(Live From the Overnight) The Itch

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A few weeks ago I started working as a counselor at a drug and alcohol inpatient rehab center. Since the guy that usually does the overnight shift (midnight – 8am) is laid up in the hospital, they’ve been asking me to help cover. I don’t mind doing it. By the time I get here the patients are already in bed so the only thing I really have to do is sit here and be available in case anybody wakes up needing something. I hang out until 6am when the patients wake up, do 2 hours of work, then go home and go to bed. That has left me with 6 hours a night to just sit so I’ll typically sit down with a book and read until my eyes cross (usually around 3 or 4) and then write until the patients wake up.

So far it has been a really good setup for me. I don’t know if I mentioned this anywhere on this blog before but almost everything of value I’ve ever written has been penned between the hours of 2 and 5am. It’s the time when, if I’m awake, my brain is only partially on. All of my defenses start to melt away; partly because I’m too exhausted to be on guard and partly because in the back of my mind I know that there’s nobody around that I really have to worry about walking in and disturbing me. I can really get into the zone and be honest. Here, I’m awake, pen in hand, during those prime hours night after night and I’ve dedicated a special section in my notebook to things that I’ve written while here that I’ve been referring to simply as ‘ Tales From the Overnight’. I decided this morning that I’d like to extend that to this blog. So here I am. Live From the Overnight.

So like I said, I’m working as a drug/alcohol counselor. When I’m here during the day I’m spending a lot of time listening to people talk about their lives and the role that alcohol and other drugs have played in their lives. When I’m here in the middle of the night I spend a lot of my time reading on the topic of alcoholism, drug use, common patterns, and treatment issues. Last night I had my nose buried in the NA (Narcotics Anonymous) book I was given, reading over the personal stories that make up more than half of the book, when I came across something that really started my brain running in circles. I was reading a story about a woman who was talking about her feelings of inadequacy and inferiority and how she never felt quite right. She was talking about her chaotic and unmanageable life and the frustration that comes with being unable to identify or express feelings. She talked about getting deeper and deeper into the drugs and finally reached a point of desperation. And then she said something that struck me in a really soft and familiar spot, “I tried the geographic cure six times.” I immediately thought of ‘the itch’.

The Itch. If you’ve been in a band for a while or if you’re friends with anyone who’s been in a band for a while you’ve certainly come across this term. I’ve uttered it myself more times than I can count. It always comes up in conversation with my friends who are in bands:

Me: “You guys haven’t toured in a while. You thinking about calling it quits?”

Him: “ I don’t know. Things have been really up in the air lately with us. I need to get it figured out soon though. I’ve got the itch in a major way.”

I can’t count the number of conversations where I’ll kiddingly ask a friend when he/she is going to hang up this hardcore band stuff and become a real person only to have that person say that they get it in their heads to settle down every once in a while but won’t because they know if they are in one place for too long they will get the itch. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve explained that I make it a point to get jobs that I can easily walk away from because I know that even though I don’t have the itch, it never stays gone for long. This thing, this itch, is powerful. It’s a big deal. Most people that I am close to have been influenced by it but we rarely sit down to try to figure out what it is, where it came from, or what it’s about. We just follow its lead. But what is it really?

Simply put, the itch is the need to escape. Hardcore kids and nomads call it the itch. Drunks call it being thirsty. Druggers call it a jones. It’s all essentially the same thing: Reality has become overwhelming and, without the proper tools to deal with it, we climb into a bottle, or a syringe, or a van and take off into lala land. Of course tour is a good time and it’s liberating and it’s an adventure and I would never try to make it seem like it wasn’t. But underlying that stuff is something else; something scared and desperate.

Over the course of 5 years and 3 vans I’ve put myself through hungry, dirty, broke, lonely hell. And I’ve got plans to continue putting myself through that. When I come home from tour and talk to anybody who isn’t in the know about hardcore they ask how it was and I tell them it was fun. They ask if I’m making money playing in the band and I say no. They ask if it’s about the girls and I tell them that for the most part there are no girls. They ask if I’ll remember them when I’m on MTV and I tell them that we will never be on MTV and don’t want to be on MTV. Then the puzzled look comes. They examine my face and kind of look off into nothing. Usually the subject is changed but every so often some curious soul will ask that famous question, “So there’s no money in it, you’re not really appealing to the masses, you come home broke and looking like you got hit by a truck. Why are you doing it?” I always think the person asking me that question is such an ignorant asshole. In my own head I get so angry and frustrated. How could they not get it? They must be so wrapped up in their boring jobs and their stupid wasted fucking lives sitting in front of the God damned TV to notice that there’s a whole world outside of their little bubble just waiting to be explored. They’re so busy settling for what’s easy that they never cared to challenge themselves to go broke and hungry and see where their limits are. I’m always polite though. I’ll either tell them it’s about living while I’m young or smile and tell them that I know it’s stupid but it’s what I like to do.

Sitting here at 3am with my defenses shut down I can tell you the point blank truth that I put myself through that because I’m terrified of what will happen if I sit still for too long. I get in that van and torture myself because losing it in the van when you’re crammed into a tight space, broke, hungry, and dealing with other people’s shit it’s justified. When I lose it at home I have to admit that it’s just because I’m a basket case. I get on that plane or in that van and zap myself to what might as well be outer space because I’m trying to buy myself just a little more time before I have to sit down and figure out what I am, what I want, and what I’m going to do. I leave town because tour is a make believe play land where I can pretend that I’m somebody I’m not for a little while. Eventually though I have to come home and deal with that little bout of depression that we all get when something like that ends as I try to figure out the new what next. I have to think about who I am, what I want, and what I’ll do about it. I’ll figure something out for a while (like this job that is conveniently per diem) but eventually I return to being desperately dissatisfied with my life, get the itch, and repeat the cycle.

It’s funny how much this feels like drinking to me. I’ve got this image burned into my head of sitting at my neighborhood coffee shop the morning after we got home from this last tour and just wondering what the fuck just happened. I said in an earlier post that I felt like the two weeks of tour that had come previous felt like a total blur; as if the time between leaving and coming home were a section of a movie that had been cut out with the remaining parts being spliced back together. I sat and I tried to piece together what had just happened in much the same way that I used to wake up in the afternoon on a Saturday and try to figure out what the fuck I had done the night before while I was blackout drunk. I don’t want to feel that way. I love the rush but I can’t stand feeling like I’m running. So for the last few months I’ve been trying something different. I’ve been trying to stay still and be ok with the possibility of staying here. I’ve been entertaining the notion that the proverbial voice from above that I’ve been hoping to find might have been waiting for me back at home this whole time. And maybe if I could shut the fuck up and listen for long enough, I could hear what it’s saying.

I was sitting and talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about traveling. She’s been moving around a lot over the last few years and intends to keep jumping around. She asked me what I want to do and where I think I’ll go and I told her I’m planning on staying in Syracuse for a while. She looked at me the way I looked at every asshole who ever asked me why I would want to continue touring in my stupid little hardcore band: Confused, perplexed and with a hint of disgust. She forced out a “if that’s what’s good for you then do it”. I let the conversation die there. It’s hard to continue at that point. I used to try but at some point I realized that every drunk has to find his own bottom and every lost soul has to find his own God. At this point, in MY life, I’m realizing that I’m not going to find God until I sit still. My God is in the crippling silence that I’ve spent my whole life filling with as many distractions as I can possibly muster. My God lives in Syracuse and unless I can stay here for long enough to develop some sort of relationship with it, we’re never going to get a chance to speak to one another. In the meantime, while I’m sitting and waiting, I have to feel all of those things I’ve been running from for the longest time: the sadness, the emptiness, the feeling like I don’t belong anywhere. Most of all I have to learn to live with myself. We all do. And I know for a lot of us it’s one of the hardest possible things to do. But it’s necessary on this journey, whatever it is.

I’m going to close this one up with the lyrics to a song of total desperation. It’s been playing in my head as I’ve been thinking about this itch and even though it took me 3 years I think I finally figured out what it’s all about.

JAILBREAK

Driving west. Burning daylight and gasoline. I know now what we're running from. I know why we scream. Fleeing fate, growing up, getting old. As if by running we won't have to get on with our lives. Lives that we don't want. Tried and tested failures. Production line suicide. Just like all the dead that came before us. We've been lied to. Things will never be ok. So I'm running away. I'm running away from everything. You can have it all. It means nothing to me. I'm running away from nothing. It's the nothingness in life that scares me to death. I'm choking in this town. Dying. Getting closer ever day. We're running away from stagnation and pain. We want more than wasting time waiting for something that will never come. We want more than your dead end living. We want more than your broken dreams. We want more than living because dying is the only other choice.

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We ain't never gonna be as young as we is tonight

I got an email from a friend the other day that's sort of transported me to a familiar place in my head. The basic gist was that he just had a birthday, was growing up, and was facing the realization that he had to do something with his life. Today I'm thinking about it and thinking about it and I really just want to write.

As I read this letter and reread it I connected with what I think was the real underlying problem: Growing up and becoming an adult means not being a kid anymore. It's like you go through all of these awkward years of trying to figure out who the hell you are and where you fit and then around 18 or 19 or 20, even though you don't necessarily have everything figured out and you're still a complete trainwreck, you at least have learned to enjoy yourself. You at least have a couple of people in your life that you can call friends. You have things that you enjoy. And just when it seems like everything is coming together; when you finally feel like you have a place where you can belong and feel comfortable, it all falls apart. People move away and get jobs, friends get girlfriends or boyfriends and suddenly fall off the face of the planet, end up having kids. All of that fun and excitement fades away as fast as a summer vacation. Except at some point summer vacation ends for good.

I remember the end of summer vacation when I was in highschool. To me it was the worst thing ever. Then 3 days before school the phone would ring. It would be a friend telling me that a water main had burst and school wouldn't be able to start for another week. Every year it was the same thing and every year I let myself believe it for a few minutes before my sensibilities took over and I had to face the fact that it was time for school to start.

Now that I'm 25 I look at my life and I realize that everything I've done since highschool has been a swing of the sledgehammer aimed at that proverbial water main. College, Grad School, and especially being in a hardcore band have all been things that, in my mind, have just been tools to put off this growing up business. It's not so much that I care about being an adult. I can handle having a job. I can deal with responsibility. What I can't deal with is becoming that guy that wants nothing more than to sit on the couch with a beer and a remote in his hand every evening. I can't deal with the fact that if I come back from a weekend of shows with my voice shot to hell from screaming I'm not going to be able to do my job well. I can't deal with the possibility that after a week of working I might be too tired to go out street luging with my friends.

My life as it is has adventure and romance and danger. These things get me out of bed in the morning. I'm already scared of the day when those things will have seemingly disappeared. I know what happens when you grow up. I know that, no matter what you do, these things do not stick around forever. So if I'm scared about it being taken away, why on Earth would I voluntarily give it up?

.....

I'm writing this and realizing that I'm at the same crossroads I was at when Mill City was written. That was almost 4 years ago. I've been swinging this hammer for so long. And now, after a week of sitting around in my sweatpants and not leaving the house for more than an hour at a time, I'm wondering what price I'm paying.


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Where do you get your inspiration?

It's been a while since I've typed words into this familiar little box. Every so often I'll get an idea for something to write about but it's never anything I care about so I let it go. I have to remind myself that it doesn't matter if I don't update this. I have to remind myself that I'm writing in this for my own sake and I just happen to have you looking over my shoulder. I have to remember to do this for myself because if I do it for you it will become watered down garbage. It's like anything isn't it? If you do something for the sake of doing it or because you're expected to, it just loses any sort of passion. It becomes routine. It lacks substance.

I used to prepare like 2 or 3 little speeches for every set we did. Or at least I'd make it a point to talk during the long breaks that were marked by a line on our setlist. After a while it just became routine. I wasn't talking because I had anything earth shattering to say. I was talking because there was a break in the set. It became a schtick. We became a band that "had things to say" regardless of whether those things were pertinent in any way. Well that's just pointless. So at some point instead of talking for the sake of talking I started to just let it ride. It was weird but it was better than talking to fill the dead space. I've been doing the same thing with this. Because I want to be the kind of person that says something when there's something to be said and who doesn't when there isn't.

So I've set this one up pretty well. I haven't been blogging (hate that word) because I haven't had anything to say. But I'm back. That must mean I'm going to say something pertinent or intelligent or important, right? Yeah. Not so much. I'm sitting in front of this computer because I have NOTHING to say and I'm hoping that writing about it will ease some of my frustration, help me find the inspiration that I was overflowing with a month ago, and help me get my second wind. So I'm going to talk about the concept of the record and what the songs are about and what I'm trying to do. This post is going to be like cliff notes to the new Another Breath record. If you don't want the surprise or whatever to be ruined don't read it. Here we go.

Fun Fact: This entire God Complex concept came from me misinterpreting the lyrics on a Songs: Ohia record (It's called Ghost Tropic and I just put it on because it's been a while). The opening lyrics to that record are "Still no Guides" and the first time I put the record on I heard "still no God". I thought that was so fucking powerful. Then I found out that I had misheard it so I immediately decided that the next record we did would have "Still no God" as the opening lyrics. So right off the bat I had that. I wanted to write a song about religion and about God and try to put into words the way I felt when I first thought I heard those words on that record.

I think we had just put out Mill City and I just wasn't happy with how that record came out lyrically. I mean the songs on their own were good and I was happy but I didn't like the record as a whole. I felt that it would have been better as a single piece of art if every song stuck to the central theme of relationship with place and dealing with depression and my relationship with my home as a glaring metaphor for my relationship with myself. Instead it ended up being a concept record with these little "commercials" breaking it up. We'd have a couple of songs that had to do with the record and then one or two that really didn't relate at all. To be honest I really don't think anybody gave a shit but to me it was really important. I felt that we could have done better and I decided that whatever we recorded next would do a better job at what we tried to do with Mill City. It would be a concept driven record but it would be no-bullshit. It would tell a story. Each song would follow in logical order and relate to the one before it. Each song would add a new dimension to what was happening. And at the same time, for people who bought a hardcore record with no intentions of getting into a literary review, every song would be able to stand on it's own and have something to say. The songs would be good but for those who cared to look a little deeper the whole would be greater than the sum of it's parts. I wanted to write a record that could be experienced in completely different ways by different people and at the same time I didn't want anybody to know that so much effort had been put into making it that way (looks like the cat is out of the bag).

So I knew I wanted to have a religious element to this record. I knew I wanted it to be a concept record that could read like a novel. Then I sat down and watched Magnolia and everything fell into place. At one part during that movie a part of Exodus was quoted and the basic concept of the record was written. The quote, "The sins of the fathers laid upon the children," got me thinking about this record and about God and about the multiple meanings of the word Father in a religious context and suddenly everything just started coming together.

The basic thought process I had is how I want(ed) the record to follow. Intially it's a straight forward rejection of Christianity. I rebelled hard against the church when I was younger. I mentioned before that I went to Catholic school and made a decision to drop out. I have plenty of qualms with that particular institution and am not at a loss for words when it comes to slamming it. I got thinking about that in the context of this record and I started thinking about how my disdain for organized religion seems to relate to the fact that I just can't stand authority in general. This God motherfucker is just a different kind of cop or principal or (insert dickhead with title here). Fuck the Holy Father.... oh. I seem to remember a scene from fight club that's burned in my memory....

Tyler Durden: Shut up! Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God?
Narrator: No, no, I... don't... 
Tyler Durden: Listen to me! You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen.
 Narrator: It isn't? 
Tyler Durden: We don't need him!

Suddenly this was a record about my father. It starts at the surface with disdain for religon, moves to authority, and at some point a discovery is made that we've been talking about my old man all along. And with this discovery we can then go back and relisten to or reread those first few songs and they can suddenly mean something completely different.

The rest of the record, strangely enough, reverts back to religion and a search for meaning. When my Dad fails (and subsequently God fails with him) how do I cope with this new feeling of meaningless, abandonment, and isolation? How do I cope with the discovery that this idea of God is just an illusion? How do I cope with the fact that my own Father is, in reality, just a guy who fucked a woman who would later become my mother? There are no superpowers. There is no magic. And everything I ever believed about God, about my parents, about anything, is just an elaborate hoax.

So in a nutshell that's what the record is about... or will hopefully end up saying. The idea is that, to steal a line from Sage Francis (that I will almost definitely incorporate into the lyrics in some way), I don't have a God complex, you have a simple God.

I'm feeling energized after writing this. I think I need to pick up a pen and see how stirred my inspiration is. Thanks for reading.

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What the fuck just happened?

We're home from tour and I'm in a familiar haze as I try to figure out what the hell just happened in my life. On tour time plays tricks. Time stands still. Days pass without anyone noticing. Watches are useless. Time isn't told by numbers... but by cities.

"Scotty you stink. When was the last time you took a shower?"

"Fargo?"

I can't speak for anyone else but I really feel like I wake up as a different person after a couple of days on the road. My perspective on reality becomes skewed. I start to lose the ability to care about anything but the 40 minutes or so that we spend playing each night. Reality fades away and my cellphone becomes this weird portal into the "real world" that seems light years behind me.

Every day we show up and treat Indianapolis or Berkeley or Dublin or wherever like home. We get comfortable. We make friends. We act like we've been living their our whole lives. We are experts at making ourselves feel at home. Sometimes I forget how weird it is that we immediately start rifling through cupboards and closets to find pots and pans to cook with when we show up to houses of people that until that night were perfect strangers. To us it's normal. In our minds we're home. Every night we lay down roots and every morning we leave for a new home to lay roots in. On tour you live a new life every day. On tour you learn to love something intensely for a night... or a moment... and be so removed from it by the next day that you forget that the stories people are telling you are about things that you witnessed or took part in.

Every day my only real home is a van that I share with 4 people who entertain themselves by trying to pressing my buttons while I do the same to them. Every day my life is an acting out of the party game where you ask people "if you had to live on an island for the rest of your life and could only bring 3 things what would they be?" except my island has 4 wheels and I've traded in my "3 items" for "whatever I can fit in this backpack". The 4 stinky dudes come free with the island of course. You learn a lot about people by what they choose to stuff into that backpack. For me it's lots of blank paper, pens, books, and dry underwear. For Mayo it's a tech deck skateboard, a pair of pants, a copy of devil may cry 2 (in case we stay somewhere with a playstation), and a pair of skin tight shorts that have a little pp screen printed on them. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that your best friends are your worst enemies at the same time and you have to live on whatever your "bare essentials" are. It's all a twisted game.

The whole thing is a total mindfuck. For the first couple of days your body struggles to adjust. But once you're in it's just a mental game. It's like running. That first half mile sucks but when you hit your stride you get into the zone and you can run forever if you know how to talk to yourself. The shows are the pavement. Some shows are great. Fresh asphalt. Flat as a pancake. Some shows are terrible. Cracked sidewalks. Potholes. The good ones make it easy and the bad ones test your mental resilience. That's not even mentioning shit like having your van broken into, getting stuck at borders, breaking down. And on top of that, the whole thing is a team race. You've got your buddies running right next to you with just as much potential to pull you down as you have to pick them up (and vice versa).

It's like anything though. You adapt. If you want to do it you will figure out how to do it. We all did. But then you get to where I am right now and just goes up in smoke. I'm home and I don't know what to do with myself. I felt guilty for sleeping in my own bed last night. I met friends for various things today and I felt like the time between the last time I had seen them and now had been cut out and the reel had been spliced back together. Like there are two weeks just missing. I can remember everything that happened but it's this weird blur where days run into each other and I'm not sure I ever even left Syracuse. And this one was only two weeks. This messes with my head. The 5+ week jobbers are breeding grounds for insanity. Coming home from those is hard and it usually takes me a night or two of sleeping on my floor or a couch before I can get into my own bed again.



So I don't know where I was going with this except to say that being home is weird. I don't have much to say about the last few shows except for that our friends in Wasteland shredded, I froze my ass off camping in Vermont, and seeing friends in Burlington/ playing with Ceremony was awesome.

Our hometown made us feel lucky to be from here the other night. Tour was incredible but it still felt so great to be home. Nothing out of town will ever be able to touch what happens when we play the Westcott. I like knowing that the show last night was that much sweeter because we had been on the road for the two weeks prior. How the water in an Oasis tastes so much better than even the fanciest bottled water you can buy at the grocery store... because you had to do some work to get there.

Alright kids, this old man is going to try to get some sleep whilst trying to hang onto the feeling of total bliss that comes from something like sleeping in my own bed after two weeks of hard floors and tight squeezes. It will fade eventually just like it always does. I swear one of these days I will figure out how to stay there.





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Good art is born from the courage to fail

Nothing really off-the-wall has happened in the last few days. It's just been a laid back good time with old friends. Sorry if this one is boring, it's more of a recap for my own sake. If you don't give a shit about what we do on tour I'm going to invite you to skip this one because it's just not that interesting.

Richmond was fucking awesome. We played a sweet bar called The Empire that I cant find a link for but that you should make an effort to find if you're ever in Richmond.

A little back story - 4 years ago when we first played Richmond our van broke down in the driveway of Hell House. We spent 3 or 4 days there tearing the engine apart and in the meantime got to know a handful of really good Richmond kids. We've kept in touch over the past few years with bands such as Tomorrow the Gallows, Landmines, and the various incestuous projects that spawned those bands.

By the time things got rolling at the Empire I felt like I was at a party at home. I knew half the people there, tall boys of PBR were stacked to the ceiling, and it was just a great mood overall. We played to a room full of people that I'm sure were only there to hang out and had no idea who we were but people slowly came over and by the 3rd song the whole bar was on the same page and we were having a good time. We went and stayed with good kids and left town before the insanity of best friends day set in.

The next day was Baltimore. I was so psyched to go to Baltimore to play a show with Ruiner and hang out with those dudes for a couple of days. We showed up and basically fucked around at the broasis for a few hours while we waited for things to get started. The show was decent but there was something in the air that seemed to keep everyone's feet planted to the floor. I just figured that people weren't into us but it was a little tame during most of Ruiner's set too. Still a good time with good people. Chuck and Kelley showed up which was awesome. I laid next to train tracks as a freight train passed by a few inches away which was awesome. I went back to Steve's house and slept in his bed with him which was awesome.

When we woke up we watched a few episodes of I shouldn't be alive and then got on our way to Championship Records in Lemoyne. We met up with Ruiner there and took a trip to Sheetz which, for those of you who don't know, is a gas station where you can order gross cheeseburgers from touchscreen menus at the gas pumps. We discussed a future Another Breath/ Ruiner tour and swapped tour stories about people shitting their pants before returning to Champ. We played the show and then took the best group band picture I've ever been a part of. We parted ways with Ruiner and made an overnight drive to NYC where we crashed with our friend Brad Stevens.

We had a day off in NYC that basically involved us sitting around at the shop where Brad works all day, eating Red Bamboo, and waiting until later that night. The reason we took our day off in New York was because Rancid and Madball were playing that night and we had tickets. We eventually made our way to the concert which, in my opinion, was lackluster at best. I know Scotty and Steve were ecstatic to see Rancid and were psyched to see all of those songs live but I couldn't get into it. Madball has never been my thing but they played well. I was really surprised to see the less than stellar reaction they were getting in their hometown. I have to give it to Freddy though for keeping up the energy throughout their set. Those dudes were out of their element at that show - playing to a bunch of kids that were there to see Rancid and crowd surf. When Rancid played I thought it was pretty weak too. I didn't really connect or feel excited. I was just kind of there watching a band play. It was also kind of lame that Tim Armstrong was running around the stage with his big guitar and randomly strumming it when I'm not even sure if it was plugged in. Lars carried the show. He played his ass off. Matt Freeman also played an excellent show which included an extended solo on Maxwell Murder which was my personal highlight and got me excited for a minute. After the show we went to this little hot dog place which was good on its own... but the clincher was the phone booth. You could walk into the booth and pick up the phone and the voice on the other end would ask if you had made reservations. If you did, a secret door would open up and you could go into the secret hot dog bar/restaurant/whatever it was back there. Our friend told us about it when we first got there and we called her a liar. But then we started seeing nicely dressed people walking out of the phone booth. I want to go back there.

We left NYC yesterday and made our way to Providence to play a show with Tabernackle, I Rise, Wasteland, and Soul Control. The show was fucking awesome. Our friend Rory hosted it at the Easy Axxess house and it was just an overall good time. I don't know what else to say.

Somewhere in the last few days Jon and I had a conversation about what it is that makes music good. Like what is it about The Suicide File that just rocks me? What is it about the millions of bands that sound just like The Suicide File that makes them suck? I had originally intended to write a pretty lengthy entry about that but my brain is fried and I can't make sense of it right now. I'm sure something will come to me in the next few days. For now I think I'm just going to go eat a burrito.


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Dear Kentucky

Dear Kentucky,

I'm sorry I didn't hang out last night. I'm sorry I sat in the van before the show, played with little to no energy, and then immediately went back to the van when we were done playing. See, it's not you, it's me. I blew out my voice in Indianapolis because I got a bit too excited. Before and after the show I was more or less hiding to avoid talking. While we were playing I was frustrated that no matter how hard I pushed I couldn't make the right sounds come out and instead could just feel myself grinding on my throat more and more. By the end I physically could not talk. I guess my body just wasn't made for screaming night after night. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I wasn't trying to be a bitch or to be standoffish because the turnout wasn't so hot. I hope I didn't offend you. I'm pretty bummed I missed out on what sounded like a good hangout.

Yesterday was a pretty uneventful day. We sat around for a few hours before driving to Louisville. Once we got into town we drove to the venue and Jon was greeted by the promoter of the show who told him that two of the bands weren't coming and, because of some issues with other shows that had happened earlier this week, he wasn't sure if any kids were coming either. We were kind of bummed out on that. We've gone back to Louisville a few times in hopes that we would have a decent show there and it looked like this one was going to flop (if it even happened at all). We decided to hang out for a half an hour to see if anyone showed up and if there were no signs of life we were just going to call it a day off, let my voice heal up a little bit, and head out to Richmond. After a few minutes there were a dozen or so kids out on the sidewalk and we decided to make a go of it .

I got out of the van just in time to see a drunk man on a bicycle with a cocktail in his right hand yelling at some children about blocking his sidewalk with their bikes.

Him, "I pay taxes to my Government so I can have a clear sidewalk. Get out of my way."

I interject, "Your government says that you need to ride your bike on the road."

Him, "My government says I do what I want. And you're a liar."

The man proceeds to ride toward the bikes and yell to the children to get out of the way.

Him, "You get out of my way. My bike is bigger than yours and I do what I want."

Children, "Shut the fuck up you old ass asshole."

The man honks the horn on his bike several times before maneuvering past the kids, saying "fuck you", and riding off into the sunset.

The show started. It was a local band and then us. We played mostly new songs because we like them and a handful of old songs for the kids who actually showed up to see us. It would be a real dick in the face if we played for the first time in two years and didn't play a single old song. I was glad to play those new ones though.


After the show, everyone went to Qudoba to get burritos with the local kids while my broke ass sat in the van and did some writing. Apparently I missed a lively conversation which included discussion of "possum kicking" and a newscaster that once piked up a cicada and ate it. We left Kentucky and drove all night to Richmond. Jon and I went and had a PBR at Empire and we've all been sleeping all day since then.


My voice is still fucked and it's bumming me out. I talk more than anybody I know. When I can't talk I don't know what to do with myself. I've been trying to be real easy on myself and I've caught myself being really removed and just withdrawing from people all together. It sucks to not be able to communicate. It sucks to know that at least for the next couple of nights I'll be playing with a broken instrument. But I'm still psyched to be on tour. I'm psyched to be spending time with my friends. I'm really psyched that there are such awesome kids in every town we hit up.

Tonight and tomorrow are going to be party nights. Our friends from Richmond will accept nothing less than pure rage tonight. Tomorrow night our friends from Syracuse are coming to Baltimore and we're going to go apeshit. I'm so psyched. Time for some food. Later blogger buddies.


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You just got buttered - the Haggerty way.

Dear God,

Thank you for Iowa. I never knew such a wonderful place could exist in the middle of plains and cornfields. Thank you for the birthplace of Shawn "Special Sauce" Johnson and her gravity-defying gymnastic prowess which she has used to bring pride and glory to America.

Anyway, here's a quick rundown of what we've been up to.

Fargo ended up being a lot of fun. It was kind of a weird combined show with bands of genres I cannot define but the kids that hooked us up there are fucking incredible. It's so awesome to see kids in really remote places working hard to make something happen instead of sitting around in a field or a parking lot getting drunk. Those 5-10 kids will put Fargo on the map.

After Fargo we had a day off so we screwed off there for a while and showed up at Treasure Island in Cedar Falls, Iowa just in time to see our friend Ben running around like a lunatic with an American flag tied around his neck like a cape as he watched Olympic gymnastics. The night didn't get too insane but listening to Ben yell about how his girl Special Sauce was from Iowa was just fantastic. The next day involved us waking up at the crack of noon so Ben could take us to a place called The Falls which was a 5 dollar water park where we jumped off of high diving boards, rode on water slides, took a cruise in a lazy river, got sunburned, and didn't talk to a single cute girl.

The Waterloo, Iowa show was so good. We played the last show ever in the basement of a house occupied by a band called Take Control. The basement was fucking great and we played with a bunch of bands that ruled to a bunch of kids that actually WANTED to be there. I'm having trouble finding everyone's internetz but I want to give a couple of quick shout outs, first to a band called Just Do It that's pretty damn good. I was shocked to find that they were a newer band. I'm also hoping kids find out about the band that played before us called Lighten Up. They are from Philadelphia and it shows in their song writing and their playing. Think Paint it Black, Kid Dynamite, Lifetime, etc. I loved this band. They have a new record coming out so keep an eye out.

After the show I had a conversation with some of the kids there about how living in the midwest sucks because so many bands tend to skip over it to go to the coast (Funny enough, I read an interview by a band a few hours later talking about how the midwest was kind of a black hole for hardcore bands and the smart bands try to skip it all together). I told them that we've talked a bunch about doing tours where we skip the midwest and on our last couple of tours we've been so thankful that we never followed through with that. Simply put, our stay in the midwest has been incredible. The shows aren't huge. We're not making cash hand over fist (although kids have been buying a ton of merch from us). But we're having the time of our lives. The simple fact is that kids out here give a shit. It's just like Fargo in that they really don't have a whole lot beside cornfields. They don't have a million shows like kids from bigger cities and that means that they don't take bands coming through for granted like kids in some other cities do. I'm saying that simply to let bands know that there is life in the midwest. There are shows to play. There are kids sporting a new style called the Haggard Mosh. Go check it out. You won't regret it.

So back to the rundown - we were riding high after Iowa. I considered quitting Another Breath and leaving the tour so I could stay in Iowa. But we got in the van and headed for Indianapolis. I have to admit I was worried. It's easy on tour to be built up by a good show and then show up to a new city where kids don't give a shit and suddenly you fall right back down to earth. I was getting ready to eat some shit ... but I'll be damned if the midwest didn't come through again. The house show in Indianapolis was a riot. The show was diverse. The bands were talented. Everyone was in a good mood. Post Collapse brought a huge smile to my face with good music played tightly. Then a band called Away With Vega played and really surprised me. They weren't a hardcore band. They played a more rock style. They were really good. And kids watched them. I love shows where every band doesn't sound the same. I like it even more when those shows actually work out. We did a tour with Engineer a few years ago and nobody seemed to be able to get down with the different styles. It was either our show or their show. Rarely could kids get outside of their little fashion genre box and appreciate something different. As much as that sucked, this show was awesome and made me think that maybe people are starting to appreciate music instead of just hardcore or a strict version of what hardcore is.

After the show we played a lot of CLO. Kids in Indianapolis love to roll dice. Two years ago we showed up and got everyone rolling at our merch table. This year a handful of kids were so excited that we were back and some bought new dice just for the occasion. I'd like to believe we're responsible for the gambling problems that were clearly displayed by the local youth last night.


Bottom Line: Tour is awesome. Being in a minivan with my friends has turned out to be a riot. Seeing old friends like Sandye along the way (who I might add just came out with a new edition of her zine) has been great. I can't wait for it to continue. Psyched to see the dudes in Smoke or Fire, play with Ruiner for a couple days, play a few shows with Ceremony, and continue the general debauchery.


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