together an aluminum drum riser(thanks Scott), finish building all the wood framing inside, install all sound equipment to test, remove all sound equipment to paint, run all speaker wires/microphone cables, re-wire all the electrical(thanks Scott) the list goes on and on and on, all while leaving the bunk area tore apart because it is going in Friday morning to Overhead Door for the automatic remote control roll up door. Once again we are up for 48 hours straight, watching the sun rise, watching the sun set, just knowing we have to finish as much as possible in a short amount of time.
Overhead door had it for about 5 hours on Friday, and they hooked it the fuck up. Just like Onan, Overhead Door is fucking amazing and pulls strings to get shit done quickly for us…Probably because they know we are procrastinating stoners! We walk up, Paul hands us a remote, we push a button, and the door fucking opens….No fucking way! This is going to make it a whole lot easier to deal with police!
Time for another all nighter. Somehow shit was getting done and it got done, Dano was cutting wood, I was screwing it together, Bekka was organizing merch, then as the last screw went in, everything else just kind of got thrown in the side and organized after we left. There are a lot of things we did not finish that we will add once we return home before Mayhem Tour like safety harnesses, grab handles, 2 active CV-28’s for monitors when people need them, and probably way more shit that will be remembered when we draw up the blueprints….in our minds…
This whole rebuild was about adding versatility and reliability to the mobile stage, the drum riser comes apart into 2 – 2′ 6″ x 6′ sections and is carried into any venue with the drums still attached, I pull out my Mesa 2 x 12 combo amp, Ampeg bass combo amp, and we are raging it inside the venue 5 minutes after we just played outside. Also while we are playing inside, our sound engineer Mike Lavin is out in the mobile stage mixing the live recording we just made in the mobile stage because everything going into the mixer is recorded live straight to a computer. Then he sends it to the 10 disc duplicator right below the mixer which he then takes in to Bekka at the merch booth so we can give people a solid studio quality live recording an hour after the show is over that you pay what you want for.
After telling everyone that I actually slept for a couple hours when I really didn’t, we left the hangar at about 4PM on Saturday. Heading south to Red Bluff and at some point around 8PM I realized we were not going to make it to the early Red Bluff show, so we promised them we would rage the skate park the next day at 4PM on our way to Modesto, and stopped in Redding at Bombays for the first rager of the tour.
Here are some pictures of the reconstruction of the mobile stage
Massive updates to come, but until then…
In case you have been camping in the woods for the last 2 months, you have now heard of our new side project/supergroup that we are involved in called The Bleeding Frogs, right now more than ever we need everyone to follow on twitter @bleedingfrogs and put in your 2 cents(if you have any) on where in the Los Angeles area The Bleeding Frogs Mobile Stage Street Tour should go!
Two massive blog updates to come real soon, “assholes and elbows, mobile stage reconstruction” and “California Music Adventure Part 2”. Other than this, The Athiarchists will be performing in the mobile stage in front of the Winds of Plague CD release show at The Key Club tomorrow night, followed by The Golden God awards the next night at Club Nokia out front, and The Big 4 show in Indio, CA this weekend with Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax….Do we have permission for any of this….no. But if they tell us to stop, we will, and then we will go somewhere else and play there…there is no stopping the music adventure, LETS RAGE IT!!
Taking it to 11…Mickey Mouse Is Pissed!!
Usually I remember everything that happened really well, I don’t even need to watch the videos to remind me of what we did, so I read back to the end of the last blog, oh yeah, that was the blog I wrote hammered drunk on whiskey, the start of “the bender of Dano’s birthday month”. I passed out at typical Aaron drunk on whiskey time, which is about 4 hours after we crack the bottle. I have been lasting longer and longer every time, and was done around 12AM, plus we had to wake up at 10AM to leave in time to play at High Voltage Tattoo again, and make it to NAMM in time to get our badges.
I woke up around 4AM to piss outside the U-Haul and see Dano still had the garage wide open with the fire blazing in the back yard. He is either passed out in the chair with a drink in his hand, or partying his ass off by himself. Yep, hes partying his ass off by himself. As I look to my left and see an almost empty half gallon of whiskey, he comes blasting out of the bathroom, drink in hand, on the phone. As soon as he sees me standing in the room he almost has a heart attack and says, “hey lets smoke some grass!!” I stayed up for another hour and a half for some reason, ate more microwave ravioli which was a horrible idea, then passed back out.
I am not sure when he actually went to sleep, but I was honestly a little worried about trying to wake him up to play in front of High Voltage at noon. Sure as shit as soon as I touched him and said “hey Dano, time to play!” He opened his eyes, jumped out of bed, hopped on the drums, and was ready to rage it. We exited on Vine, turned right on Hollywood, and into the left turn late to La Brea, I hopped in the back and Bekka got behind the wheel. Opened the door and we started raging it!
There was a hollywood tour bus parked almost right in front of High Voltage, so we were kind of sticking out into the intersection a little bit. Unbeknown to any of us at the time was a sheriff sitting at the light on Fountain, staring right at the mobile stage playing music in the middle of the intersection. She did not fuck with us though, and let us finish, then pulled in front of us once we were parked and standing outside on the sidewalk. As she walked up to us before she could even say anything I asked her “hey do you know how to get to Anaheim from here?” She told me were a long way from Anaheim and that she saw everything we just did. She was really nice, allowed Bekka to video the whole thing, told us we got caught with our hand in the cookie jar, and that we can’t be doing this kind of stuff.
“Hey thanks for being so cool!” That is my line that I say to police at the end of every interaction, it just kind of happens naturally I guess. I guess it is me saying thank you for not giving me a ticket, because if you are an asshole to police, which I would love to be able to be, they will do what they want, and fucking ruin your life. The last thing I want to have to deal with is going to court 900 miles away from where I live, so, thank you for being so cool!
Stopped into High voltage to give them all shirts, CD’s, and talked to them for a minute, gave cards to everyone that saw it, and headed south to Anaheim. You know, now that I know how to get to Anaheim, police can be so helpful sometimes! Little did I know how that the police force where I was heading to was ran by Mickey Mouse, coked out of his mind in his office that overlooks the city, obviously sharing his hatred of Music Adventure Stages with his entire police force…Well get there after explaining 3 days of walking, drinking, and partying!
The motto for this years NAMM was “take it to 11″, because it’s 2011, whoever decided to use that slogan must have not known that instead of any bands like Spinal Tap playing at the show, you have 11 year old girls with fake tits dressed up like whores singing a shitty cover song that you hear all too much, and not even doing a very good job at it, then you walk inside and see the guitar player for that band standing at a booth like a caged zoo animal playing the guitar riff to the same song the chick was singing outside playing in the background for the 6th time that day. No shit that scenario actually happened, and it only made me feel better about what we had planned for Saturday night.
Later at night The Hilton and Mariott will have heavy bands, this year Kobra Kai and House of Broken Promises played…and The Athiarchists. I was worried all fucking weekend, about parking the mobile stage, about it not getting broken into, and mainly about what we were telling people all week. Saturday night at 9:45 we are going to drive in front of The Anaheim Convention Center Hilton and play 1 song, in front of cops, security, and everyone there partying!
When we arrived in Anaheim we went straight to a Denny’s by the convention center. We had to figure out where to park to go into the show because there is no way we could leave it parked at Denny’s. All of the convention parking was in parking garages, which do not fit the mobile stage at 11’6″ tall. After we ate we took off down the road driving around in circles. Pulled into the Anaheim Plaza hotel to see if they had a room available, which is damn near impossible for a hotel that close to the convention at this time. Most of these hotels are booked over a year in advance. Somehow they had one fucking room available for us, so I took it, didn’t care what it cost, there was NOWHERE, and I mean absolutley fucking nowhere at all to park a vehicle that is 11’6” tall and takes up two parking spots lengthwise.
The room was $155 including all taxes, expensive, but not too bad considering there are no rooms anywhere else. Plus the parking pass said 1/13 and 1/14 so we can use it tomorrow with no room, then turn the 4 into a 9 to last the rest of the weekend….And people say stoners aren’t very smart! Went in and took showers, started drinking some whiskey, smoked some weed, then headed up to the convention center to get our badges. We went in for the last 2 hours then got ready for the first party of NAMM, lets take it to 11!
Returned to the room to drink more whiskey, and smoke more weed. It is nice having a hotel that is only a 25 minute walk from the Hotel….sounds fucking crazy, but the first year we went it was almost an hour walk. We went down to The Hilton with a pretty good buzz and ran into pretty much 75% of the people we met this summer on Mayhem and Uproar. It was fucking awesome! Again I am not going to start naming a bunch of names, because honestly anyone who has been to NAMM before knows that EVERYONE is there, and it is a fucking PARTY!
I was fucking hammered, stomach was kind of fucked up, and I was tired from pounding whiskey the night before, so I passed out around 2 in the morning. I wanted to try and make it to the free breakfast at 8AM at the convention center, but decided not to and sleep for a couple more hours, because once again I am nervous about tonight. Playing after the Dean party with Hellyeah and Megadeth at The Grove in Anaheim, the same parking lot we played our first parking lot show ever, that ended with a police helicopter shining its light on us, but that was over 2 years ago!
I woke up around 9:30AM to take an emergency morning whiskey shit, keep in mind I slept in the mobile stage because there was a party in our room all night long! I saw Dano sitting on the curb talking on his phone but I don’t think he saw me. I knew he had to have still been awake from the night before, but I didn’t even have time to talk or find out the story yet, because right before I went to sleep, I also pounded a bunch of nasty 7-11 food.
When I came out I got the full run down, he finished the bottle of whiskey, partied all night, stayed up long enough to get the free breakfast, walked the 25 minutes to The Hilton with a strong whiskey and coke in his clear plastic cup that looks like coffee, stumbled into the free breakfast just in time before they closed the doors, ate all the food that was left in there, walked back to the room, sat on the curb, and was talking on his phone. Wayyyyy more shit happened in there as well, but that is between Dano and the bottle of whiskey.
Dano decided that he just wanted to stay up all day, fuck sleep. I didn’t think it was a very good idea seeing as all we were doing during the day at NAMM was aimlessly walking around in circles not doing much. Finally sometime around 1PM he decided to throw in the towel and just go to sleep. Good idea because tonight we are raging it at The Grove after Megadeth finishes up.
Fairly uneventful day at the NAMM show, there are sooo many people there that it makes trying to talk to anyone at the booths about anything at all very difficult. Pretty much everyone says to email them next week after the show, it is really kind of worthless to be at the show during the day, the real action is after the show is over, everyone parties their ass off!
We walked back over to the mobile stage and rolled down to The Grove. The parking people freaked out when I told them we were going to the show, like no one has ever rolled up in a U-Haul with stickers all over it before? They said it was going to cost me $20 instead of $10 but they still didn’t know where to park us. I asked them “how about over there by the handicap parking”. You know, over there, right in the middle of the parking lot in a completely open area, where it is perfect for a mobile stage show!
We went in and watched the show, met up with our good friends Brent, Rob, and Greg from Better Left Unsaid. Watched all of Hellyeah then rolled out to the stage about half way through Megadeth’s set. Waited, waited, waited, yep there’s the people, lets rage it!! It was a totally awesome epic show, like they always are! I realized that I can be nervous for 2 days straight, but while I am actually playing music doing the most illegal thing the mobile stage does, I am not nervous at all. It is such a crazy feeling of being high and low at the same time, it is like the perfect drug.
No one shut us down and we played about 5 songs, went over and said whatsup to everyone at the Hellyeah bus, then it was back over to the hotel to poach our old parking spot. We all walked down to The Hilton again for the crazy fucking party. Tonight while we were at The Grove, the TV show American Chopper was at The Hilton unveiling a new motorcycle as our friend Arthur’s band “House of Broken Promises” raged it. I wish we could have made it to that show! Also at 11PM our friends Matt and John were raging it at The Marriott with their side project “Kobra Kai”. We missed that one as well, they all understand though, everyone knows plans change all the time in The Music Adventure Stage.
Alright Dano, Bekka went back and passed out a couple hours ago, I am fucking tired and I am going to pass out now, goodluck with the rest of your evening! At this point Dano needs to just start writing about everything that happens in his crazy ass stay up all night drinking whiskey nights, because anytime I tell you it is really second hand, and I know I am missing a lot of cool shit. Something about watching people throw chairs on the back patio at The Hilton and hotel room parties all night long.
Woke up around 10AM to head down to pretty much the only meeting that was scheduled for us at NAMM, in the Cerwin-Vega meeting room. Put on my fancy “look professional” shirt, grabbed my laptop, and went to the meeting. We talked about the new mobile stage and what speakers we are putting in it, got some free swag, this that and the other thing, email us next week, and thanks for coming by!
Walked back to the U-Haul to drop off my computer, smoked some weed, met up with Dano, and got ready for the show that I have been worried about for weeks, playing a drive by show in front of The Hilton at 9:45 on Saturday night at the NAMM show! I have never been this nervous before in my life, Dano went and passed out in the van for a few hours, so there I was standing in the smoking area with Bekka, going over the game plan, where to drive, what to do. Musicians I have looked up to my entire life were coming up to me and saying “you are going to do fine, just fucking rage it, you guys are fucking crazy! Your skin looks a little pale too, and your hands are really sweaty, calm down.”
I turn to Bekka and say the one thing I always say before a drive by show “Dirka Dirka…Muhommed Gihad!” Haha we have this joke that every time we are getting ready to do a drive by show where we have to switch drivers, that the feeling of stress and uncertainty closely rivals that of a terrorist getting ready to do something…Only we are musical terrorists, playing driveby shows to protest driveby shootings!
Made it to the van, woke Dano up, fired up the generator, lets do this! Kept looking at the clock waiting for the perfect time to leave, we had to play right at 9:45, not before, preferably not after, we are always on time, we can do this. I don’t want to be in a holding pattern driving around the block waiting for our window of opportunity!
We turned left on Harbor at 9:42, sat at the Hotel way light for 1 1/2 minutes, turned right onto hotel way at 9:44, was stopped at the entrance to the taxicab lane at 9:45. The lady kept telling me we can’t drive through there, go out on the regular street. I told her over and over that we needed to drop some people off, and that it would be a lot easier if we could just pull in, it will only take a minute, and we will be out of the way. After asking one last time she finally caved in and said it was cool…..15 seconds later Bekka was behind the steering wheel, the door was open, and we were FUCKING RAGING IT for everyone at The Hilton!
Seeing the looks on everyone’s faces was absolutely fucking priceless! The people that knew what was up knew what was up, and the people that had no idea what was up had their cameras out and were fucking stoked! We finished our song in front of the smoking area, Bekka and Dano hopped out, and I took off to go find a parking spot. As soon as I pulled back out on Hotel way you can guess who pulled in behind me. Mickey mouse’s private security guard, the Anaheim Police…And judging by the way he was following me….Mickey Mouse is fucking pissed!!
Anaheim is basically owned by Disney, and I honestly know that Walt Disney would not have a problem with our creativity and our mobile stage, but his son, Mickey Mouse, has a problem with people fucking things up in his resort community. We can just envision Mickey Mouse sitting at his table with a huge pile of blow in front of him, after taking the fattest line anyone has ever taken before, police chief fat fucking dumbass calls him and says what we just did. Mickey Mouse responds with “get those fucking Athiarchists the fuck out of my nice resort community!” Since police chief fat fucking dumbass is paid by Mickey Mouse, he does whatever he says to do.
Sure as shit I was pulled over a little under a mile after leaving The Hilton, this was only after everyone I passed on the street by all the hotels was giving me the horns and yelling at us to play again. I pulled into the parking lot at Chubby’s, a place where our friend said to park, and the pig pulled me over for crossing 4 yellow lines, you know where I am from 4 yellow lines in the middle of a divided road with a space wider than a car between 2 pairs of lines is a fucking turn lane, but he had another reason for pulling me over, and that was loud music.
So here approaches officer fat fucking dumbass, hand on gun, walking like he has a dick shoved up his ass….come to find out after talking to him, he did have a dick shoved up his ass! Actually come to find out, Mickey Mouse shoves dicks up all the Anaheim Police’s asses. I honestly do not know how you can be such a fucking dick, if I were that much of a dick, I would kill myself out of sheer lack of self esteem, knowing that I had to have a gun to hide the fact that I have a small penis.
“Let me have your license”. I told him it was in the back, and asked if I could go back and grab it. He said “Sure”, hand still on gun, then walks to the front of the vehicle and shines his light in the back so I can see in there…oh thank you officer…your so kind. When I went to the back I also grabbed the camera that was still recording and set it behind the drivers seat, then came back up with my wallet. Gave my ID to the pig and he went to his car. Then came back and explained to me that if there is one more complaint about this vehicle, that we will be going home on a train because they are going to take our “house” away from us.
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on officer fat fucking prick. We just played one song outside the Hilton with 4 other bands playing music in all hotel lobbies, it was loud outside and we weren’t much louder…we were just breaking the rules……..and Mickey Mouse doesn’t like that very much!! The hotel staff even told Dano and Bekka that they wanted us to come back and play again, no one was pissed off at The Hilton at all, which brings me to the thing I hate more than the actual police, and that is, COP CALLERS.
Who the fuck calls the police and says someone is being too loud on a Saturday night at one of the biggest loudest parties of the year, I will never find out who it is, but just know this, whoever you are, FUCK YOU. I called Dano and Bekka and let them know what happened with the police, they met me over by the hotel we were parked at all weekend. There was absolutely nowhere to park and we had all the pigs in town watching us. The pig that pulled me over even asked me where I was staying, and to get the fuck out of town. We went up to the Wal-Mart on Euclid to meet up with our good friends in Better Left Unsaid, who somehow missed our show even though they were there at 9:45….
We argued for about an hour, Brent tried saying they were there right at 9:45, we told him we knew we were there at 9:45, then we thought it was kind of this “Field of Dreams” effect where the only people that could see us had to be stoned. Come to find out, Brent was there at 9:45, went into the parking structure for 2 minutes, and we were gone. The Music Adventure Stage does not fuck around, we roll in while playing one song, and as soon as the song is finished the door closes, and we are gone. In other words, don’t blink or you will miss it!
We decided not to go to NAMM on Sunday because there was nowhere to park Saturday night, we kind of already saw everything inside that we needed to anyway. So back up to Castaic we went, time to download the camera, drink beer, and light balls on fire. Fairly uneventful evening though, everyone was pretty shot, we got in the hot tub, drank some beers, and is it fucked up that balls are lit on fire so much here I can’t even remember if someone lit their balls on fire that night?
The next night we decided to go down to The Rainbow because some of our friends were going to be down there, and it’s been almost a week since the last drive by there. Shane said his friend Abe was coming into town, and that he was a crazy fucking skateboarder that will fit right in with us. 10 minutes after Abe walked in the door he lit his balls on fire….Then said fuck it do it again! YES!
They decided to ride along with us down to The Rainbow in The Athiarchists Music Adventure Party Bus. You see the mobile stage is like a transformer, the difference between The Music Adventure Stage and The Music Adventure Party Bus is we pull out 3 red fold up chairs, fire up the generator, turn on the lights, plug an Ipod into the PA, and everyone gets to party drink beer and jam out while I drive down the freeway. No this is not legal, if it were registered as an RV it would be, and its why were going to make sure the new mobile stage is a registered RV, but for the sake of partying, you have to do what you have to do. Seeing the looks on peoples faces that ride in the mobile stage and get to roll up the door is fucking priceless!
Then our friend Chad Lee that was going to meet us at The Rainbow was not able to get a ride there, so you can guess what happened next. We added Chad and Black Label Dave to the roster for the Music Adventure Sunset Strip Rainbow Bar Party Bus. Down Sunset strip we went, loaded up with 7 people, an acoustic guitar, beer, weed, and cigarettes. I opened the back window to see them all playing and singing Hank II Family Tradition, it was an epic feeling knowing this was all happening while driving down the road. Keep in mind at this point I didn’t know Shane took 3 shots of everclear before we left.
There were no parking spots anywhere in West Hollywood, I pulled up to a stoplight and told everyone to GET READY to get out. Next thing I know, the back door is open, 2 people have gotten out, the light is green, and I’m sitting in the middle of the road with 4 cars behind me…fuck! As I pulled away I saw Shane and Bekka in the back still, I asked them if anyone got ran over.
I drove the longest circle around the block, I thought for sure I would find a parking spot. It is a fucking bitch driving a mobile stage through Hollywood, going from Santa Monica up to Sunset just to do a loop around the block involves driving up hills so steep that when the light is red at the top and we have to stop, the tires peel out on pavement….It is a really sketchy feeling.
Somehow landed a perfect parking spot right in front of The Whisky, got parked and went into The Rainbow. Hung out at The Rainbow for about an hour and a half, our friend Jessica and her friend showed up, ran into some other people. Everyone was pretty hammered and it was getting late, so it was time to rage. WOW there are 2 parking spots open up front, hold the spot and ill go get the stage.
We parked right in front of The Rainbow, opened up the door and started raging. After we finished our first song everyone wanted another song, after we finished that song Chad wanted us to do Reign in Blood. 15 minutes sure flies by and you kind of forget about the police coming. Everyone piled in, I think more people piled in than I even knew were going to pile in, I don’t know who the fuck was back there. I pulled out and turned on the next street down to Santa Monica. About 30 seconds later Chad calls me and says there are 2 police out front asking everyone where we went.
I then turned on Santa Monica Blvd, I do not even need a GPS down here anymore, and I knew that there were about 30 stoplights between where I’m at and the freeway. It was like playing a real life version of Grand Theft Auto! Right now I was at 5 stars, if a cop saw me they would surely pull me over, and when they saw what was going on in the back of the U-Haul they would fucking shit! I can not even imagine what would happen, it is not legal to have anyone back there at all right now, let alone drinking beer.
When I got to the freeway entrance it was closed and I had to take a detour up to Sunset via a bunch of side streets. Just when I thought I was free, it was another 10 minutes of driving around, my adrenaline was fucking pumping. As soon as I saw the entrance to I-405 North I opened the back curtain and had Bekka relay the message to everyone to crank up the PA and fucking start partying hard!
One point on the way home I kind of glanced in the back and I don’t even want to know what was going on back there, some people were scared of it all and hid in a bunk, I don’t know much as I have only heard a couple different versions of the story, but, well just leave it at that. We made it back to Castaic, everyone piled out the back, and I kind of just sat in the drivers seat with the door open for about 20 minutes. All the stress from everything and then its all over, it is such a crazy relieving feeling, and on top of that, you just did something no one else has done, played in a mobile stage on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood…For the 4th time in 2 weeks.
I passed out some time around 4AM, right as Dano was pouring himself an everclear Rockstar. Woke up to Dano still awake, and told him he needs to write all his crazy fucking epic adventures down in a book, because I am done trying to explain them, the happenings of last night were crazier than I have heard in awhile, but it is just another day in the office for Dano. He just took off with Shane to go hang out with Mastodon in Long Beach, as well as one of our other good friends that can party harder than most people we know, Darren. I decided to stay here tonight, get caught up on blogs, edit videos, you know, let all of you know what we have been up to all weekend.
As for the rest of the week we are going to lay low for a minute. We have to stay here until next weekend so we have another 10 or so days left, and we need to make sure to not get the van impounded. Also we have absolutely no money and everything around here is so far away, it is really hard to sell merch when the police are chasing you around. We are kicked out of Anaheim, Hollywood, and the city of Los Angeles, with a couple close calls with Los Angeles County Sherriff’s.
We have done so many crazy things since we’ve been down here, and we have truly made our mark. We have definitely accomplished more than we ever dreamed with a $2000 U-Haul from a lawnmower repair shop in Eugene, OR. The registration and insurance expire on it March 1st. It is very very very expensive to insure and register Music Adventure I, because it is not considered an RV and there is not enough room to install the things to make it an RV. It is why as soon as we return home at the Beginning of February we are starting on Music Adventure 2, it will be registered as an RV, it will be longer, taller, wider, faster, and more powerful.
There is nothing wrong with Music Adventure I, no it is not for sale, and never will be. The main focus right now is building the new one and using the old one as an emergency backup. We will own it forever though, it is a total prototype that we built with no plans, only determination and weed. Hours upon hours were spent building that thing, and the last 8 months we have spent in it have changed our lives forever.
We built it because we wanted to play shows wherever the fuck we wanted to, and we have accomplished that. With the mobile stage we have played most of the Rockstar Mayhem Festival, most of the Rockstar Uproar Festival, the off dates in between, in the middle of the road in random cities across the country, about 50 shows all over the city of Eugene, The John Henry’s Burlesque show probably 10 times, the Sunset strip, La Brea Avenue, High Voltage Tattoo, Crazy Girls twice, The Rainbow 4 times, The Whiskey, The Roxy, The Key Club, The 2010 Guitar Center Drum off, The Grove in Anaheim, The Anaheim Hilton, and who knows where the fuck well stop on our way home.
If you aren’t living your life, your dying. If you’re working somewhere you don’t want to work, then you need to quit and do what you want to do. This isn’t about money, this inst about fame, this is about playing music. Music saved our lives and so we dedicate our lives to it.
I hope what inspires more bands to realize that it is not about getting paid, and that you have to play music like it is a hobby until it naturally turns into a job for you. This shit is not easy at all. In fact everything we are doing down here is harder than driving 800 miles a night this summer on the Mayhem and Uproar tours. It takes balls, determination, and dedication to what you are doing. We are eating $.88 cans of ravioli every day, we do not care how much money we are making, just as long as we have enough to get to where we are going. I could die tomorrow and totally be cool with it, because I know that I am truly doing what I want to be doing in life. If you never try, you will never succeed, the world is smaller than you think it is, and you get out of life what you put into it, nothing is free.
WOW….How the days go by…
So I am going to make an attempt at writing my first Music Adventure blog hammered drunk on whiskey. If I do not write this tonight I can guarantee you I will not be writing much during the NAMM show for the next 4 days, it is going to be one crazy situation involving finding a place to park the mobile stage and not taking a shower, while trying to look professional enough to find some companies that want to help us out with Music Adventure II. Believe it or not the last 2 weeks has been the party, and now its time for the real reason why we came down, which is a party in itself.
I know I know, it is a really rough job we have, but believe me when I say that this is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, above and beyond the original Music Adventure Tour. I can’t speak for everyone, but every day we play, it is such an uncertain feeling of what is going to happen, yet every time we make it through without police intervention, I am fed with more confidence. Last night was a perfect example, and we will get there in this update, but I am going to go in order, unfortunately starting with all of us lighting our junk on fire with everclear…
After we had such an awesome night in Hollywood with the drum off and The Rainbow, we decided to take the next day off and watch Dano light his balls on fire. Really one would think we should be playing every night around here but let me explain to everyone about the gas prices right now…..They are fucking BULLSHIT. We’re paying $3.49 a gallon right now for regular, and the mobile stage has ran on premium for the last 6 months. It cost $75 round trip to make a run through Hollywood…Sure beats the shit out of paying $500 to play at The Whisky, and we make way more contacts, but we still have a few weeks left, and the bank account is running dry. So we plan our attacks properly, and don’t mind taking a day off to edit videos and blog.
The next two days could be explained in 15 paragraphs, or one paragraph, and I will keep it to one simply because I don’t know how many people want to hear about balls on fire. The first night Dano got hammered and lit his balls on fire, then the next night 7 people at Shane’s house lit their balls on fire with everclear, Bekka our roadie then lit her pussy on fire and pissed while standing on the speaker, all while we played Elvis “Burnin Love” in the background, then Shane played a couple Eagles songs on the acoustic guitar. This all took place on the Music Adventure Stage and You Tube was nice enough to delete the videos, funny how 12 year old chicks can strip naked to Ja Rule, 12 year old boys can be molested by Catholic priests, but you can’t light your balls on fire and put it on the internet….It’s a fucked up world we live in.
It is really crazy that the show we decide to go to our friend is playing has about as many people at as a local hometown show, but the people there are: Lemmy, Rick Kosick, Masumi Max and Morat, among tens of other people that I know are in some sort of legendary band but I am horrible with faces and names. Let me tell you it is kind of hard talking to Rick Kosick about lighting your balls on fire…he created the Jackass series among other things.
Ultimately Los Angeles would be the perfect place for us to live, but neither one of us would want to live here, we just want to live in a mobile stage, it is actually really cool having Eugene, OR as our home. Who the fuck really wants to rage every major city in America then return to a major city, major cities are cool but they suck to live in…parking tickets, people everywhere all the time, everything is expensive, nowhere to even relax. Maybe this is just me being from a small town, but if I were taking a week off before the next tour, I would much be surrounded by 137,893 people than 13 million people….just sayin.
Here is where I would like to say a bunch of things on my mind and talk about how certain people are, all the “rockstars” that we run into. We hate “rockstars” and we will never be one of them, we are musicians, if you want to be a dick to me when I say “thank you for everything you have done for music,” then i hope your career starts going more downhill than it already is.
I used to call people out on their shit and actually had great success with it, but at this point we just kind of have to smile and act like everything is cool. If there is one person that I follow everyday that actually calls people out on their bullshit, it is Bob Lefsetz, and if you are not subscribed to his blog, you should be, because everything he says is legit and are what I believe to be the ideals of the new era of music. Bob also re-posted some information about the original Music Adventure this summer that ultimately got us on the Mayhem tour to begin with. In other words Bob has a lot of followers in the music industry because they obviously are scared of what he has to say, the entire fucking industry is currently being flushed down the toilet, you can forget about the classic ways that bands became well known bands, it is over, and everyone knows it.
Enough preaching for everyone, back to the story, we rolled onto La Brea Avenue for the initial drive by scope out for a drive by show in front of Crazy Girls. As we sit at a stoplight I say to Bekka “hey that is LA ink, Dano said he wanted us to play there, let’s do it after Crazy Girls because it is 2 blocks up on the same street”. Then we doubt ourselves for a minute like it isn’t LA Ink…Yeah that is LA Ink.
So up to Sunset we go, then make a left to turn around, I turned right on this street with a light, and it said no trucks over 6,000 lbs….fuck it! As I go down the apartment lined street with just enough room to squeeze the mobile stage through, 3 cars start heading down the street. I turn to Bekka and say “bigger vessel has the right of way, fuck them!” They all pulled in and made room, and good thing they did, because I wasn’t stopping!
Pulled out onto the next road right in front of someone driving really fast, they passed me by driving into opposing traffic, flipped me off, and honked….Like I care, I’m in a mobile stage…fuck you! The stoplight turning onto La Brea I ask Bekka, “You ready? I’m heading to the back, take a right and you know where it is from there, sit in front of Crazy Girls for one minute, then in front of LA Ink for one minute…Godspeed!”
I hopped in the back and turned on all my shit, then rolled up the door at Sunset and La Brea. It is truly crazy playing while driving down the street in one of the largest metro areas in America, somewhat breaking the law yet somewhat following the rules. We raged it for crazy girls and bunch of people came out asking for information, we told them we would be back and continued down the street. 2 blocks down the road to the front of LA Ink where we sat for about a minute. They were all really stoked and we caught them really off guard, right before closing a band shows up and plays a show….awesome!!
The restaurant next door had some patrons that were stoked, but I don’t think the owner was too stoked. After we parked and were walking up the street we saw him talking to the cops about what happened, but there is not much you can do when the door is closed and the generator is off, so FUCK YOU for being such a flatliner!
When we got up to Crazy Girls we walked up to the bouncer and talked to him about the driveby show, he was stoked on it, but still wanted $10 a person to get in the door. I told him to go get the guy that wanted the card so we can give him a card and roll out, because 3 people on tour in a mobile stage can not afford $30 to get into a show! When the guy came out, who was the manager, and asked us if we were coming in, we said fuck yeah we are, he stamped our wrists, and we were in. Who the fuck has ever been on that guest list before, the “yeah we just played out front in a mobile stage” guest list.
Went in to watch our friend Arthur’s band House of Broken Promises and they fucking threw down! The manager wanted us to play afterwords so we did, do you think we can ever tell someone else “no.” Pulled into a 7-11 parking lot to turn around and a police officer was sitting right in my path. I rolled by him all slow and saw him eyeballing me really hard and just sitting there, so I parked, went in and got Dano some cigarettes. By the time I came out he was just pulling out of the lot, so Bekka got behind the wheel and we rolled up to Crazy Girls again. We were able to play a full song, then I hopped out, parked again, went up to talk to people for a few, then rolled out to The Rainbow.
Up to pretty much one of our new home away from home, The Rainbow, for the final show of the night. We started playing with the door open somewhere around The Whisky, then stopped at The Rainbow. There were about 2 people standing outside and everything looked really dead. Then it fucking EXPLODED with people, cameras, beer, weed, cigarettes, fuck yeah’s, and fists in the air….It was EPIC!
We ran into our friend Kristin that we knew from Mayhem Tour and her friend was doing some reality TV show, they invited Bekka, our friend that is helping us out, to try out for some reality TV show. So we stayed on the side of the street in downtown Los Angeles so she could go in and try out in the morning. They did their thing and then we rolled up to Castaic for one of our final nights here. Jim Beam was only $22 for a half gallon so I grabbed a couple….Going to be a crazy night tonight, hence the reason I am writing this hammered drunk on whiskey. NAMM starts tomorrow, and I guarantee you the next 4 days are going to be filled with more stories than you can wave an empty bottle of whiskey at.
We played out front in the Moooooooooo stggggggggggg. Haha we end up with a lot of inside jokes, and we had a lot of people prank call us while we were building the mobile stage saying shit like how bad we suck and how stupid we are at how we decide to run our band. It has been this way with everything we have done, we gave our music away for free starting 5 years ago, played any show we could for free, took all the shit we could from all the bands around us about giving things away for free, now everyone gives their shit away for free. Just like we had a bunch of fucking dipshits that used to be our friends with our phone numbers calling and telling us how stupid we were for building a mobile stage….And who is making music history right now?
We knew what was going to happen when we built this mobile stage, we were going to either get arrested or make music history, either of which both of us were willing to accept. It sounds like a really confident thing saying you are making music history, but I believe fully in my heart that we are doing what every true musician wants to do, which is play music every day and every night in a mobile stage wherever we want. It is why I will never sell Music Adventure Stage I, it is going to be in the rock and roll hall of fame some day, there is not much doubt in my mind. Just like I will put this challenge on the table right now, I have never been one to make claims and say things that we are not, but WE ARE the HARDEST WORKING independent band in the world, and I would be honored if bands challenged us for this claim, we have played 273 shows in the last 180 days, what do you have on that?
We have proved in under a year that anything is possible if you have heart and determination. At first the mobile stage was a $10,000 project, if you can’t save up $10,000 over 5 years then you are obviously unable to manage your life. This mobile stage has no bells or whistles, just hours upon hours upon hours of determination, we would have made the wood ourselves if we could. For the last 2 weeks we have been eating expired cans of ravioli and top ramen, make the sacrifice, there is no money in music anymore, so if you are not in it for music, fuck off and stop ruining it for the real musicians!
I would have never thought I would be choosing between playing a Hellyeah show, a Soulfly show, and a totally unrelated drive by show all in the same night. We are on every show we decide to go to, it is that easy, no ticket sales, only gas money…Pretty fucking cool if you ask me. Do you mind buying a shirt for $8? Or whatever you have on you, we have gloves too! And socks, and bandanas, the mobile stage really likes gas, at this point we don’t have enough money to get home, but where is home, as far as I am concerned it is in the mobile stage, and there are 43 more gallons of diesel in the generator tank, meaning over 50 hours of playing is left, bring it on, I know everyone in Music Adventure 1 is ready for it!
Back to the whiskey, all in all I believe this blog came out really well considering I just ran into the wall and fell face down on the floor trying to find the bathroom. Shane pretty much left us the keys to his house and took off for the night…Not sure how good of an idea that was…
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You Can’t Park Your Car Here!
So the next day was kind of a lazy one, it’s Dano’s birthday tonight at midnight so lets get some beers and party! Everyone crawled out of the mobile hotel and we just kind of sat around and didn’t do much for the next few hours. I got all caught up on blogs and some of the videos, then we just kind of soaked in what happened the day before, the response on Sunset Blvd was incredible, we played The Roxy last night without having to sell any tickets, from the sidewalk, pretty epic.
I think the first beer of the day was cracked around 7:30PM, we went through an 18 pack in a little under 2 hours, then walked across the street to get more! Dano got drunk enough to light his balls on fire again with ever clear, or I should say Dano got drunk enough to dump ever clear on his balls and Shane lit them on fire. Sometime around 11PM Chris the woman stealer and his friend showed up, they were trying to get us to drive down to the bar and rage a mobile stage show…but no one was sober.
If you have ever played Grand Theft Auto, that is what driving the mobile stage around is like. You start off with 2 stars automatically because you are driving around in a shady looking vehicle, then once you open the door to play a show you have 3 stars, and by the time the show or song is finished and we drive away we are up to 5 stars! So even though knock on wood we have had great success in evading police intervention, I could only imagine what would happen getting a DUII in a mobile stage. I know I barely have insurance on it as it is, and if I or anyone behind the wheel got a DUII on my insurance, life would end for me, and I would probably put a bullet in my head. So after a couple hours of Shane trying to find a sober driver in Castaic at 11PM(which is impossible) , and me convincing everyone that it is just not worth it, the only thing left to do was to light Dano’s balls on fire again!
Everyone still wanted to go to the bar for some reason, even though the fridge was full of fucking beer. I had reached the end of my rope, 5 hours is good for me drinking beer, usually I pass out a lot sooner. I got a little shit for staying home, but I was fucking tired, and apparently so was Shane because after he got to the bar, he passed out…at the bar.
I woke up the next morning to a knock at the back door of the mobile stage. It was Shane asking me if I had seen his keys? Seeing as I passed out before anyone, I don’t know where anything is, I asked him if he was passed out face down on his office floor this morning, he said he passed out in his room, and that must have been Chris the Woman Stealer. Then Dano comes out of the house wondering where his cell phone and charger are. This scene is somewhat reminiscent of the movie “The Hangover”, only it didn’t last as long. Dano found his phone and charger in his bunk, and I am not sure where Shane found his keys, but they were probably in his pocket.
We were going to go play the Anaheim Supercross in the parking lot today but opted out because it would have been a 170 mile round trip, and after talking to Shane, the parking lot is kind of on lock down and they charge for parking so fuck going down there, well just go rage Slayer for Slayer at The Music Box. Also one of our friend Shane’s good friends passed away today, so he wasn’t going to the Supercross either.
Shane said his friend Damon was coming over, and Dano can always tell when people need cheered up, he is like Santa Clause for feelings. Shane walks in the door with kind of a down look on his face and Dano says “….would it make you feel better if I lit my balls on fire?” Shane says, yes! As soon as Damon gets here.
So this is the first time Dano is lighting his balls on fire sober. And words can not even explain the amount of worry in his eyes. I can tell he needs some more liquid courage to pull this off, pounding 2 or 3 Coors Lights is just not going to cut it, so I run out to the van and grab the last couple shots of Evan Williams whiskey so Dano can pour himself a strong drink. 30 minutes later Dano is dumping ever clear on his balls and Shane lights them on fire. Look I am sorry if all this balls lighting on fire is offending people, but these are uncensored stories from the road, how could I leave this shit out?
Dano put a smile on Damon and Shane’s face, then Damon took off and everyone started pounding beers. Our friend Jessica who was teching for Kerry King let us know the red carpet starts at 6:30 and doors are around the same time. Shane was still kind of bummed out so we thought a good way to cheer him up would be to come on today’s music adventure with us! It took a little bit of convincing, seeing as Shane has told us for the last 5 days that he is not drinking tonight, we are such a good influence!
This is only after Shane had walked in with 2 30 packs of Coors Light. So we set up the chairs in the back, fired up the generator, and gave Shane a first hand experience of what mobile stage driveby shows are all about. It was about a half hour drive down to Hollywood, we are really located in a perfect spot to attack Hollywood on a regular basis. We were going to have Bekka drive and do a drive by show, but Jessica let us know there is a loading zone out front so I make the executive decision to not do a drive by show and just park up front. By the time the door was opening and we were playing the intro riff to Reign In Blood there were 3 or 4 security guards waving their hands at us and saying “YOU CANT PARK YOUR CAR HERE, YOU HAVE TO LEAVE, YOU CANT PARK HERE, YOU CAN’T PARK YOUR CAR HERE!” Anyone seen “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”?
When I got up to the front a couple guards came up and said it was totally awesome what we were doing, but we have Rockstar stickers all over our vehicle, and this is a Monster event. Not only is this total fucking bullshit, because we are parked on the street, it inspired us to do the next thing we did, which was light Dano’s balls on fire…..haha no we did not do that. We decided to do a driveby show with Bekka behind the wheel, because we also heard through Jessica that Dave Lombardo said to keep playing.
We still do the one thing that has gotten us this far in mobile stage shows though, and that is if people from the venue or police say to stop, we stop, it is just the respectable thing we do. We are out here to have LAPD and every venue in this area on our side, so we respect what they say, maybe it’s not the most punk rock thing to do, but we have 3 more weeks down here, and we want to be able to do this again.
Around the block we go, time to play Slayer for Slayer, in the name of ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK! The door opens and Bekka drives us down the block, every single person standing outside was FUCKING STOKED! We were able to squeeze out all of Reign in Blood, and I still haven’t watched the video to see what the looks on the guards faces were like, but I am sure it was priceless. Bekka parked us then went out to hand fliers to everyone, it is so awesome having people helping you that are truly wanting to help you, not just along for the ride, she is always busting out the camera at the right time and this is by far the BEST video coverage we have ever had of The Music Adventure.
We hung out on the side of the street for about a half hour, put on our full Rockstar Energy Drink attire, and walked right in the back door of the venue. It was pretty funny seeing the obvious Monster Energy Drink representatives giving us the stink eye like we just pissed on their parade. And I don’t mind pissing on their parade, because telling us we can’t play because we have 3 Rockstar stickers on our truck is fucking BULLSHIT! I know if it were a Rockstar event and we pulled up with 3 Monster stickers on the side, as long as we were partying our balls off, everything would be cool. Its like they are pissed because they know their energy drink is expensive and fucking sucks, I mean what other reason would you stop a gorilla band playing a gorilla show for?
Shane was getting tired and needed food so we bounced out of the drum off. I really wouldn’t have minded watching the rest of it, but the van was parked half way in a red zone and I really get nervous about that thing disappearing, even though it is equipped with Lo Jack and all sorts of shit to find it, honestly if someone stole it, no matter who it was, by 8 in the morning the next day I would have their balls lit on fire with everclear, and no water in sight!
Dano and Bekka came out when the show was over, and we waited to get a hold of Jessica for the after party. She came out pounded a beer smoked a bowl and led us up to the after party in the attic. EVERYONE was at this party, and when I say everyone, I mean everyone, Phil Collins was here. I was meeting all sorts of band members from bands I fucking love, I’m not going to start listing off everyone we were talking to and sound like some sort of starstruck tourist, but the one that stood out is Dave Lombardo, the drummer of Slayer.
He told us to NEVER STOP PLAYING UNTIL THEY TAKE THE STICKS OUT OF YOUR HAND. I’ll tell you what, I can write all day about all this respect stuff to venues and police, but when Dave Lombardo is telling you this, you just kind of agree. Just like at 2:30 in the morning in North Carolina when you are drunk with Jason Bittner and he wants to play your mobile stage drum kit even after you have been shut down for noise, you just do it, until you get in trouble again.
Everyone at the party said they were going to the rainbow in a little while, so you can guess what we decided to do. 11 minutes West down Sunset blvd, switch with Bekka and hop in the back right up the road from The Whisky. We played a drive by show down Sunset Strip in front of The Whisky, then stopped in between The Roxy and The Rainbow and raged it for about a minute, EVERYONE came out of the bar and started filling up the driveway, with Dave Lombardo front and center, then drove up to the Key Club, finished the song, closed the door, and parked. Keep in mind the whole time we just did this Shane is passed out in my bed, with one of the speakers right next to his head.
One of the security guards from The Key Club came up to us and asked us why we have never played there. We told him were always down to play there, but we have to sell 50 tickets, and we live in Oregon. He was really stoked on what we were doing and gave all our info to the manager, which had absolutely no problem with what we were doing. At this point we now have The Roxy, The Rainbow, and The Key Club on our side, and I am sure The Whisky as well but we have not stopped in front of there yet, only drove by.
Ran into a lot of people in the block between The Key Club and The Rainbow that were really stoked on what we were doing, which warms our hearts every time someone shakes our hands and tells us what we are doing is fucking amazing. Again we are still just a couple stoners that smoked weed and decided to do the impossible, we are living a dream right now that we created by just doing the only thing we know how to do, rage our fucking balls off! And light them on fire.
Walked up to The Rainbow thinking of how we were going to avoid paying the $10 cover to get in, then it hit us. “Hey whatsup we just played in the mobile stage out front, are we able to get in?” Fuck yes! Come on in. We were only there for about a half hour, said whatsup and goodbye to everyone, smoked some weed, and headed back to Shane’s house.
“Shane wake up were home! Time to light your balls on fire.” Dano says. “I’m not lighting my balls on fire…..I’m not lighting my balls on fire!!!! I’m going to sleep”. As he walks to his room. I was out about another 30 minutes later after eating some Boyardee chili macaroni and 2 hash bowls I finished on my own. By now it was about 3 in the morning, the day was stressful as all hell, and all in all it was Dano’s best birthday ever!
Now it is the next day, were going to hang out here and drink some beer, our speaker comes in tomorrow in Pasadena, then the mobile stage will be at 100% volume, right now it is only at 75%, next stop….who knows? As Dano and I were sitting on the back porch smoking a bowl these two hawks started fighting in the tree above us, they fell to the ground in the neighbors yard, then one of them flew away, and we don’t know where the other one went. Could this be some sort of sign that can only be found if we eat a bunch of peyote and fry for days in the hills of Northern Los Angeles County? Dano thinks they were fighting because they heard he was going to light his balls on fire but he hasn’t yet today, conspiracy…..I think not.
Made it through The Grapevine….
And we had no idea what was waiting for us in Los Angeles. At this point the only thing we have planned is the NAMM show and some Hellyeah parking lot shows, but those are all next week. The first night we partied at Shane’s house and talked about going to the Willie Nelson show the next night in Agoura Hills. Kind of seemed crazy at the time but we are in a mobile stage and can play wherever we want. Then we saw an LA weekly and noticed that there is a show going on pretty much every night around here that we could rage it at. Started calling everyone up and figuring out the schedule, the possibilities are literally endless around here, and pretty much for the rest of the month of January, this is our new home.
Woke up the next morning and rid ourselves of the beer shits and partial hangovers. Smoked weed like we always do, pretty much all day. Left around 6 for The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills. When we arrived the buses pretty much were located where we had planned out with Google Earth…There is a lot more to playing a mobile stage show than just showing up and raging, timing has to be right, and you need to have a general idea of where you are parking. It is very difficult to drive a 30 foot vehicle into an area where thousands of people are congregating to watch a show, while having no knowledge whatsoever about the area.
So we had a meeting over a bowl of weed and figured we would park in the shopping center across the street, by Kinkos, because I needed to make some copies anyway. Once we parked. it looked like we were going to play pretty soon so I didn’t go to Kinko’s. Instead the security guard came over and told us we can’t park here if were going to the show, I told him we were meeting our friend at the Sushi place right there, he kind of gave me a weird look(because the sushi place was closed and Shane was a couple miles away at a different sushi place). He then told us we can’t video the 14 year old girls dancing in the dance place we were parked at……what? We were like dude, were not pedophiles, were from out of town, and were meeting our friend here. He said he was just doing his job, which he was, really really well, I mean he obviously found a group of 3 stoner pedophiles from Oregon!
Just when we think the bullshit is over, this 55 year old lady comes out of the dance class. She walks up to my window and tells me that we CANT video the little girls. At this point we were done doing our video commentary and the camera was not even there. I told her WE ARE NOT PEDOPHILES, we have no interest in looking at your underage girls in there, we are just parked here because we are meeting our friend. Trust me….there are missing children on the side of this thing, we want to find missing children, not harm children, chill out bitch. She gets all nice and acts like she understands, then goes inside, and slowly….closes…every…blind..in…there.
Then the security guard comes by again and fucks with us. Realizing we need to get the fuck out of there I move over to the other side of the parking lot and park under a tree. The guard comes over AGAIN and wants to know what the fuck is going on, I tell him again we are meeting our friend and he will be here soon, that is all I know, I’m sorry!
At this point were thinking it needs to be a driveby show, Bekka has never driven the U-haul, but is very confident in her driving abilities, so we figure to roll with it, it is only one left hand corner and a straight away. So just drive really really slow, and if you see people come out, stop for a little bit, then stop at the stop sign, I’ll climb in the front, and we’ll roll the fuck out of here. She did an AWESOME job driving too, stopped for pedestrians, you know, being really really safe, because that is the most important thing, oh and it means you can play a longer song.
Still we have no idea what Willie Nelson is going to think of The Athiarchists, this is what is so cool about The Music Adventure Stage, every day is an adventure and we can play for whoever the fuck we want to without even asking. We respect the venues and the people working at them. If someone in charge says to stop, we stop, and leave, that simple…..only that hasn’t happened yet, everywhere we go people are fucking STOKED. How could you not be stoked, you have two homeless people in a moving stage playing free music for you, giving you free shit, you can’t hate on that.
People walking down the sidewalk stopped and were like what the fuck is this? Then a roadie went over and beat on the door of Willie Nelson’s bus, he popped his head out and waved at us, we were playing the Soner Rock Song for him, with our green lights on and fog blasting out, it was perfect, everyone was stoked, Shane even made it there in time to see it, then we threw out some business cards, switched drivers, made a left hand turn where you can’t make left hand turn, then blew across a 10 lane divided highway that was right turn only to get on the freeway. Rallied straight to Arcadia for some Taco Lita.
We have been eating less on this tour than any other tour we have done. Just heating up microwave food everyday, ravioli, cup noodles, easy mac, Lunchables, whatever is really cheap and easy to make. So when it is time to go to either of the big 3: In and Out, Jimboys, or Taco Lita, we throw the fuck down like it is the last meal. We all went for 2 Jumbos, it was almost $40 with tax, but what was worse than the money tax, was the tax it lay on my intestines, just too much fiber for someone who’s been eating Lunchables every day. It was still worth it though, worth every painful moment.
So where do we go today? I guess Sunset Blvd, but not until after we sit on the side of the road for about an hour staring at the windshield figuring out where to go. We also decided we ARE going to play on the freeway during a traffic jam, but not like those motherfuckers that closed the freeway, we are going to entertain the people sitting in their cars in traffic…Quite the opposite of the “other guys”.
Endured the 45 minute drive down Santa Monica Blvd through about 300 stop lights up to Sunset, that is the only thing that sucks about the location of all the Sunset Strip venues, they are as far away from the freeway as you can possibly get, and driving a U-haul down rough narrow roads with people and lights fucking sucks! Got lucky and landed the 2 parking spots right in front of The Roxy, where there was some industry night thing going on with some fairly mellow, but really cool bands. Paid the meters and sat on the side of the road from 4PM to 9PM, a very boring stressful time it was. While we were out walking Dano picked up a handle of Jim Beam…Can’t wait until this stress is all over, and I can get wasted, there is nothing better than the feeling at the end of a Music Adventure day, words can’t explain.
I sat in the front seat like a fucking tweeker, just making sure no one was going to give us a parking ticket, or be pissed that we were blocking the entire Roxy sign and marquee. At 7:30 we went over to The Rainbow for a pizza, then right at 9 we walked over to the mobile stage, Bekka grabbed the camera and backed me up a little bit because I was boxed in, Dano fired up the generator and got drums ready, I crawled in the back, opened the door and we raged one song. I was BLOWN AWAY by everyone’s response, even the guards at the front door that I was most scared about were pumped! After we closed the door and I was up front getting ready to leave, Bekka comes to the window and says “they want you to play another song”, I said “who wants us to play another song, the people, or someone that works for the club”, she said “the guards up front said its cool, you can play until 9:45”. So the door opens back up and we rage a couple more songs…Pretty fucking ironic that 3 years ago we paid $500 to play at The Whisky and now we play an unannounced mobile stage show in front of The Roxy 50 people, the exact amount of tickets we had to sell for The Whisky, and they ask us to play one more song.
There was a TSOL/Youth Brigade show going on 100 feet up the road at The Key Club. There was no parking in front all night and for some reason when we pulled out all the cars were gone. I was already in the far left turn lane, and turning around would have been a bitch so I decided there was no way it would happen, feeling kind of bad all night that we could have raged it for 600 angry kids on the side of Sunset Blvd…..Well….I am glad we didn’t stop there because here is what was happening
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/01/punk_rock_violence_sunset.php
All of this happened no more than 3 minutes after we pulled out of The Roxy, as I was heading down Santa Monica Blvd there were cops hauling ass up to Sunset, I thought nothing about it until my friend Chris sent me this link today. If we had played that riot it would have been legendary epic and amazing, but at the same time I am glad we didn’t at this time, not only would we have been shot with rubber bullets and tear gas, which I GLADLY would have taken in the name of punk rock, but thanks to the fuckers that closed down the freeway I am sure mobile stages have a bad name with the cops, and if they rolled up and saw a band playing a riot we would have been arrested for inciting a riot and banned from doing what we do in Hollywoood. So even though we missed out on some legendary shit, we need to do that when we are leaving LA, not right when we get here!
Trust me, there is sooooo much shit going on around here on a nightly basis, tomorrow we are playing the Anaheim Supercross and then playing Slayer for Slayer, plenty of opportunity for disaster to strike. I feel like I am flying a 3 passenger airplane 100 feet above the ground through a major city, or better yet Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi when he is flying through the Death Star at the end of the movie…..But I am stoned the whole time, we are all stoned the whole time, it’s, uhhhhhhhhhh…….FUCKING AWESOME! “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin'”, were here to play music and show people that anything is possible if you have heart.
As we are on our way back up to our friend Shane’s house, he calls and says hes at this bar Pizza Wings n Things a few miles from his house, and that we should meet him there. As soon as we roll up, he says flip around and park right here, right in the middle of the road blocking in all the cars, it’s cool…this is Castaic!
We fucking BLEW UP Pizza Wings N Things, people were stoked, everyone came out as we raged 3 songs for them. Afterwords I climbed in the drivers seat to park and ended up puking for a few minutes. It was a really stressful day, I really need to calm the fuck down and not worry so much, but just when you stop doing that….THE SHIT HITS THE FAN! So I will continue to worry, tonight were going to let Hollywood calm down from the riot last night, tomorrow is going to be a crazy day, plus we will be returning to the very parking lot that we played our first parking lot show ever, Angels Stadium, it took a police helicopter and spotlight to stop us last time, lets see what happens now…PARTY. I say party because midnight tonight it is the start of Dano’s official birthday, even though it lasts for months at a time, his actual birth day lasts 24 hours and is bound to be fucking epic!
Done with blogs and on to videos, going to skip ahead and do the videos of yesterday first, Fantasy Factory, Roxy, Wings N Things, and the story of an empty bottle of Jim Beam, oh and how can I forget Dano dipping his balls in a glass of everclear last night for 6 Metal Mulisha shirts, then lighting them on fire later.
I almost forgot to write about the Jim Beam party last night at Shane’s, although in a time line of last night I did not last that long. I had 2 drinks Dano mixed partied for a few hours and passed the fuck out, I woke up a couple times once the sun was up and they were still trying to polish off the handle. You have nothing to worry about Dano, you’re like a piece of iron, your beard is safe.
Its been awhile since the last update, lets get caught back up
So much has happened since we returned home from the Music Adventure, I really wanted to write about all of that before starting Music Adventure Part 2: California Adventure Tour, but we have been really busy, pretty much playing multiple shows every day since returning home. I think if we added up all the shows we have played around the city of Eugene in the mobile stage it would be more than the amount of days we were home. We were playing literally anywhere we wanted to, and also did things with it that did not involve performing music: while driving down the road, VIA wireless into venues from inside the mobile stage, blasting Christmas music all over town on Christmas, marriage proposal, football games, birthday parties, radio stations, parking lots, the list goes on. Ill come back and write about all that when we return home from this tour.
This is The California Music Adventure Tour, we are driving down to Los Angeles to do the same thing we have been doing around Eugene, OR for the last 3 months. We are going to play wherever we feel like playing, we are going to play everywhere we have always wanted to play, and we just felt that the Music Adventure Stage needed one last tour before getting retired to The Athiarchists Museum to make room for Music Adventure II in the U-haul hanger, which will be renamed to the Penske hanger.
Just like the last music adventure, we always put everything off until the last 3 days before we leave. We had 3 months to get ready, finish a CD, make merch, work on the van, save up money, and in the 3 days before we somehow accomplished all those things leaving fairly satisfied and prepared. Here is what we did on each of those days
DAY 1
wake up around 12PM, the crack of noon
go get weed
smoke weed
drive to U-haul hangar
smoke weed
stare at computer screen
smoke weed
talk to Dano about what we need to get ready
talk to Dano about where we should rage
eat
smoke weed
go out to hangar and look at uhaul
take a couple shots of whiskey
plug in work lights
smoke weed
find Eddie Grant on iTunes and start grooving
smoke weed to entire Eddie Grant CD
take a couple shots of whiskey
play Foosball
start duplicating CD’s on 10 disc duplicator
CD’s aren’t copying right for some reason, fuck with it for 2 hours
smoke weed
smoke more weed
CD’s are finally being duplicated properly
Burn new screens for patches because the current ones are backwards
smoke weed
play Foosball
Dano Writes “The Athiarchists A Verbal Lashing” on 400 CD’s
Aaron installs new merch shelf above drums in mobile stage
smoke the last of the weed
play Foosball
Time to head into town because were out of WEED
get weed
smoke weed
drop Dano off to PARTY
Aaron does the Aaron thing
Go to sleep 3AM
Day 2
Wake up around 10AM
Smoke weed
call Dano
take shower
call Dano
call Dano
smoke weed
wait 15 min for Dano to call back
Leave figuring Dano partied hard last night and will pick him up this afternoon
drive to U-haul hangar
smoke weed
start cleaning out U-haul
sit in U-haul staring at it for 30 minutes
smoke weed
Check oil in U-haul just to see where it’s at
take shot of whiskey
smoke weed
Bekka calls and her bus is 30 minutes away(Bekka is our friend from Tacoma helping us video and sell merch)
Pick up Bekka at bus station
go to fabric store for patch material
Dano texts and says hes awake and at the house
Dano calls and we decide to meet up after kinkos
go to home depot for heater and extention cords
go to Guitar Center for their last 2 sets of strings
go to Wal-mart for blank beanies and paperclips
go to Kinkos to pick up promo cards and make books for CD’s
take way longer at Kinkos than expected
go to house to pick up Dano
smoke weed
Bekka gives us some weed cookies
eat weed cookies
smoke weed
go to dollar store for gloves, scarves, and beanies
head back to U-haul hangar
smoke weed
play foosball
make CD’s
write on CD’s
smoke weed
Package CD’s
Screenprint beanies and gloves
smoke weed
smoke the last of the weed
head back into town to get more weed
smoke weed
head home
smoke weed
watch 40 minutes of “Fast Times at Ridgemount High”
smoke weed
Dano passes out
Aaron passes out
Bekka passes out in Athiarchist house by herself 3AM
Day 3
Wake up 11AM
drive to house to pick up Dano and Bekka
smoke weed
go to grocery store
drive to U-haul hangar
smoke weed
print CD’s
write on CD’s
package CD’s
find out on our own that dude canceled the new years show we were playing
get pissed
smoke weed
not pissed anymore
smoke weed
Decide we will just play all over Redding for new years
screen print beanies and gloves
hand Bekka gallon of Gallo Rossi wine and screen printing squeegee
move drums forward on mobile stage
install PlayStation 2 and TV in mobile stage
move fog machine
talk about really cool thing to do with fog machine
smoke weed
end up not doing anything cool with fog machine
Bekka comes out 2 hours later blackout drunk and a half gallon of wine is missing
smoke weed
Dano takes over the screen printing
Bekka searches for bottle of wine
load up mobile stage with merch and CD’s
Bekka is still searching for bottle of wine
Bottle of wine is on top of speaker, in plain view of Bekka
Aaron decides to hide bottle of wine just in case she finds it
clean the U-haul hangar
Realize it is 4AM and we have to leave by 10AM
smoke weed
Bekka passes out
stare at computer screen
Change leaving time to noon
Bekka wakes up, pukes, passes out again
smoke weed
Drive back to Eugene because I left my blanket and pillow at home
Return to U-haul hangar in record driving time to sleep for 3 hours
smoke weed
Go to sleep 7AM
Day 4
Wow I could really do this for every day, but I think that was the only way to recap what happened in those 3 days, everything pretty much parallels what happened when we were building this thing, it is how we operate, last minute and get shit done!
A hangover is no way to start off a tour….or is it? Dano stayed passed out in the back for most of the drive to Redding, Bekka was in the pasenger seat nursing a mean headache/hangover. Even hungover as fuck she was up before either of us cooking breakfast, and all the shit she printed blackout drunk came out better than any of the shit me and Dano did…you already have more points than Wassus!(sorry Wassus but remember the shirt you screen printed?)
Stopped by Medford Guitar Center for more strings and they don’t even carry them anymore…Fuck. Drove over the Siskious pass which I was a little worried about, because the weather had been bad, but it was clear and easy. Went to Wal-Mart in Redding first to stock up on microwave food and water. Heated up some left over microwave burritos from breakfast and headed over to Bombays.
I decided to pass out for a couple hours since it was only 9 and I was pretty fucking tired from the night before. 10 minutes after I go to my bed Dano calls and is saying we should go park in front of Johnny’s Cathouse(the bar across the street from Bombays). Johnny’s and Bombays do not get along, pretty much the owner of Johnny’s is a piece of shit and the owner of Bombays is fucking awesome. “let me take the guard off, I’ll fire up the generator and pull around”. I pull around and park in the spot Dano had blocked off for us, shut off the van, and crawled in the back. I was tuning up my guitar and waiting for Dano to get in because I thought we were playing. I hadn’t been there for 4 minutes and Dano calls me. “Hey Aaron don’t move or get out, there’s cops all around you”. I went over this quick subconscious checklist in my head
1. Am I drunk….no
2. Did I smoke weed in the last 30 minutes….no
3. I guess there is no number 3
Everything passed on my checklist to deal with cops, so I blasted out that back door, looked right at them and said…whatsup? They said “are you Aaron”, I say “yeah, nice to meet you!”. The owner of Johnny’s was standing right there, he looked me in the eyes and said “so do you get off on doing shit like this?”, I said “shit like what, running my generator in my house on the side of the road”, keep in mind the door has never opened and we have not played any music at all. They told me that it is illegal to operate a generator in your vehicle in the state of California. I argued that with “well what about motor homes, this is my home”. They said it is not a motor home, it is a commercial vehicle, and commercial vehicles can’t be parked on California ave in Redding. I told them it was not a commercial vehicle, and they said California rules are different and if I have a yellow license plate it is commercial…Better beware driving to California with yellow license plates, or at least Redding. The dumbfuck owner of Johnny’s then chimed in telling me to park it on top of the parking structure, I told him we can’t fit our van in that parking structure, let alone the mobile stage that is 11 feet 6 inches tall…you dumbfuck. I told them I would park behind Bombays, they then escorted me there, and continued to drive by every 5 minutes until we left at 5 in the morning the next day.
After all that bullshit, and pretty much figuring out we would not be playing a show anywhere tonight, pissed off and tired, I went to sleep. But not until drawing on the roof of my bunk for 3 hours about the Redding Police and Johnny’s Cathouse. I set Dano and Bekka off into the bar armed with a video camera and a good time, and I dont really know much about what hapened between this point and 10:00 in the morning, because the camera battery died, but I know at least for Dano it was something along the lines of the movie “The Hnagover”. I woke up at 5:30 to someone beating on the back door, “smokey joe, smokey joe, open up, I need a ride!” It was our good friend Matt from Bombays, still kind of half awake I tell him I can’t leave until everyone gets in the U-haul, he told me Bekka was in there, I checked and she was, but still no Dano. While I was calling Dano to see where he was I heard Matt say “half ounce of weed”, as soon as Dano answered I told him I was taking Matt home and staying at his house, which was cool, because Dano….was still partying!
Day 5
Got to Matt’s house, smoked weed, and passed out. Woke up around noon and started trying to locate Dano. Found out where Dano was at, he was on foot, attempting the 5 mile walk over to Matt’s house. Matt told me to take his car to go get him, then decided he would just go get them. Matt made us breakfast at 3:30PM and we headed out to Red Bluff. Dano was still passed out when we got there, so Bekka and I set up the merch and waited for the show to start. I woke Dano up 20 minutes before we were supposed to play, he ran down and started tearing his drums apart until I said “hey dude, were playing in the mobile stage, not inside”, he then hugged me and said “lets smoke some weed dude…I feel like Chucky Cheese”. We raged it for about a half hour, seeing as there were more bands and we were kind of outside, we didn’t want the cops to come and ruin everyone’s night. It was an awesome show, people were moshing like crazy in the complete darkness.
There was only one more band so the guy in charge asked us if we wanted to play again, fuck yeah well play again. We started this set off with a rave setting, playing like some deathmou5 or something like that. People were stoked, and bumping and grinding everywhere, then we went into about a 40 minute set. Red Bluff knows how to fucking rage, this was our first time here, we always play in Redding, only 30 minutes away.
We closed the door, loaded merch up, and headed back up to Redding. We had decided the night before to play Bombays inside tonight because no one got to see us mobile stage it yesterday, thanks to Johnny’s Cathouse and the Redding Police. Dano is a fucking trooper, hungover as fuck, after playing 2 shows, downs 4 drinks before unloading gear, loads gear, rages a fucking insane hour long set, has 3 shots of fireball with me during the set, loads his shit out to the U-haul…then all of a sudden, as he is standing on my guitar and bass cab in some sort of surfing position, he slips and eats fucking shit. I honestly thought he would have ripped his knee off, broken his ankle, or leg, he somehow just got a gnarly bruise and scrape on his upper back thigh, yeah up high enough so he has to show you his ass to show you the bruise, which he does daily. Dano drank a few more, we headed over to our friends house, smoked a bunch of weed, and passed out.
Day 6
This day started off with about 6 bowls of weed and hash. I was so fucking baked at Wal-Mart that I left all the shit I bought at the checkout and had to go back and get it. I walked around the food section for 20 minutes and only left with a bag of fritos and a 3 pack of Pringles. Drove an hour south to the casino in Corning, went in and gambled a little, Dano won some money like he always does, then we all kind of passed out. Woke up after a couple hours and Bekka was able to line us up a show at On The Y in Sacramento tomorrow, sweet! Went back to sleep, im still fucking stoned.
Day 7
Woke up around 10 and headed south to Sacramento. Decided the first stop would be Guitar Center to get sticks and strings. A friend of ours, Alan came by to check out the mobile stage. Took us over to Jimboys for lunch, one of our favorite places to go, thanks a lot man!! He hooked us up then headed out, well be by here on the way home and rage a show somewhere for you. We were having some generator troubles today, the battery is fucked up, probably dead and needs to be replaced, typical battery bullshit, they only make them to last for 6 months.
Headed over to On the Y and met up with our friend Grant that drove there from San Mateo to hang out. He hooked Dano up with this really awesome Muppet Animal that he got off EBAY. Took some shots of Evan Williams in the mobile stage to kill time and wake up. For a last minute show we were pretty surprised at the turnout, which was about 8 people minus the 15 at the bar, but by the time we were half way through our set everyone was having a great time. Then of course The Entertainment Crackers played, if you haven’t heard of them we will have some videos up of it soon! After The Entertainment Crackers, The Athiarchists raged another 3 or 4 songs, Bekka was doing an awesome job slanging the merch for us, it is really nice having someone to sell merch while we play, between the last few shows we have made enough money off merch to get the mobile stage to Los Angles. Southbound and down, well hit up all the other California areas on the way home, we need to get to Shane’s house…PARTY!
Pulled into a truck stop in Ripon, CA to pass out because it was really foggy, and Shane wasn’t going to be home until the next afternoon. It’s finally starting to warm up, I think we have officially left the arctic weather!
Allright I actually wrote all of this kind of as it happened, but just never had internet to upload it all. So at this point we are a few days into our Los Angeles Adventure, many many many crazy awesome unbelievable things have happened, I’ll get the update up as soon as possible!! Thank you everyone for reading our blog and supporting us, sorry it hasn’t been updated in awhile!!
Mayhem Tour
Rockstar Uproar Festival
Athiarchists Music Adventure Tour 