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