Tuesday, August 22nd, 2000

Charlotte, North Carolina @ Tremont Music Hall
w/Break Of Dawn, Bloodjinn and Eleison

We took off after playing in Meriden, Connecticut last night cause we had a long drive to Charlotte ahead of us. Mitch drove a serious haul, past DC. Nick is yet again turning into Ted Kaczynski, pretty hilarious.

Before leaving Connecticut: Mike's pink eye, Matias' allergies, Deuce's sweatiness.

In Charlotte the Break Of Dawn (BofD) van needed an oil change (amongst other things), so we hung out in an air conditioned lobby of some garage. That was nice. By now we've been having a bit of a battle on the highway with BofD, throwing food (lots of mustard bombs) back and forth often backfiring on ourselves. We've also come to notice that they're a bunch of klepto's (steve note: BofD are the first of 2 main influences that lead to some -on the road- thieving on our part, and an eventual personal kleptomania that, you'll see, will come to a head down the road...)

After we left the garage we killed time at some mall. En route a couple of BofD guys jumped out of their van at a red light and wrote "CANADA SUCKS" on the back on our van with mustard and baby powder. At the mall we found ourselves in a Radio Shack and Jeff BofD said to Mitch "hey Mitch, stay right there, don't move". Mitch stood still and Jeff used him as a screen while putting a strobe light under his hoodie. "We could use this for something maybe" he figured.


We got to the venue early, and checked out the huge hall in the back with its huge stage and a crazy PA. We were obviously playing the small room, which was still pretty nice. We set up and shit, Deuce and I played some Mortal Kombat 2 arcade, and people ate watermelon that BofD stole from the back of an el camino at a gas station in northern NC.

Nothing is safe from klepto's, shoulda stole the car...

Jeff devouring the literal fruit of his labour, juicy bastard.

The show ended up blowing, there were like 20 kids who didn't seem like they wanted to be there. We sold 1 cd, BofD sold 3 7"s. Eleison were the fucking worst band, crazy gear, stupid drum rack, they blew. BofD were obviously awesome and Bloodjinn were pretty good. Nobody would shack us or BofD for the night, so we hotel'd it while they started trucking it to Wilmington, NC, where tomorrow's show is. I guess they're staying with a friend, who we're all staying with tomorrow night.

At the hotel, we finally showered and brushed our teeth.

a thousand words...

Sunday August 20th, 2000

New Brunswick, NJ @ the Melody Bar
w/ 400 years, & Break Of Dawn (steve note: as you'll read, only Break Of Dawn played).

The first 2 days of this Break Of Dawn (BofD) tour have been awesome. Mitch is with us again, and we brought "Douce" from Montreal too. We also brought a Nerf football, which is definitely the best thing we've done for tour. Plattsburgh was really good as usual, we've already seen Andre of BofD naked, wearing an alien mask. Lawrence, Mass was last night, which was good. Kids were going fucking nuts for this one local band, the singer buzz sawed an upside down metal garbage can shooting sparks everywhere, and Mitch threw some giant stuffed bulldog in the pit, and the kids destroyed it.

Mitch with the Bulldog before he was tossed in the pit.

While we're at it, here's a classic Mitch pic from the morning of Day 3. Thug.

Today is day 3, and well, nobody was at the Melody to open the club, but all the bands were there. We followed 400 years to some vegan ice cream stand nearby that they liked. When we got back it turned out that nobody was really gonna show up for the show. 400 years decided to drive home. Us and BofD sat around outside the venue forever, and then we decided not to play. The promoter still gave us $20, and BofD decided to play for us and like 5 people (friends of there's showed up). They were awesome.

Both John's and the drummer Luke from ex-number 5 were there, fucking awesome dudes. Us and BofD stayed with John Stanley, but before heading to his place he took us to Jersey Shore. Mike seems to have lost his wallet, and he may have pink eye, which fucking sucks. Douce, Tweedy, Mitch and I went go-carting, which ruled, while Andre jumped in the ocean naked (steve note: Andre likes to be naked). The night was capped with some karaoke. Andre and Jeff (of BofD) did "War Pigs". Funniest shit ever. They said there "band" name was the Grim Reefer, Jeff did a mad jump off the stage and George, the karaoke nerd, flipped out.
(steve note: i forgot to mention this drunk ass girl karaoke-ing "I Love Rock N' Roll" and her lame frat boy friends came up to us while she was singing and said "we're trying to get her to say 'I Love Cock and Balls' huhhuhhuh").

Satan laughing spreads his wings...

Douce snores like a fucking monkey.

May 20th, 2000

Windsor, ON @ Gino A. Marcus Community Center
w/searchingforchin, Girl Named Conspiracy, +1 other.

The day began in the US where we stopped many times between Grand Rapids and Detroit to blow up the remaining firecrackers, bottle rockets and M-100s we bought in Indiana (steve note: our paranoia of any border crossing meant we had to use all these explosives that afternoon or the Canadian border guard might fuck with us). In great anticipation of pulling over and setting these bad boys off Mitch threw a spinning sparkler smoke bomb into a plastic bottle. It smoked up and started melting through the plastic so Nick tossed the smoking bottle out the window.

The last stop we pulled up to some school yard and we capped off the bombing with a huge row of crackers wrapping an old light bulb and blew it up. After that we put all the rest of the bottle rockets -like over 100- into a paper bag and set fire to the bag. It ruled (steve note: don't know if it's a guy thing, but blowing shit up still rules).

getting creative, bottlerocket off the shoe.

We made it to the border in good time for the show, but we were pulled over. No problem when they looked through the van, it's good we used all the fireworks. The Girl Named Conspiracy (GNC) dudes were at the show very early, earlier than us, so we chilled with them for a bit (steve note: we knew a few of those GTA dudes from their old band Noteriety, who were an awesome melodic hardcore band. We played with them back in 1999 in Brampton with amongst others Moneen).

The show ruled, best of tour by far, lots of kids, at least 50% girls, and as Mitch said "there were probably 15 girls I'd do and like 4 of then were super hot". I have like 4 bumps/scrapes on my face from the show. GNC and searchingforchin were amazing. Windsor definitely has an awesome scene.

After the show we were tired as shit and hauled ass home, stopping off and some Tim Hortons with GNC. Unloaded when we got home and got to bed at 10am.

not all that uncommon, Mike beatin' on Mitch.

May 18th, 2000

Columbus, Ohio @ Indiana House
w/Usurp Synapse, Jeromes Dream, and Race Bannon

So, yesterday we finally made it to Cinci after like 8 hrs of driving (from Rochester NY), and spending our own money on gas. We got to where the show was supposed to be, only to find 3 kids hanging in this record store telling us that the show was moved down the street. Oh, and they didn't think we were on the bill anymore. Fuck OFF!!! Tweedy may have ran into the street hoping a bus would end it.
The douche bag, Austin, who booked the show didn't bother getting in touch with us and just removed us from the bill. We drove to the new venue, some "hip" coffee shop, pissed as fuck. We find Austin who had his bullshit explanation, and we were like "hey, let us play for 10 minutes, in/out...for no money. We just want to play". The next 30-40 minutes Austin was "trying to figure it out" and we were just hanging out outside the venue hating every fuck we looked at. Austin kept saying "i don't know...not sure...hold on", but finally, with us pushing the issue, he said we could start to set up...quickly. We played 2 songs, fuckin' gave'r hard! Didn't get paid, but we sold some shit, and got a place to stay the night, so that was good (steve note: Austin fucking sucks).

Today was with the same three bands as last night (romulans). We got to Columbus at like 4pm and went to this dude Mike's house. He was cool and we hung out there for a while, and played vids (Mitch was killing it at Tony Hawk). We were fed spaghetti and then went to the show. We hung out with Mike's roommate Seth all night. Great fucking dude.

Not surprisingly this show was sketchy. Nobody in town seemed to know about it, and the first band (not listed above) was set up in the living room, waiting forever for a missing band member to show up. Finally at 9:30pm we set up because the dude never showed.
While we were setting up there was a HUGE crash from outside! I thought it was thunder since it had been raining, blowing and lightning off and on all day. There was all this commotion outside about a tree falling, so we ran out to see what the fuck happened. A massive fuckin' tree, like 2 ft. diameter at the base, just ripped and fell from the strong wind and landed on a jeep that was parked right in front of our van. Crushing it. The tree seriously missed our van by millimeters. The branches were touching the van. It was fucked!

if that landed on our van, we would have been fucked.

30 mins later we played, while firemen were looking around outside, checking the powerlines that the tree ripped down. We sold a CD and got paid $9, which was more than we expected. Usurp Synapse and Jeromes Dream dudes are fucking babies. They were all pissed off before they even played, all sad cause the show sucked. Usurp drummer said to me "it's weird you guys are playing the emo circuit." I said "whatever, we just want to play shows wherever we can". What a douche bag, 'oh, glad we're playing with you too, sorry we stole $3 from your pay'.

Some dude from Cleveland was at the show who looked like Meathead from All in the Family. After the show he told Usurp and Jeromes dudes "you guys are like my favourite bands...If you had played Cleveland it would've been awesome, everybody in Cleveland loves you, there would've been tons of kids, my mom would've made you cookies". Fucking weirdo.

I think my bass head is fucked, check it out in Grand Rapids tomorrow.

mitch and I looking through the brush that surrounded our van

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.

May 8th, 2000

Day Off

Left Delaware and drove south through Maryland and around D.C. We hung out in some shitty mall in Springfield Virginia, then decided to find a beach somewhere.

We ended up in North Beach Maryland, where we saw tough ass blue collar dudes fishing off the pier. We swam for a bit, but not too long before we were ready to split and find a motel. Also, not too long before some stupid shit went down.

Not sure how it all started cause Matias pantsed me in front of some kids, but apparently some bratty girl was making fun of us (steve note: cause of the pantsing?) and some fairy boy called the girl a bitch (steve note: i seem to remember Matias telling some girl to fuck off). So, at this point we were just hanging out by our van on a boardwalk, when these two degenerates -Nico and Tater- approached us, wanting to fight cause the brat girls' older sister was Tater's girlfriend. Evidently we were ratted out as the ones calling kids bitches.

They told us they were "kicking us off their pier". Cool, whatever, we were leaving anyways. Nico then goes up to Nick, who's just sitting on the boardwalk drinking a bottle of juice, and says "you like your drink huh?" and picks up Mike's empty bottle off the ground and tosses it acting like he just threw the bottle that Nick was holding. Retards. They then tried spitting on Matias and Mike, missing them both and Tater pushed Nick into the van so we could leave quicker.

By this point the rest of us were in the van and Tweedy was trying to start the sketchy thing. Two girls started talking with us. Nico and Tater interrupted our shmoozing with "I thought we told you to leave" and poked (yes poked) me and whoever else in the head. The porch of shirtless dudes with dogs across the street was intimidating enough for us to loudly chugg out of that white trash beach town with our ball sacs empty.

We were pissed. Tweedy was so pissed he forgot where we were and gave the finger to a car that cut us off (barely) that happened to be full of D.C. thugs who actually looked like murderers. We checked into the Virginia Lodge Motel in Alexandria Virginia and watched Friday the 13th Part III.

North Beach 15 minutes before meeting Nico and Tater