Mt. Whitney - Oh Yeah

Since I was about 15 years old I had wanted to summit Mt. Whitney - the highest elevation in the contiguous U.S. at 14,497 ft. and this past week our new Sax player Ryan and I made it happen...

We started our trek on Sunday camping at the Whitney Portal campground, where black bears were running through our campsite trying to get our leftover pizza. Luckily Ryan fended them off with his shear size and grit. Monday morning we scored a fre

e pass at the Ranger Station and WAG Bags (Bags you get to poo in and then carry out.... fun!) and a bear can to store our massive amount of food. Of course we packed way too much stuff and my pack ended up weighing 68 pounds, but we headed out Monday morning ready to power through the thousands of feet of elevation gain regardless of anything.

We got to Trail Camp and chilled for the first day. Next day we made it to the summit with merely day-packs and fortitude in our guts and one Natural Light Premium Lager. The climb wasn't too hard actually (there were 72 year old gr

andmas doing it) and the view was amazing... Sequoia, Kings Canyon, all the way to Nevada... it was so sweet that I had to bust into my Speedo and slam a Natty Light (see picture).

Next day we climbed Wotan's Throne (a peak near Trail Camp at 12,700 ft.), which was sweet since there was no trail and we had to do some rock climbing and scrambling to get to the top, and then I went for a 5 second dip in the freezing cold Consultation Lake and sunbathed in the nude with only the 1,000 foot granite faces looking down at

me, and Google Earth satellite cameras.

All in all... just what I had anticipated except for mice, marmots, and chipmunks attacking our food every waking moment... but I highly recommend the trip - hopefully I'll take the Mountaineer's route and don merely the Speedo next time for a more extre

me operation.

Here are some sweet photos courtesy of Ryan:

Ryan and Me at the summit of Mt. Whitney (we give it 3 thumbs up apparently).

Epic shot of me atop Wotan's Throne.

Me waiting for a Teradactyl to scoop me up.

The view was so amazing that my clothes exploded off and a Natty Light appeared.

This Blog brought to you by Action Wipes - the right choice for any extreme activity above 14,000 feet.

The Turning Point

The farthest North-East that this tour was going is now behind us as we leave Concord, New Hampshire for Chicago, Illinois. It's a 2-day drive, 13 hours today and 6 tomorrow to hopefully make it in time for a little website interview before we play at Reggie's Music Joint. By this point in the tour, 72 days on the road, I've become proficient at continuously repairing the R.V., as is has rattled almost 12,000 miles across the U.S. Highway system through 23 states. I've also become used to wearing my underwear and socks inside-out for a few days at a time, eating everything from Top Ramen to Leg of Lamb, and having different hours of sleep every single night. We hadn't been on a road trip this long before, and we didn't really know what 8 people in a 27 foot motor-home for 4 months meant. It really is close quarters, squeezing past each other to get from the front to the back, sleeping, cooking, trying to keep things clean. But we are doing pretty well and it is working out, and we have learned a lot already, and seen a lot already.

Sometimes we go for 5 nights in a row - play, pack up, sleep for 3-6 hours, drive for 3-8 hours, set up, and play again. Then we get a couple days to chill and check out the city that we're in and try to regain our sanity - sometimes it works. The shows for the most part have been sweet - the audience and venues being cool, but the sound usually sucking (at least to us). The venues with good sound have been pretty few and far between, so when we show up and there is a legitimate sound system and an in-house sound guy we're totally stoked. The tour is kind of a job and a vacation at the same time. The job part being everything aside from actually playing music, and the vacation being hanging out with friends and relatives and sight-seeing. (Photo: Us at Gettysburg, PA on the tour)

This was my first time visiting pretty much anything east of Arizona, and seeing this much of the country in this amount of time has been amazing, especially the east coast. Highlights have been New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Gettysburg, Boston, and New York City. New York takes the lead for me -I had never seen so many skyscrapers in one location, so much to do and see, and such a fantastic world that is NYC. We were just there for 3 days too, and I only traveled by foot in Manhattan, so I only saw a small fraction of the whole city. We were fortunate enough to stay with Nick's aunt and uncle, who just so happen to live in an old Vanderbilt house on 5th avenue and 80th, one block from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park. It was an amazing time. Woodstock, NY was also amazing, beautiful country out there, and a nice little theater that we played at. (Photo: Playing at the Local 269 in Manhattan)

So, I'll leave with one last photo of me at the Reflecting Pool in Washington DC...

Louisiana, Alabama, & Florida

This Blog is a little outdated, due to lack of internet and time, but it's cool...

So we’ve made it! From the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, just 2 days ago landed in Jacksonville Beach Florida, ran into the ocean and body surfed in my American Flag speedo, and then played at a place called Jamrock. We’re now camping at a state park in Keystone Heights, FL – T-Bone and Pablo just came back from fishing, and we just got done BBQing some chicken Fajitas.

The last couple of weeks have been sweet – most notably our week-long stay in New Orleans. We got in on Thursday, and met our contact, Maria, for dinner with her friend Lee, the guy who lives with his two daughters in the place below the apartment that we were renting. Little did we know that our managers Korie and Todd were flying out to meet us and party around New Orleans until Tuesday Morning. So we went down to Burbon st. watching jazz and drinking adult beverages, played a few gigs, and hosted a crawfish boil – 320 pounds of crawfish, shrimp, and oysters, huge boxes of onions, garlic, oranges, lemons, and potatoes, and 3 kegs of beer. Lee did not mess around – he knew how to throw a house party.

After a great feast that couldn’t be beat, another 5-course dinner, and a huge breakfast, we parted ways with Maria and Lee to head out for Alabama. We stopped by a place called ‘The Shed’ to drop off some CDs and eat some food, and ended up playing a show that was really fun. Florida was pretty sweet too, great temperature & good shows. Now it’s on to Georgia…

Rocking Fresh Island Jams at the Cabana Beach Pool Party, FL

Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas

Now I feel like I’m on tour… played to a totally new crowd in Tempe, Arizona, stayed in Tucson, and charged through the desert through New Mexico and now we’re in Texas. We’ve played the west coast a couple times already, but this is totally new to me. While Google mapping our route to Texas, I noticed a large white spot in New Mexico and wondered “What the heck is that,” turns out it is White Sand, a big ‘ol State Park with miles and miles of pure white sand dunes. So we decided to stop by, buy some sleds, I waxed up my skateboard deck, and go sledding down the dunes. We also barbecued under a big sheet metal cabana which I stuck my OrigAudio Rock-It to, listened to Mexicali Brass with a tank top, sombrero, and Natty Light in a bottle. We were marinating pretty hard. Later that day we drove through the mountains and stopped to sled on the snow – I was still wearing sandals and a tank top, skating my bare skateboard deck down the sled run. Then on to Texas...

Texas has by far been the coolest experience yet: St. Patty's day show, Shotgun Shooting, Taxidermy, Strapping an Armadillo too the grill of our Motorhome, and South By Southwest.

We were greeted with a box of doughnuts and a free hotel by the radio station guys that were promoting our San Angelo shows on the morning of St. Patty's day. We played the show that night at Fiddlestrings Irish Pub to an awesome Texan crowd and I ended up getting duct taped to 2 girls at the end of the night... Wake up the next morning to BBQ, Beer, and Blasting Shotguns at the ranch home of one of the radio station guys. So this ranch has on it a church, a skeet shooter, and a taxidermy shop. Awesome. It was at that very moment that I knew I was in Texas, that and everyone saying y'all constantly. On the way out of the ranch we found a dried-up armadillo on the side of the road, and T-Bone and I decided that we needed to strap it to the grill of our Motorhome for South By Southwest (SXSW). And so we did.

After getting 2 hours of sleep Pablo and I made the drive from San Angelo to Austin, passing Kickapoo Creek and Electric Avenue, and setting up for 2 days of SXSW. The second day at Flamingo Cantina was our best Texas show I think, packed with true music fans and good sound. Aside from the thousands of people at SXSW and awesome venues (Austin being the live music capitol of the world), we were also fortunate to meet some famous musicians. T-Bone met up with John Popper (from Blues Traveler), whom he had jammed with in the past, Nick met Ben Kweller and a bunch of us met Chris Walla (guitarist from Death Cab for Cutie). It was quite surreal to see Chris Walla (who I really admire as a guitarist, producer, and overall musician) at a concert that I was playing at. It turns out that the band that played after us, The Lonely Forest, is signed to his record label, and he was there to check them out. So now we have a couple days rest before our show in San Antonio...check back in a few more days.

BBQing at White Sands

Skating White Sands

Here I am shredding the White Sand casually

National Tour Extravaganza!

Well, it has been a while since I've put in a blog post, but only because we've been incredibly busy getting ready for our tour (which we are almost a week into). I have managed to sneek in some time now at 4:30am on the way to Seattle. So, since we are a do-it-yourself band, doing all the business that a record company would, we have each settled into our most natural side roles. I am a guitarist/ tech guy (Mr. Fix-it). Since the tour has started, I have repaired our trailer brakes, spent a day at the auto repair shop getting an electrical problem fixed, replaced a flat tire, & fixed a handful of other things that have fallen apart on our 40 foot RV and trailer rig.

I also managed to crash our rig into a snow bank on the 299 between Redding and Weaverville, which was a pretty gut-churning experience. I was coming back from the auto repair shop alone at night and it started to snow pretty hard. I stopped to put chains on & was driving about 20 miles per hour on the winding highway. Once I got to the top I figured I should put chains on the trailer too, pulled over, lost steering, and careened into a 4 foot snow bank, getting stuck and taking 15 minutes getting un-stuck. Eventually I made it back, where the rest of the guys were waiting with a Bud Light for me to pound. It was delicious.

So being not even a week into the tour, I just wonder what lies ahead. I'm hoping for some sleep...soon.

On the Road

Well, we're actually taking a little break from touring for the Holiday season, but by the end of February we'll be on the longest tour yet - our first National Tour! We're planning it right now, with our path tenatively set from the Pacific Northwest down through California, then across the South to the East Coast, back across the Mid West & Rockies and back home - roughly 14,000 miles over 3 months. We are super busy preparing for this epic journey but also extremely excited... we know we have fans across the country, and this will be the first time that they can see us at a live show.

Speaking of being on the road, Nick and I took a little road bike trip to Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving. The first day we rode 104 miles from SLO to SB and it was a great trip, super scenic and perfect weather. The next day Nick stayed in SB and I continued to Moorpark, which was another 65 miles - nice along the coast, but a bit boring as I got inland. Overall it was sweet - definitely the longest bike trip we've taken.

There's barely a rest from being on the road, but we love it...keeps things fresh.

Halloween

Last night was an epic sea of fog, hair, and face paint which comprised the most chaotic concert we've ever played. We were all there at Harlow's in Sacramento for our "Zombies of the 80's" Halloween Rockfest, dressed in ridiculous spandex with our faces painted like zombies and couldn't see past the first 3 people in front of us since there was so much fog. Well, it was fun, we made it home, and now we're watching the 49ers game, trying to recuperate.

And next weekend guess what - 2 shows of more 80's music at Downtown Brew in SLO! Those shows are the only thing that I think could top last night...we shall see. And after that I'm looking forward to a little Thanksgiving break - Nick and I are going to ride our road bikes down to Santa Barbara (probably in our zebra and lightning bolt print spandex) and then I'm going to continue down to good old Moorpark and eat lots of turkey & green bean casserole - yummy.

I've been procrastinating on my "It Might Get Loud" Blog post... I'll try and do that next time - with insight and depth and four-part harmony... but I gotta get back to the 49ers game now.