wewerenevergold.com

June 22nd - St Louis to Chicago

@ The Moving Castle

Mountain Man

Beartrap

The New Yorker

Dastard

Xerxes

Proles

We pick up now where I am buying Horny Goat Weed at a Flying J somewhere in Illinois at about 2 AM. I had heard the myths and legends, but never seen the horniness for myself. Needless to say, I already knew the four quarters I had to drop to get it would be well worth it. So for the rest of the day I was getting stoked with Horny Goat Weed in my pocket.

After Will's turn driving was over, my turn at shotgun was over too, so I moved back to the nook between the backseat and door to sleep. When I woke up we were arriving in Chicago as the sun rose and the skyline was caught in that bluish red sunrise haze. Traffic is one thing I will never get used to, and I can tell already that when we are entering NYC I'll be shitting myself with pure terror. I've always been scared of crashing.

We got to the Moving Castle at about four or five and went straight to bed after Christine let us in. Me and Evan took this strange room in the back of the basement that was just big enough to fit a mattress in and the others slept on the ground on a rug. The room may have smelled slightly like cat urine.

I was obviously the first one up, and I want upstairs to hang out in my boxers for a bit. There was dumpstered ice cream around and so I broke my vegan edge for the first and last time of this tour. I've been thinking about keeping with it even after tour, just in the interest of staying healthy. Me and James are doing it for the entire three weeks though and he would probably be disappointed to find out I ate the ice cream since I have been keeping it a secret.

We had identified a problem within our ranks and it was that with a ll this summer heat, we had been getting too sweaty and wiping our foreheads with our shirts wasn't working. So, to fix this problem, we set out for a dollar store near the Castle. Our search led us to a CVS, Walgreens that both didn't deliver on the goods, and finally a Family Dollar with brightly colored hand towels for the entire family. This whole search on the streets of Chicago may have taken us about two hours just for the hand towels. That I'm not sure if anyone has used.

We returned to the Moving Castle to find our pal Olive had made some sweet limeade. We cooled off at the house for a while before returning to the task of exploring the city.

Since we were in Wicker Park, we took a little trip to Reckless Records and the surrounding area. At this point I still hadn't eaten anything and the Jimmy Johns across the street at one point was calling my name. Of course, I would rather go hungry than spend money, so we ended up wandering in the sun for a pretty long time without making any pit stop. Somehow, none of us got sunburned.

We got back to the house in time to get some delicious spaghetti and garlic bread. A meal fit for kings of the Castle. Soon, Beartrap and Mountain Man showed up and ate some sketti of their own. After about five bowls, I was finally satisfied.

It was an especially sweaty set and I completely sweat through Maddey's shirt that I stole. The New Yorker killed it and we hope to be hanging with them over a weekend or so in the future. Beartrap and Mountain Man both sounded better than St. Louis, I think the acoustics of the Fubar might have been a little weird the night before. Overall, it was a fun show and its been nice to be getting positive feedback lately.

During the show, I took the Horny Goat Weed in hopes that something cool would happen. I even leaned up against the wall during Beartrap's set in hopes that the vibration from Mickey's disgusting bass tone might have some effect, but honestly it was a total let down. I felt no more horny than usual.

After the music was over, we had a good time hanging with our pals on the road as well as some dudes from The New Yorker. Tomorrow is our last of three dates with Mountain Man and Beartrap and I can't wait to see those dudes when we roll into Boston.

Jesse and Mickey hung out especially after everyone had left and we had some fucking cool conversations in the kitchen. It was at this point that I was trying to convince everyone to wake up at 6:30 the next morning so we could get to Grand Rapids in time to watch the USA - Algeria game. Everyone (kind of) agreed and so this morning I tried to wake everyone up and was met with some really cool opposition. Eventually we were on the road out of Chicago at seven though. Luckily, with the time difference I didn't take into account, we'll be missing the entire first hour of the game.

Actually luckily though, is the fact that our pal Ciara in Grand Rapids has planned to make us a sweet vegan breakfast when we get there, so its not all bad.

Right now, we are driving through some pretty serious wind and storm clouds in northern Indiana and have a little ways to go to get to Grand Rapids. I am maybe the hungriest man alive and can't wait to get some breakfast.

Chicago, especially Christine, thanks for a sweet show and a good time.

Love,

Calvin/Zerk

June 21st - Louisville to St. Louis

@ Fubar

Bear Trap

Mountain Man

Xerxes

Widowmaker

At about noon, we all set off in Ol' Blue to get to St. Louis. Since Max had had such a catastrophe during Mountain Asleep tour (as well as probable other reasons), he ended up deciding to stay home in Louisville for the next three weeks instead of being number one road dog millionaire, so most of the first hours of conversation were spent contemplating kidnapping him to forcefully spend a couple weeks in a van with us.

The drive was mostly uneventful. James sat in his usual drivers seat position in only his boxers for the entire five hours, so his entire left thigh is now terribly sunburnt, and we made a sign to solicit young females to expose their breasts to us on the highway, but to no avail.

We got to St. Louis around four Central time, so we had a couple hours to kill before the show, which we understood would be starting at nine. Our first stop was to refill the gas tank, which we searched for the nearest station that wasn't a BP (in this case an Amoco), but the gas station we thought would be an Amoco turned out to be a property taken over by BP, which left us with no choice but to donate to the earth killing machine. Next, we spent a while eating and drinking at the local Taco Bell before we asked if we could leave the van in the parking lot in order to take a walk to see the arch.

Of course, the temperature in St. Louis in the mid-afternoon was pushing 90, and we were a bunch of sweaty boys wandering the dirty streets, so sunscreen was a must (especially for James after he had already roasted his entire left side of his body), but I found that the spray on sunscreen I had brought's applicator had somehow broken, so I spent the next couple minutes trying to figure out how to make it work. We also passed a gated swimming pool behind an apartment tower near the arch and ended up staring at the water for at least 30 seconds.

Once we had gotten to the arch, I was fed up with trying to get the sunscreen to work, so as any other person would do, I tried to throw it at the concrete so its contents under pressure would explode everywhere. They didn't, but the spray nozzle did break off which made it possible to hold the bottle near my crotch and shoot out a powerful stream at anyone I wanted to. Classic.

The arch was the arch, powerful and majestic. The real entertainment came from the yuppie dad and his two kids that got a ticket from a park ranger for carving their names in the metal near the base and the girl who walked out of the underground museum to a powerful, well-timed gust of wind that blew her skirt up and showed her multicolored underwear to the entire world. Luckily for her, the entire world didn't notice, just a couple dirty punk boys sitting on the bench straight ahead of her.

We walked through the underground museum for a while to escape the heat, and since it was a family friendly environment, Will had to tuck the part of his shirt that said "FUCK COPS" into his blue jeans American-style. James happened upon a family Otter stuffies that seemed to be miserable and wanted to come home with us, which was sad.

When we were fed up learning about history, we walked back to Taco Bell with the possible intention of driving to the zoo, but ended up just rehydrating and waiting for a good time to drive to the venue.

A good time came, and we loaded back in our steaming hot tin can van after Will's pals texted him to come on over. We were there early enough to eat some sunflower seeds and talk about assorted bands, both local to us and local to them.

Which brings us to the Fubar:

The Fubar is a quality venue. As far as bars that punk bands play in, it is a good combination of Old fashioned beer-sucking bartending, as well as DIY punk kind of atmosphere. Its about as close as you can get to being Skull Alley without actually being Skull Alley. There was weird movie playing on the TV screens above the bar(seriously like really fucking weird) There was pizza, for meat eaters, veggies, as well as vegans, for touring bands, which really was just what the doctor ordered.

Beartrap and Mountain Man are two really good bands, really good dudes, that I can't wait to hang with more in Chicago and Grand Rapids. The show went well, a good number of people came, and it was nice to see people wanting to buy our record after hearing our set. Hopefully that happens a lot in the next three weeks. Overall, it was a good day one of tour, and a good first show.

Now, we are driving to Chicago to meet our dear friend Christine at the Moving Castle. I am in the passenger's seat and Will is driving. I already pounded down one Berry flavored full throttle and have an Agave flavored one waiting for me. I have my shirt off and I intend on taking my pants off and perhaps, as Evan has dared me to, I might show the world a little of what I'm packing. The road ahead is all but empty, and I doubt I'll sleep tonight. We just stopped for gas, and now we are in it for the long haul for the rest of the night, so I have to keep Will awake before he starts getting weird like the last time we drove home from Cleveland. No Zippety Fucko tonight.

St. Louis, you rule, thanks for giving us a warm welcome to our summer tour of 2010. Now on to Chicago.

Love

Calvin/Zerk

Ps. A lightening bug just killed itself on our windshield and theres glow juice on it now. Fuck yeah.

CALVIN -

LISTENING TO:

YOUNG WIDOWS - OLD WOUNDS

LEMURIA - SELF TITLED EP

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY - ALL OF A SUDDEN I MISS EVERYONE

READING:

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN - JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST

DILLON -

LISTENING TO:

FUGAZI - 13 SONGS

NONE MORE BLACK - THIS IS SATIRE

GUNS UP! - ALL THIS IS & OUTLIVE

EVAN -

LISTENING TO:

HARMS WAY - REALITY APPROACHES

CRUEL HAND - PRYING EYES

THE RIVAL MOB - BITTER RIVALS DEMO

WILL -

LISTENING TO:

LA DISPUTE - SOMEWHERE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE RIVER BETWEEN VEGA AND ALTAIR

DAITRO - Y

COLISEUM - HOUSE WITH A CURSE

READING:

SUTTREE - CORMAC MCCARTHY

JAMES -

LISTENING TO:

VERSE - FROM ANGER AND RAGE

OWEN - DISCOGRAPHY

SLICK SHOES

READING:

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

Former Theives, Into It. Over It.

I just woke up maybe an hour ago. Still haven't taken a shower. Still in the same clothes I wore all last night. I'm ripping the Into It. Over It. "52 weeks" album to my itunes right now. This weekend ruled so hard. I'm listening to Former Thieves record over and over.
Friday, Dillon came and picked me up at about 4 and we rolled over to Will's to run through the set and then get to Cincinnati. In the car Dillon told me that Evan wasn't coming with and that we were going to replace him with Max for the weekend. That was swell. So we ran through the set a couple times with Max and then got in Ol' Blue to get to the Hungry House.
The drive was short and harmless and when we got to the house we hung out for a bit and got all our shit loaded in and set up. We played with the Bangalow loft they had above the playing space/living room. Eventually, us boys got hungry so we asked where the nearest T bell was, and during the lengthy directs we recieved, it seemed obvious to me that there was no T bell near to that house. So while we were sitting in the car before we left, I took the Tamagachi with intention of typing in various fast food names and finding the closest one. Of course, said Tamagachi was Will's property and he was not coming with us to eat. So it asked for a code to type in, and I typed in 0000 (as this is the automatic code for things like these that have zero security need). Of course, the Tamagach locked me out and so we had no GPS for the rest of the weekend.
So we wandered around Cincinnati until we found a Chipotle. And it was my first time going to Chipotle, I was pleasantly surprised. Except for when I found out later that if I said it was my first time, it could have been free. Or if I just said I was poor and on a cross-country tour. Whatevz.
When we got back, we hung around until Evan (Into It. Over It) got in a chair and we all sat around him as he serenaded us. Fucking so good. A breath of fresh air as far as acoustic D.I.Y. minded acts go.
Then we played, which was cool.
Then Former Theives made us all look like shit since they fucking rule.
Then Paralyzer finished off the night and we had pizza and fell asleep in the Bangalow.

In the morning we woke up and it was nice as hell. I got on the couch in the kitchen and nerded out on reading Toni Morrison's "Beloved" since we were in Cincinnati (where most of the book is set.) Dudes that lived in the house made us coffee which was truly perfect at that moment. I have never loved black coffee more. I put the rest of my burrito from Chipotle in the microwave and breakfasted on that.
We went outside later, since we had plenty of time to kill, and found snakes in the house's garden. Snakes are so cool and if you don't think so, you suck.
So then we got in the van after wasting a shitload of time, in which Will turned into a true grouchy pants. Once we got in the van, I used my phone for a GPS and we made it to Dayton where we sat in a park for a bit before we decided to drive to Fairborne to the Idolss house.
Once we got there, we walked to a Tbell and I went to the bathroom and it was strategically set up so that when Max walked in, the first thing he saw as he looked through the space between the stall door and the wall was my pants down dick. So that was cool.
After Taco Bell, we all felt like shit and walked back to the house. We hung out in the van and on the porch of the house with Evan and Former Thieves and eventually the show started.
The first band that played was this god awful death metal band. Their singer was a true muscle bro that looked like an opera singer and stood on this weird block with one foot as her grunted and such.
Then Bankrobber from Denver played. I had heard about them before from the B9 board i guess, and they are solid.
Then we played and that was not as cool as the night before, but still cool.
Then Evan played and he was sweet as usual.
The Former Theives rocked so hard again.
And Idolss finished it off to girls that dipped when asked for donations and then came back. Fuckers.

We stopped for coffee and snacks in Kettering and met Ravi from Mantra (ex The Pledge) and picked up a spare tire for the van. Driving home I wasn't sure if I was asleep or not, it was weird. When we got home I was slap happy as hell and we peed back to back in Will's road at 2 AM.

I'm getting pretty antsy. To be honest, we haven't been practicing enough. At all really. So theres that, things will pick up soon though. We have a weekend with Former Thieves from Iowa and Into It. Over It. from Chicago coming up at the beginning of the month that I'm pretty stoked on. Former Thieves have been gaining a little momentum lately which is really cool to see, especially since they are completely fucking nuts and currently maybe halfway through a couple month long tour. Anyways, we'll go through Cincinnati and Dayton with those dudes, and that should be way sweet Mayfly Records hangz. Our record comes out this month as well as the Gay Rights Compilation "Enough Is Enough" that we are on with countless buddies. It's going to be a good month. It's all I've really been talking about. So there's an update, its March 1st. My birthday month, and I'm learning to drive now that 18 is creeping up on me. Pathetic or punk as fuck?

Things have kind of got all changed and rearranged. We expected to be on the road as soon as possible, but we planned a bit too soon. These snow days we've been having have pushed back tentative graduation dates and really just fucked everything up. No worries though, because the tour we are planning now will be coming back with a vengeance, more dates, more rock, and more naked people hopefully. The first tour schedule included a final date in Frankfort to hang with my lady on her graduation, but instead it looks like I'll just be attending said event on my own. The positive to all of this, though, is that her and our good friend Nat Colten may come up for a couple dates with us with some acoustic instruments which I would be totally stoked on. It's all obviously in the works and nothing's set in stone, but I am getting re-excited, after writing all the dates we had previously set for summer tour in a notebook like a 3rd grade girl writing her name with some boy who sprouted a crustache earlier than the others in the class attached to the end over and over.
Until then, I'll be listening to Julie Doiron until it warms up again, writing poems and recording that stuff with Will in a total ripoff of our buds La Dispute. And maybe we'll crank out a couple of songs. We're all really excited and when we get together, this summer is about all we talk about. So look out between the dates of June 21st and July 10th for a show in a town near you.

Complete tentative routing:

June 21st - Indianapolis, Indiana
June 22nd - Chicago, Illinois
June 23rd - Grand Rapids, Michigan
June 24th - Ann Arbor, Michigan
June 25th - Cleveland, Ohio
June 26th - Buffalo, New York
June 27th - Rochester, New York
June 28th - Albany, New York
June 29th - Boston, Massachusetts
June 30th - Providence, Rhode Island
July 1st - Bridgeport, Connecticut
July 2nd - New York, New York
July 3rd - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
July 4th - Baltimore, Maryland
July 5th - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
July 6th - Columbus, Ohio
July 7th - Cincinnati, Ohio
July 8th - Lexington, Kentucky
July 9th - Elizabethtown, Kentucky
July 10th - Louisville, Kentucky