Day nineteen - Nashville, TN (BOOTY BAY!)

We woke up at The Swamp and after leaving a note and tee shirt on the table, hit the road in search of food. We finally came across a local pizza place that seemed to be the only place in the city that was hoppin' off the chain. We had some deep dish pizza that ruld and then we got in the car to head to Nashville. After another mind-numbing car ride, we arrived super early in Nashville, so we chilled at a Borders and sean drank some coffee and read some magazines while I was busy trying to steal a huge poster advertising for the blu-ray release of Gran Torino. That movie sukd. Eventually we got the word from Tyler from Gnarwhal that we could head over to the house venue known to the world as Booty Bay. I grabbed some Schlotzsky's on the way. We showed up and were pleased to see a large group of kids hanging around outside waiting for the show to start. We met up with the infamous Gnarwhal and met a lot of the kids at the show. I couldn't finish a half of my sandwich, so i gave the other half away. First to hit the stage was a new band in the area called Put 'Er There and they played a super awesome heavy et that lasted about 10 mins. They were sweet. The next band to play was a group called Diesel Seas and they blew me and sean (and others, i'm sure) away. Their noisy, technical proggy-hardcore sound was perfect for the tiny, sweaty basement we were all crammed into. After them came Gnarwhal and (as expected) this band was fantastic. Their both familiar and unfamiliar sound and emotion was a wonderful thing to see and hear. They have this great sound composed of major-chord metal with intense technical sections and heavy breakdowns that collectively, is something I miss in modern heavy music. They finished and Jesse (guitar) let everyone know that we were up next (last) and that they should stay and donate/buy our stuff. Well put and well received. We played to a decent sized crowd that were all super enthused to hear us for the first time live. We played one of the hottest (temperature) sets of the tour as well as one of my favorites. A lot of kids picked up tees and cds and that made the already awesome trip even more worth our while. We were offered a place to stay at our new friend Dree's house (sorry if i spelled that totally wrong) and jesse joined us for the after party, because as R.Kelly so wisely stated, "after the show, it's the after party". We played darts, sat in a halfpipe in their backyard, skated on their porch, talked about rats in unusual places, and partied our patooties off until about 3 am and then we all simultaneously crashed.

Day eighteen - Carbondale, IN (Lost Cross)

We left the windy city and took a drive to carbondale whilst being blown around on the freeway. We arrived at the house venue, Lost Cross, a few hours early and they were more than happy to have us come over and chill. We watched some Predator and checked out the historic house (it's been a punk house-venue since the 80s and is still miraculously in working condition). When we went to the basement to check out where we would be playing, we noticed a corner with standing water. Funny. It hasn't rained there in about 2 weeks. Well, the time came to load in and we did so through a window-sized entry way right near the mysterious puddle and brought our stuff to the stage area. We were to play first and after a sufficient amount of people showed up, we started making noise and began our set. It was a fun, dirty, and energetic set that people seemed to be down with. Afterwards we met Matt (from the Swamp who helped us book this show) and some other locals, and we spent some time sharing experiences and opinions before the second band, Liar Birds (super nice guys) started. We then raced inside once they began. They played an amazingly tight and powerful pop-punk set that impressed both sean and me (while not normally being particular fans of the genre). After everything was over, Matt invited us over to the Swamp, where we would be sleeping, to have a little feast with him and his homies. We did and it was delicious.

Day sixteen & seventeen CHICAGO!

Chilled with new friends Benny and Moses.
Chilled with old friend Dani.
Ate some ok to poor pizza.
Had some bomb-ass mexican food.
Played at Ronny's and it went something like this.


This puts it all too well.

Quote of the visit: "Friends before hoes"