What happened after the tour? Well we separated ways for the time being. Ava was back in LA living with her dad and working on her own music and art. Richard hung out for a few days and then went back to Davis for the summer. Steven went back to Isla Vista to write music and move to the Santa Barbara. Me and Ryan went back to live at our Dad's house and enjoy his final summer of being a high schooler. Tim went back to his family to take some community college courses and play lots of Rockband.
Me, Ryan and Tim (as well as Josh Chang who recorded cello on the album) all worked at he Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach. We also climbed a few mountains, watched movies, played Age of Empires and generally enjoyed life.
Steven (Existential Hero) came back down to Orange County to record his new album with me! We knocked it out in 2 or 3 weekends with some crazy all night recording sessions mixed between me working. It's a great album that was finally released in September: http://cllct.com/release/haspotential download it!
During this time Morgan Orion, Jack F.E. and Bunny Zewt Suit stopped by. We had a great show with them in my backyard and we went to the beach with them! We also recorded a song by Morgan called "Mister Miss Her". Its a great song but he never figured out what he was going to do with it.
I finished recording an EP this summer which was alternate takes of Orange County songs and covers of the summers greatest songs: "Will We Ever" and "Chill Out, Griffin" by Nana Grizol and Wabash respectively.
Ryan and I took the EP on tour with us as we drove back up to college...
Santa Barbara: We stayed with Steven and played a show with him at Mel's place. it didnt end up being much of a show but rather a round robin of songs, covers and hookah. Afterwards with hung out with Steven and Layla, tramping around Isla Vista doing crazy things and going to forbidden places. Oh the lives of college students!
LA: We drove back to LA to play the Tribal Cafe with Ava. We played with a typical LA "experimental noise/garage rock" band and 2 punk bands. The punk kids really wanted our music so we gave it to them for very cheap. They were all total glam punks and all of them it seemed were underaged. The guy who owned the cafe was really into recording the sets and video taping them. He interviewed everyone after their sets and interviewed the audience.
San Luis Obispo: So Ava accompanied us back to Steven's where we stayed the night. We then headed up to SLO to play a show at The Clubhouse. First we went to beautiful Morro Bay and climbed rocks. It brought back memories of touring to SLO back in high school with david and my ex-girlfriend (and originall YYD co-founder) Carrie. We headed back to the venue after picking up some groceries. Ava had a rocky set but we killed it! We had Morgan Enos play with us again and it was wonderful. His guitar made up for my guitars failures and the people loved Ryan's horn and Ava's bells. We got extra donations and CD sales after the show because people liked us. This really pissed off the promoter though who hates Morgan and seems to despise music that isnt boring singersongwriter or "true" folk music.. But we got many compliments including someone saying that we were like a tiny Polyphonic Spree! WHEW what a compliment!
We had to find a hotel that night though because Morgan couldn't put us up and neither could anyone from the show. We paid for a motel and waited till we had to drop Ava off at the Greyhound at 2 am. We woke up in the morning and went to Santa Maria.
Santa Maria:
We back tracked to play this show but it was well worth it! We had a hard time finding the venue but we got to play with Steven again and some cool SMDIY kids in a band called Hello My Name is Cirus. People again loved us and bought lots of CDs and stuff! We almost sold out of our Tour EP! We left for a long drive to Berkeley. Ryan was a trooper and did most of the driving which I was really thankful for. We arrived around 2 am.
Davis: Now you might be wondering: why was it only you and Ryan? Where is the rest of the band? Well, Tim was working at his schools welcome week earning some extra cash and Ava had business to take care of at home. Richard was in Davis. Tim rejoined me to go to Davis. Ryan had to stay in Berkeley for CAL Band. Me, Tim and Richard played a short set after barely making it to Davis. We played and people again dug it. No microphones or anything yet people across the busy street still stood to watch us for a bit! We sold almost all the rest of our EPs and met Nadav whose going to have us on his radio show someday. We saw our friends David A Good Pillow and Neil Ruud which was wonderful as usual. We also got some awesome smoothies at the gallery we played in front of!
Berkeley: Technically the last day of tour was the first inaugural show East Bay DIY show at The Carpentry, my house! We played a packed show with some berkeley friends of ours and had a great time. The sets were recorded: http://cllct.com/release/campfirebritbenjaminglasscakeandyouryellowdress82109thecarpentry
Tour over we set up camp for a long semester of school. Ryan and I are at Berkeley, Tim is at San Francisco State, Richard is at UC Davis, and various other people who played with us during tour and on record populate the campus's of Saddleback College, UCI, and NYU.
If you want to download the tour EP we recorded it is up for free here:
http://cllct.com/release/backtoschooltourep
Epilogue:
We have since been here at school. Ryan's studying chem but switching to history. I'm studying business and music and having way too many classes. Ava is withdrawn from Berkeley trying to figure out her major for next semester. Tim is at SFSU and SFCC trying to transfer to Berkeley and we have added new/old band members:
Andrew Davis: Guitar and whatever else we can convince him to try. He goes to Berkeley and is also from Orange County! Huntington Beach to be exact!
Josh Reyman: Bass. Josh also goes to Berkeley and dates a fried of ours, Mandie Russell who I'm producing some songs for this year.
Jake Satola: Drummer. He also played the wicked solo on the end of "(Un)happiest Place on Earth". He is going to be touring with us this winter through the western USA.
Mandie Russell: Flute. There are the facts mentioned above but interstingly we unknowingly went to high school with her but didn't meet her till after she graduated.
Alyson Durrant: Violin hopefully. She goes to Berkeley and went to high school with us.
Currently there are a few things going on:
I'm writing new songs about El Dorado County. No I'm not writing songs with snappy titles like, "James Marshall! Look What You've Done!" or "Skiing the Sierra, How I Broke Your Leg at Heavenly and Never Said Sorry", but instead its going to be a mini drama about a weekend spent in Lake Tahoe with friends and a girl I liked. This fateful weekend I found out she had a boyfriend. Major Bummer. Maybe that is what we'll call the record "Major Bummer in Tahoe" hahah.
No, we're getting personal this time around and we have a few songs together. The first song is called Placerville, it starts our story at the end. The other song is untitled but has a big group singing thing at the beginning and a driving midsection. We also have an instrumental called The Desolation Wilderness we developed with Jake this summer. There are a few other this floating around like "I Just Want to Dance With You" and other ideas but nothing firm.
I'm also working on a covers album and a Christmas album. In fact I am rehearsing with my friend Audrey who is going to sing a version of "Baby It's Cold Outside". Some other songs for christmas will be "Silent Night", "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", "White Christmas", "Oh Come All Ye Faithful", "O Holy Night", and an original song called "Let Us Rejoice and Be Glad".
We're also embarking on a winter tour! If you could help us our with some dates that wouldbe wonderful:
December
26 - Orange County - TBA
27 - Phoenix - Trunkspace w/ Iji and Little Swamp
28 - Tucson - TBA?
29 - Santa Fe/New Mexico - NEEED HELP!!!
30 - Lubbock/West TX - NEED HELP!!
31 - Arlington and Dallas - early show @ Love and Reason, Late show TBA
January
1 - Arkansas or Oklahoma - NEED HELP
2 - Kansas City, MO - JBs House
3 - Denver, CO - The Soulquarium
4 - Salt lake City - TBA w/ Drew Danburry
5 - Boise, ID - NEED HELP
6 - seattle - New Crompton
7 - olympia - TBA w/ Sundance Kids
8 - portland - NEEED HELPPP
9 - arcata, ca - TBA w/ David Jaberi
10 - davis - TBA w/ Neil Ruud
11 - santa cruz - NEED HELP
12 - san luis obispo - TBA w/ Morgan Enos
13 - ssanta maria - Cafe Monet w/ Hello My Name Is Circus
14 - santa barbara - Biko Garage w/ NANA GRIZOL, Mount Righteous
15 - day off
16 - day off
17 - Berkeley - The Carpentry
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
We spent a good weekend at home and then hit the road again, this time with my brother ryan on trumpet, tim still playing baritone and we picked steven ray morris up, otherwise known as Existential Hero.
LA: We started off heading to Los Angeles to play at our band member Ava's house. No one came until we begged, so it basically became a warm up show. We experimented with our Rockband guitar as a real instrument (which worked really well!). We also go some late night donuts.
Santa Barbara: We booked it up to Steven's place to start our crazy tour. We went to some beaches, did some jamming and played a show at Mel's place. it was sort of a show sort of a practice. We did some jamming with Jamison and I dont really know who opened the show besides EH.
San Luis Obispo: We picked up ryan at the train station and then booked it to SLO. We hung out downtown and did a bit of practicing. Then we played Linnea's with Morgan Enos. We had a real piano there that was awesome to use and we also included Morgan in our band which gave us 6 members! We then stayed with my friend jackie at her amazing mountain home north of SLO. Her dog was awesome, but unfortunately Ryan violated their computer which led to a bit of tension..
Berekley: We woke up and headed to my adopted hometown of Berkeley, CA. We stayed in my new house, The Carpentry, and had a cool show with Michael playing bass, again giving up a 6 person band. Richard had also joined up with us and we had our crew ready to go! We slept in my empty room on the floor after engaging in some fun late night activities. We were NOT ready to wake up at 4am to drive to Portland
Portland: But we woke up at 4 am and steven led the charge to Portland. We saw some beautiful views and got some awesome quotes (Ryan: "there must be like 100 tree's out there") and some awesome pictures of me and Richard being intimate. We finally arrived in Portland (after seeing tons of hitchhikers) we were greeted with a beautiful city and traffic. We made our way to the venue, a Coffee shop that supports programs for mentally challenged kids. We first headed to Voodoo Donuts to get some way rad donuts (the cock and balls, maple bar with beacon, m&ms donut to name a few) before playing a great show with Silly Rob Childish. Afterwards we went with him and his wonderful wife to their house (and cats). We then preceded to hang out with some rad bros and hipsters at a portland house party.
Seattle: We woke up and treked further up the stunning northwest to seattle. We didn't have a show so we headed to Camano Island to stay with our host Mandie Russell. We had a crazy night of catching up, beaches and lots of clowning around!
We then traveled into the U District of seattle to play a show at The Sureshot Cafe with Secret Plan. he was WONDERFUL and we saw some of our old friends from iji and the blanket truth! We played a ridiculous game of risk and then headed back Camano to prepare for Olympia.
Olympia: This was by far the weirdest show or night on tour musically.. We arrived in this weird bar area/industrial area of Olympia to play a venue called Le Voyuer. We played with Josh Armistead (this weird dude from australia who was so put on..), and The Hard TO Get (a duo playing power pop). We played a YYD punk rock set, I accompanied steven on drums during his set. No one was there except the bands and Josh's posse traveling with him from Australia. We danced like crazy to The Hard to Get which I think made the show better for them, it certainly made it better for us.
Camano Island (aka Not Boise, ID): So we cancelled out show in Boise, ID cause of the length of drive and costs. We stayed an extra night in Camano with Mandie. We went to the community pool illegally, filmed some videos of us playing music in the Pugent Sound with snowcapped mountains inthe background! (horns, ukulele, and the water!)Me and Mandie worked on some things for her new songs, the other boys played an insane game of risk, and we capped off an emotional night by watching Twilight at 5 in the morning. Yes, 4 guys sitting around watching Twilight talking about how hot Bella was and how snappy Edward dressed.
Ashland: In the morning we had to take off saddly but we'd reunite with Mandie in August back in the bay area. We drove through portland (with a requisite stop at Voodoo Donuts) and then on to Ashland. We had a hard time finding where we were playing but we made it. We met Dustin and the Furniture, Y Lime?, and Wabash. It was so awesome! They are all great musicians and 2 of them traded us 2 of my favorite records of the year. There wasn't much audience and we couldn't steal and cafeteria food but it was ok. We got to hang out at Noah's house with everybody and we had a great night of talking, musicing and video gaming!
Merced: We took off from Ashland for another killllller drive to Merced. At the border we got inspected for any plants/foliage or animals we were bringing into the state but we didn't have any except carrots. We stopped for food (mostly sunflower seeds for me and ryan) and then booked it down to Merced. The show had already started when we got there so we went straight on. I played with a lit sparkler in my mouth and we made someone grandma cry with our songs. Talk about amazing and powerful! We then spent some good times catching up with our friends who set up the show: Claude, Tippy, Jaime (Tippys mom), and her grandma. Steven had some interesting interactions with Tippys mom while Claude got frustrated and Tippys grandma sexually harassed ryan. Good times had by all!
Brentwood? SF? Berkeley? Home?: So we were suppose to play a show with three of the bands that played with us in merced. We woke up and started calling people to confirm the show. They cancelled us off the show (and we later found out the show went on with only one of the bands playing). Two of the bands from the night before busked for cash in san francisco and I rushed us to Berkeley to pay my rent. After our business was settled in Berkeley we decided to just drive home. There were 5 drivers so we could afford to drive till 2am or later. We gunned it down the 5, sometimes with very little clothes on to save gas/AC usage. We had some heart to hearts and learn a lot about each other on that long ride home.
Home Home Home: We dropped steven off in Orange, took Richard home to RSM, passed Carrie's (an old band member and ex-girlfriend) house and finally Tim. The tour was saddly over but shenanigans continued the next day.
We played our final show on tour at Moss Street Beach. With mandolins, melodicas, and horns in toe we jammed while exploring the awesomeness of moss street. People really appreciated it and it was nice to be reaffirmed by orange county residents that our songs about orange county were really something with value. We ended the day with in-n-out.
What an amazing tour! Coming up is me and Ryan's Back to School Tour in mid august.
-alex
LA: We started off heading to Los Angeles to play at our band member Ava's house. No one came until we begged, so it basically became a warm up show. We experimented with our Rockband guitar as a real instrument (which worked really well!). We also go some late night donuts.
Santa Barbara: We booked it up to Steven's place to start our crazy tour. We went to some beaches, did some jamming and played a show at Mel's place. it was sort of a show sort of a practice. We did some jamming with Jamison and I dont really know who opened the show besides EH.
San Luis Obispo: We picked up ryan at the train station and then booked it to SLO. We hung out downtown and did a bit of practicing. Then we played Linnea's with Morgan Enos. We had a real piano there that was awesome to use and we also included Morgan in our band which gave us 6 members! We then stayed with my friend jackie at her amazing mountain home north of SLO. Her dog was awesome, but unfortunately Ryan violated their computer which led to a bit of tension..
Berekley: We woke up and headed to my adopted hometown of Berkeley, CA. We stayed in my new house, The Carpentry, and had a cool show with Michael playing bass, again giving up a 6 person band. Richard had also joined up with us and we had our crew ready to go! We slept in my empty room on the floor after engaging in some fun late night activities. We were NOT ready to wake up at 4am to drive to Portland
Portland: But we woke up at 4 am and steven led the charge to Portland. We saw some beautiful views and got some awesome quotes (Ryan: "there must be like 100 tree's out there") and some awesome pictures of me and Richard being intimate. We finally arrived in Portland (after seeing tons of hitchhikers) we were greeted with a beautiful city and traffic. We made our way to the venue, a Coffee shop that supports programs for mentally challenged kids. We first headed to Voodoo Donuts to get some way rad donuts (the cock and balls, maple bar with beacon, m&ms donut to name a few) before playing a great show with Silly Rob Childish. Afterwards we went with him and his wonderful wife to their house (and cats). We then preceded to hang out with some rad bros and hipsters at a portland house party.
Seattle: We woke up and treked further up the stunning northwest to seattle. We didn't have a show so we headed to Camano Island to stay with our host Mandie Russell. We had a crazy night of catching up, beaches and lots of clowning around!
We then traveled into the U District of seattle to play a show at The Sureshot Cafe with Secret Plan. he was WONDERFUL and we saw some of our old friends from iji and the blanket truth! We played a ridiculous game of risk and then headed back Camano to prepare for Olympia.
Olympia: This was by far the weirdest show or night on tour musically.. We arrived in this weird bar area/industrial area of Olympia to play a venue called Le Voyuer. We played with Josh Armistead (this weird dude from australia who was so put on..), and The Hard TO Get (a duo playing power pop). We played a YYD punk rock set, I accompanied steven on drums during his set. No one was there except the bands and Josh's posse traveling with him from Australia. We danced like crazy to The Hard to Get which I think made the show better for them, it certainly made it better for us.
Camano Island (aka Not Boise, ID): So we cancelled out show in Boise, ID cause of the length of drive and costs. We stayed an extra night in Camano with Mandie. We went to the community pool illegally, filmed some videos of us playing music in the Pugent Sound with snowcapped mountains inthe background! (horns, ukulele, and the water!)Me and Mandie worked on some things for her new songs, the other boys played an insane game of risk, and we capped off an emotional night by watching Twilight at 5 in the morning. Yes, 4 guys sitting around watching Twilight talking about how hot Bella was and how snappy Edward dressed.
Ashland: In the morning we had to take off saddly but we'd reunite with Mandie in August back in the bay area. We drove through portland (with a requisite stop at Voodoo Donuts) and then on to Ashland. We had a hard time finding where we were playing but we made it. We met Dustin and the Furniture, Y Lime?, and Wabash. It was so awesome! They are all great musicians and 2 of them traded us 2 of my favorite records of the year. There wasn't much audience and we couldn't steal and cafeteria food but it was ok. We got to hang out at Noah's house with everybody and we had a great night of talking, musicing and video gaming!
Merced: We took off from Ashland for another killllller drive to Merced. At the border we got inspected for any plants/foliage or animals we were bringing into the state but we didn't have any except carrots. We stopped for food (mostly sunflower seeds for me and ryan) and then booked it down to Merced. The show had already started when we got there so we went straight on. I played with a lit sparkler in my mouth and we made someone grandma cry with our songs. Talk about amazing and powerful! We then spent some good times catching up with our friends who set up the show: Claude, Tippy, Jaime (Tippys mom), and her grandma. Steven had some interesting interactions with Tippys mom while Claude got frustrated and Tippys grandma sexually harassed ryan. Good times had by all!
Brentwood? SF? Berkeley? Home?: So we were suppose to play a show with three of the bands that played with us in merced. We woke up and started calling people to confirm the show. They cancelled us off the show (and we later found out the show went on with only one of the bands playing). Two of the bands from the night before busked for cash in san francisco and I rushed us to Berkeley to pay my rent. After our business was settled in Berkeley we decided to just drive home. There were 5 drivers so we could afford to drive till 2am or later. We gunned it down the 5, sometimes with very little clothes on to save gas/AC usage. We had some heart to hearts and learn a lot about each other on that long ride home.
Home Home Home: We dropped steven off in Orange, took Richard home to RSM, passed Carrie's (an old band member and ex-girlfriend) house and finally Tim. The tour was saddly over but shenanigans continued the next day.
We played our final show on tour at Moss Street Beach. With mandolins, melodicas, and horns in toe we jammed while exploring the awesomeness of moss street. People really appreciated it and it was nice to be reaffirmed by orange county residents that our songs about orange county were really something with value. We ended the day with in-n-out.
What an amazing tour! Coming up is me and Ryan's Back to School Tour in mid august.
-alex
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