REV+PUSSY+BACKYARD TIRE

4/18/08 Chicago, IL

We’re on our way home from the last of our dates with the Rev. Horton Heat and Nashville Pussy. It’s been about a month since we started out with them so I’m going to do my best to walk you through some of what happened. The first date was in Columbia, MO at the beautiful Blue Note. Our friend Dylan set us up with a warm up gig in the afternoon. As always we saw a lot of friends in Columbia and it was the first time we’ve played at a sold out Blue Note. Tons of fun. The next night we played a sold out Metro in Chicago. Thanks to everyone for making Chicago such a great place for us to go. Our friend Will took a lot of badass photos that hopefully we’ll post soon. We did the Rave in Milwaukee. What made Milwaukee famous made us have a lot of fun. We played First Ave in Minneapolis and that show was fuckin awesome. Conrad sang Lawyers Guns and Money. I’m waiting for them to call and tell us we got a star. We did the Majestic Theater in Madison and our friend Felicity put us up for the night at some nice place down town. Thanks to Madison big time, and Joe and Nicholas up there too. If anyone who is reading this ever has the opportunity to see a show there; the Majestic is gorgeous. We did our first show at the High Dive in Champaign and the closest show we’ve done to home in quite some time. It was kind of special because of all the hometown people who made the trip down. It was packed like a can of sardines in there and I always like that. Makes it more fun. At this point in the tour we got word that there would be some cancellations while the Rev took care of some family issue. It was a drag that it had to happen; but we were at home and not rotting in some hotel somewhere so that’s good. The shows we missed are being made back up in December as well as a bunch of others so we’re looking forward to that. We rejoined the tour in Troy NY. This was our first night seeing Nashville Pussy and our first night on the tour playing first. It was exciting to find out that there was a big group of people who are familiar with our music and were really looking forward to having us. So thanks Revolution Hall and everyone who understands the Tire Fire up there. We made fast friends with Blain, Ruyter, Jeremy and Karen. Blain rode to Buffalo with us and we spent the day off in Cooperstown going through the Baseball Hall of Fame. The place is amazing. First of all for about a thirty mile radius outside town you find out that everything is about baseball around here. Baseball Cafés, Carwashes, Antiques, Everything. And then you get to the Hall of Fame. They give a AAA discount so that’s good. We all saw so much cool shit it’s hard to even start. Ted William’s locker. They got a whole room on Babe Ruth, a whole room on negro leagues; they’ve got a file for everyone who’s ever seen any play in any major league game ever. They’ve got so much cool shit and the place feels really historic. We did the Tralf in Buffalo and the Crock Rock in Allentown, PA. One of my favorite places to play is the Chameleon Club in Lancaster, PA. It’s only the second time we’ve had the pleasure and we can’t wait to get back. We did our first show at the Ram’s Head in Baltimore. One of many gigs on this tour that was across the street from a police station. It’s just an observation but I think we did like six or seven shows right across the street from the police station in the past couple weeks. Thanks to Brett in Baltimore. We did the Rex in Pittsburg for the first time. It’s a converted movie theater. I liked it. Everybody was really cool and encouraging in Pittsburg. We did the Newport in Columbus and partied with Ed and Matt’s aunt until the early morning. We had our second appearance at the Bluebird in Bloomington, IN. I don’t really know if anything exciting happened in Bloomington because I just remembered that we had to drive all the way to Dallas over the next day and a half. House of Blues in Dallas is great though. We got to hang out with Panhead Billy. And on to Houston the next day. Our final night with the Rev. Horton Heat and Nashville Pussy and we had a blast. Over the month we really got to hang out with everybody a lot and if anybody actually has made it to the bottom of this thing I’d like to say thanks and thanks especially to Kevin for handling our sound. From Houston we drove all night and most of the day to get to Oxford, MS to do our first headlining show in a while. The band was tight and good after being on the road for so long and we all had a great time. Despite the extreme, extreme fatigue that we were suffering from. Everytime we drive all night and skip a night’s sleep it gets tougher. Thanks to Tom Speed in Oxford for your support. You know we need it. We’re stopping at a rest stop and I’m done writing.

Tim