Friday May 12th, 2000

Raleigh, North Carolina

What the fuck!? We finally make it to the south and yet again it's some weird ass punk/old drunk trash show. What initially seemed cool turned to shit! It was basically a booze party for old punks (steve note: keep in mind we're 20 and 21 yr. old hardcore kids at this time). Our host, Slayer Dug, welcomed us, showed us the outdoor stage in his backyard and told us that tonight was the "first show of the season".

Cool.

We sat around his pad for a while, played some play station and then with time to spare before the show, we drove to find a place to swim. Didn't find the lake that we were directed to, so we reluctantly drove back to Slayer Dug's. At this point everybody there was getting hammered, and apparently this crowd likes to fight when they're drunk. Who doesn't? Slayer Dug had since shaved a buzzcut mohawk to ring in the season.

Our plan now was to go get food and not come back. However, in getting directions to a shawarma place one of the cooler guys there gave me $10 to bring him back a falafel. Shit, plan backfired. At the shawarma place we spent a good hour devizing a plan to bail on the show and also deciding the fate of the tour, since the next 4 days -before Cincinnati- were sketchy at best. We considered spending a few days in Florida, but ultimately decided that we would swallow our pride, cut our losses and drive home. We'd start fresh again after a solid 3 days in Ottawa chilling out. Afterall, in 8 days we played 3 shows, and only one of the those was good (show with Unearth in Lawrence, Mass.).

So, we had to go back to the show, mainly to give that dude his falafel. I came up with the bailout story, and there I was telling Slayer Dug that one of our band members "has a very sick Dad and has been calling home everyday to check out the situation with his Mom". As the story went, Matias -who willingly volunteered to be the guy- had just called home and "things were not looking good, his Dad had to go into the hospital again. Due to this our tour is over and we are going home". Slayer Dug was very sympathetic, and said goodbye to us all and wished Matias good luck. We're going to hell, but whatever.

Outside the shawarma strip mall after deciding to bail and drive 17 hours home.

Thursday May 11th, 2000

Roanoke, Virginia @ Daddy's Deli w/ Stations

We spent most of yesterday at a "man made" beach, where we all got burnt, especially Tweedy who is now a vegetable cause of the sun. We drove to the promoter -Todd's- house, where the show was moved to since the original venue had been shut down recently. I got to the front door only to find a fucking note from Todd. Show cancelled. What a shithead!
Within minutes the skies closed with dark clouds and thunderstruck. I left some pissed off note for Todd at his door and when i was walking back to the van lightning struck right above us. I fucking dove to the ground (cement), scuffing up my palms. It scared the shit out of me!

We drove to Richmond, VA, paid for another hotel. Fuck! At least the Leafs are out of the playoffs. In Richmond we split up to eat at our preferred shitty restaurant. Tweedy cracked, in large part due to force feeding himself a taco bell meal. Most of us were in Denny's eating. Some dude there was wearing an INFEST t-shirt so I asked him if there were any cool record stores to check out before we split town. He recommended one or two (steve note: We found out 4 months later that the Dude in question was none other than Garth, bassist of Strike Anywhere. Great dude).

So today we were all expecting another cancelled show. We got to Roanoke in good time and found Daddy's Deli, where there were the 2 people working -nobody else- but it was early. We were "welcomed to the south" when a 40 something "Daddy" said to the girl working at the club (steve note: referencing some random girl) "...oh that girl's 18 now? Man, I've been waitin' on her for years."
We got food and returned with little change in attendence. The other band playing -Stations- were there and like 6 other people. The marquis in front said "FROM CANADA. BURIED ALIVE". Nice (steve note: not the last time that'll happen to us, maybe the first though). It was actually a really fun show, cause we played 2 songs and for the end of song #9 (steve note: terrortourismology) Mike smashed his drums, Nick jumped into the set and Mitch grabbed the extra mic and was screaming along to the end part. Shit, it was funny.

Us at the end of the last song we played. Note Mike not behind the drum set but in front of it hammering the gong; and bottom middle the back of a screaming Mitch.

When our set was finished some dude in Stations said "I can't believe only 4 people saw that!" Some fucking weird looking dude gave me $2 out of his pocket and Judas, who put on the show (and has his name tattoo'd on his arm), gave us some cash out of his pocket, as well as a panoramic "throw away" camera with pics of our set on it with more to spare (steve note: now y'all know who took the above pic).

We stayed at a punkhouse, with many dogs and crust punks, some with face tattoo's. Nick and I went in the house, while the others stayed in the van. There were a lot of people over and everybody in the house was drunk, high, just fucked! Some were playing some weird D&D type game (high obviously). Nick and i chilled on the roof for a bit and at some point a fucked dude stuck his head out the window and asked "hey! you wanna dose?" We declined and went to sleep on the floor. Woke up at like 8am thanks to the acid heads peaking and yelling over their weird crusty punk adventure game.

The next morning in front of the punkhouse. Note the white dog on the right lower roof; the yellow flag reads "don't tread on me" with a snake on it; the white flag is spray painted "no WTO" ; and a broken old tv acting here as a seat on the lawn. I also remember one of the dudes saying "one love" to anybody walking by, followed often with "beans and rice, rice and beans" in an east indian, i'll say "gandhi-like" accent.