THE SPRAWL - BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 PART 13

THE SPRAWL.

Part 1

Part 2

(Thesis)

What you will learn about is the following: Reality.

Yes, we toured for 4 months. Yes, it was the most fun I've ever had in my life. Yes, we met some incredible people/bands. Yes, there was something enjoyable every where we went...

(here it comes.....)

BUT!!

(Here's where Reality creeps in...)

Life on the road during this trip was not one glorious sequence of huge victories. Before we reached New York we had a roughly 2 week stretch of shows/driving that literally zig-zaged (spell check didn't like that last word) across the heartland of America. These weeks were more trying than previous weeks, which had seen an abundance of memorable shows, insanely good times and steady financial standings. Which brings us to THE SPRAWL: The place where skin was thickened and dues were paid.

(Body)

What is THE SPRAWL you may ask?

THE SPRAWL is the space in between the coasts. THE SPRAWL is the guts of this country. THE SPRAWL is miles and miles and miles of (apparently) very little. THE SPRAWL is a different country. The SPRAWL is THIS country. THE SPRAWL is MOST of this country. THE SPRAWL is different from everywhere else I've been.
(THE SPRAWL is also an Arcade Fire song... about the same place. It is amazing and was definitely was on my mind while we were traveling through this area. )

THE SPRAWL is the land of HUGE churches. Sarah Palin voters. Midwestern Kindness. Vast oceans of wheat. The sweetest corn I've ever eaten. Salt of the Earth. REAL America. Drawls. Drawls in the Sprawl. (Space all around me where my soul can breathe.)

Each day the drives were enormous... something like 8-9 hours on average (cue the sound of violins playing tragic music). We were rapidly arriving/leaving from brand new places at a disorienting rate. In some cities, we only spent 4 or 5 hours in it before we hit the road. It was hard to wrap my head around the fact that each place was a unique entity, with it's own vibe and personality. More so than almost any other stretch of the tour, our time in THE SPRAWL felt the most like a dream.

When you're an up and coming band booking your own shows in new towns, it's inevitable that there will be some bummer shows. (FACT OF LIFE). More specifically: sparsely attended shows with bands that we don't really enjoy that much (Don't worry THE MATT DAMON EXPERIENCE, I'm not talking about you guys. Ya'll are boss in my book). These shows get ya down but like I said, its part of the gig... part of payin' DUES. However, when shows like this start to become more common, it gets harder and harder to remain cheerful and keep the cynicism at bay. This started to (kinda) happen during our time in THE SPRAWL.

One starts thinking about THE BIG PICTURE. One starts to compare the amount of time and effort expended with the net result of what they get back and it often seems wildly lop sided. You suddenly realize that you're miles and miles from home, eating poorly, sleeping poorly.... and you don't even know what CITY you're in. (Bring back the sad violin music, please). It can also get pretty strange because we're constantly playing the same songs over and over again. You know how if you have to write a word over and over again it starts to just look like gibberish after a while......

well....

(You know where you are? You're in THE SPRAWL, baby. You're gonna die!!!!!!!)

Now, lets be clear... I'm not saying THE SPRAWL is a bad place and I'm not saying that all our shows in THE SPRAWL sucked. We had amazing shows (Holla Chicago! Newport! Detroit!), met wonderful peeps (Brendasaurus Rex! Another shout out to The Matt Damon Experience!) and we are hugely grateful for the hard work of our booking agent Kim Paris. She did an awesome job helping us with our tour and we know booking shows is seriously BRUTAL. We love her and are thankful for all her hard work.

The way I see it, these Blog posts are meant to sort of help tell the story of the Desolation Tour Experience. (RIGHT?) Therefore, the bleak and trying times must be represented as much as the fun and silly times. Driving those huge distances, having bunk shows.... it really gave me a sense of how mammoth the task is that we're embarking on.

BATTLEHOOCH VS. THE WORLD!!!!!

We're trying to operate on a national level and on this tour I really got a taste of what doing such a thing really MEANT. Our country is huge! So many different kinds of people! So many different kinds of philosophies! So many unknowns! Nowhere else was this concept more vividly experience than during our time in THE SPRAWL. This was a crucial part of the overall Desolation Tour experience because this was essentially what the whole tour was about.... seeing the WHOLE country and seeing what happens when BATTLEHOOCH dives into it's center.

(Conclusion)

I don't know.

Even just thinking/talking about THE SPRAWL I feel like I'm getting overwhelmed. Trying to keep my head above water. It's so big... (SOOOO BIIIIG) There's so much space between thoughts... between people... and somehow we have to figure out how to tell THE SPRAWL about BATTLEHOOCH.

I think in the end all I can say about my time in THE SPRAWL on this tour... much like the tour itself... it was utterly dizzying and it's grandeur and scope was almost too much for me to fully take in...

...but I'm intrigued. It would be easy to just write it off and look at the negatives. ("It is kinda boring, barren and backwoods", says the hater) It would be easy to just say "FUCK THE SPRAWL". But that would be a disservice to all the wonderful peeps that dwell in SPRAWL (and love living in the SPRAWL!) The SPRAWL is too big and unexplored to write off at this point. As weird as it may seem, THE SPRAWL is still part of America... and from what I've seen America is a pretty groovy place and worth giving the benefit of the doubt.

We're going back into THE SPRAWL in the near future... when we know how to maximize the effectiveness of our time spent there... and I look forward to exploring it more and trying to connect with it further.

RECAP! Episode 1-11 of BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010

Parts 1-11: Chronicaling our journey from San Francisco to Florida

Part 1 - Tour Kick Off

KICK OFF Vlog Episode

• Link to Tour Kick Off Blog here (and footnote here)

Part 2 - Technical Difficulties

• Link to Technical Difficulties Blog post here
  

Part 3 - Seattle, WA

SEATTLE Vlog Episode

• Link to Seattle Blog Post here.

Part 4 - Portland, OR

PORTLAND Vlog Episode

• Link to Portland Blog Post here.

Part 5 - Eugene, OR - Solar Living Institue - San Francisco (Visit) - LA

EUGUENE Vlog Episode

SOLAR LIVING INSTITUTE Vlog Episode


SAN FRANISCO/LA Vlog Episode

• Link to Eugene - SLI - SF - LA Blog Post here.

Part 6 - PREVIOUS RECAP POST.

Part 7 - Las Vegas, NV

LAS VEGAS Vlog Episode

• Link to Las Vegas Blog Post here.

Part 8 - Moab, UT - (UTAH Music Park)

UTAH MUSIC PARK Vlog Episode

• Link to Moab, UT Blog Post here.

Part 9 - Denver, CO

DENVER Vlog Episode

• Link to Denver, CO Blog Post here.

Part 10 - Oklahoma City, OK

OKLAHOMA CITY Vlog Episode

• Link to Oklahoma City Blog Post here.

Part 11 - The South (New Orleans, LA and Florida)

NEW ORLEANS Vlog Episode


FLORIDA Vlog Episode

• Link to The SOUTH Blog Post here.

"Trumpet Poop on the ground with Peanuts" or "A Tribute to Captain Beefheart"

Don Van Vliet, AKA Captain Beefheart, has died.
Long live the Captain.

I didn't get my license until I was 19... so I used to get rides to high school with my dad. We'd drive in his '88 White Toyota Corolla (that's OOF OWF to ya'lls) and listen to cassette tapes of dubs he'd done of his old record collection. This is where I first heard such future favorites as "Box of Rain" by the Grateful Dead, "All Along The Watchtower" by Jimi Hendrix, "Camarillo Brillo" by Frank Zappa and "Positively 4th Street" by Bob Dylan. It was on one of these car rides that he first showed me Captain Beefheart. The Captain was a favorite from his college days and he showed me two songs that were among his favorite in the whole world : "This is The Day" from Unconditionally Guaranteed and "Tropical Hot Dog Night" from Shiny Beast.

For YEARS, I thought "Tropical Hot Dog Night" was the weirdest song in the world. Stranger than strange lyrics and the backing band sounded like they were stumbling backwards through a samba parade. The song in general sounded like it was telling the wackiest joke ever. On top of it all, Captain Beefheart sounded like a Muppet with mad cow disease.
Obviously, nobody at High School gave a shit about Captain Beefheart. Some of my friends knew about him cause he sang "Willie the Pimp" on Zappa's Hot Rats album, but that was it. It was just strange music and I was the only person in the world who knew about it. As a matter of fact, I remember once I read a quote in some magazine where Trey from Phish said "Tropical Hot Dog Night" was one of his favorite songs ever and it blew my mind that someone else knew about Beefheart!
Whenever I tried to show "Tropical Hot Dog Night" to people, they'd just glare at me and get angry that I was playing such annoying crap. Heck, at this point I wasn't even sure what I thought about "Tropical Hot Dog Night". I appreciated how it was odd, bizarre and impenetrable but I wasn't sure if I REALLY liked it yet at that point. The music had a veneer of novelty, as if it was too weird to be really true.

I think my dad and myself are part of only a hand full of people on earth that really love "Unconditionally Guaranteed". The more I researched Beefheart, the more I found that the album was pretty much universally loathed by all his fans for being too "pop" and too "smooth". I guess I understand why that would be... After all, here was the dude who laid down "Lick My Decals Off, Baby" and "Frownland" playing smooth, laid back AM radio music with the dudes from BREAD! Might be a tough pill to swallow for some....
...But I don't care! I love the album and after all these years, I still think "This is the Day" is one of the most beautifully haunting songs I've ever heard. The album wasn't released on cd for years, so for the longest time the song only existed to me on vinyl. In other words, I only heard it when I would hang out with Grant Boardman, a friend who had a record player. (I have many fond memories of listening to the vinyl at Grant Boardman's house: black light, candles, shitty orange carpet and all. The music still evokes that room EVERY time I hear it.) The fact that it wasn't easily accessible and existed only on an outdated form of media created a spectral feel to the music. Fleeting, like an old memory. Also, I knew it was one of my dad's favorite songs, and Unconditionally Guaranteed was one of 3 record albums he brought with him when he dropped out of college and headed west. I think the combination of a unique back story, the fact that the album was out of print and the sweeter nature of the music created a sort of aura to the album that I always found compelling. It was like the tender feelings of my young parents preserved in amber. It was also an interesting balance to "Tropical Hot Dog Night". "This is the day" sounded like the same monster that was barking on "Hot Dog", but now he was sad and lamenting love long gone. A poignant example of seeing the sensitive side of the bizarre.

Either way, these two songs established an emotional and intellectual connection with the Captain that came to full fruition in years to follow.

When I got to college, I became obsessive about discovering new music. I was always asking people about what music they were into, downloading albums in bulk and trying to learn as much as I could about rock history. As I became exposed to artists like Os Mutantes, Fela Kuti and Syd Barrett, I started to realize that my musical tastes generally steered towards the direction of the more bizarre, outer reaches of rock music. It became obvious that "weird" was what I liked. So, inevitably I began to come across Beefheart's name more often and gradually got exposed to more of his music.

In the latter part of my college time, I moved into a house with some of the members of my band and it was there that I (we) started to really get into avant garde music. We spent hours and hours making experimental recordings - sound collages, white noise, atonal jams, you name it. In this environment, Trout Mask Replica became a very important musical reference point and the first full Beefheart album that I personally got into for my own reasons. The fearless spirit of Trout Mask Replica was extremely influential to my band mates and I and informed much of our experimentation. Heck, we even covered "Moonlight on Vermont" for a while. (Apologies for the kinda brutal sound quality... but that's SEX WITH JON for ya.)

Moonlight on Vermont (SEX WITH JON Cover) by AJ McKinley

Also, the deeper into Beefheart I got, the more I realized how relevant he was to my music studies. At the time, I was getting into the abstract regions of music theory in my college courses and being exposed to people like Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Webern. All the things we were learning about (atonalism, chromaticism, poly rhythm, word painting) were elements that he explored extensively in his music and presented in a much more intriguing way than the stuffy classical dudes I was learning about (no knock on Stravinsky et all, just sometimes I like my atonalism without a bow tie, feel me?). When the world of classical music became too heady and mathematical, I'd go back to Trout Mask and it would take me back down to earth... back to the human body. He became more and more crucial to the way I thought about music... I even briefly considered writing my entire senior thesis on Trout Mask Replica.

Eventually, I graduated from UCSC and moved to San Francisco. While I didn't get over Captain Beefheart, for a while he stopped being something that I referenced constantly. While still retaining a desire for progressive, forward looking music, I was no longer spending most of my time actively wading in the choppy waters of the avant garde. He was with me more and more in spirit and not in active practice...
Then, one day last year a good friend of mine showed me how to do BitTorrents. (If you don't know what it means to do a BitTorrent, it's basically the reason why no musicians can make money anymore off their recordings.) Long story short, I soon found myself with the full Captain Beefheart discography. As I started to revisit old favorites and dig through all the tracks I hadn't yet heard, it started to dawn on me: This was music that was crucial to ME.
This wasn't just music that I was intrigued by or that I thought was technically important... This was music that I profoundly connected with! Music that I really loved! I realized how his whole body of work was a vast treasure trove of brilliant ideas that pointed in a thousand directions... most of which had yet to be explored! It was (in my mind) the very definition of artistic bravery. It showed how much was left to be found out. It was music that STILL sounds like it was made tomorrow.

I may be venturing into hyperbole, but this is REAL TALK here, yo. I loved his weird music AND I also loved his simpler, more melodic music. I liked his simple, brutal blues work outs AND his obtuse, intricate compositions. I loved the musical complexity AND I also loved his abstract lyrics and surreal word play. I loved the fact that the dude who made "This is the Day" also made "Pena". (Seriously, marinate for a moment on what those two songs say about the scope Beefheart's music covers. It's staggering, yo.)

When I listen to his music, I feel like I'm able to go to a place of limitless creative fertility. It's like sitting in a garden where you can watch the most incredible flowers blossoming right before your very eyes. The longer you're in the garden, the more incredible the flowers are that you see. The day after he died, I sat in my room and listened to Trout Mask Replica front to back and I was knocked out (like I've been many times before in my life) at how singular that album is. He had forged a completely new musical (and lyrical!) vocabulary that was wholly separate from everything that came before it (and after). Yes, you can hear elements of things like Howlin' Wolf, Ornette Coleman, Stravinsky, Shakespeare, et all but these elements are so disembodied that the music transcends mere pastiche. It's like genetic recombination. It's musical mutation. A wholly new organism with it's own distinct characteristics and DNA.

This is tip of the ice-berg type material. I could ramble for much longer about Beefheart. I could talk at length about all his albums, his side men, and I haven't even touched on the fact the he was a painter for much more of his life than he was a musician (and a damn good one too. SHEESH!). But, I will say that I the man made a whole self contained universe with his art and it's a universe I can go to whenever I want and feel a unique and special kind of freedom and inspiration. For that, he'll always be huge in my mind.

R.I.P. Don Van Vliet (January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010)

-Archaeology Johnson

P.S. - a couple more crucial Beefheart videos from YouTube. Never enough.

BATTLEBLOG 2011 UPDATE (Includes info about the Tour Videos, New Album and More)

Quiet, but not Forgotten. (The BATTLEBLOG).

("I will begin again" - U2)

It's 2 days into 2011 and that means I'm surging with the awesome power that is NEW YEAR MOTIVATION. Yes, dear friends, Archaeology Johnson has a "To Do List" - filled with all manner of things that will (hopefully) enrich my life and (hopefully) infuse my existence with purpose and meaning. That's just a fancy way of saying that for the next few days I'm gonna be sitting around in my PJs listening to Mothers of Invention bootlegs, goofing around with my crazy new distortion pedal and spending money to get broken stuff fixed. (Really?)

This post is meant to be an update of sorts. A State of the Union, if you will on some BATTLEHOOCH related topics.

FIRST:
The Status of the Vlogs from the BATTLEHOOCH 2010 U.S. Tour.

• We are obviously home and the tour has obviously been over for a couple months now. Yes, there hasn't been a peep on this Blog for a couple of months but what can I say.... we got home and I needed to take a break from the self contained universe of madness that was the tour and focus on the NEW, the COMFORTABLE and the FRESH. I visited home a couple of times. I got majorly caught up on sleep (Ed note: Still relishing in the novelty of having my own room and my own bed. Each night of sleep since being home has been delicious boys and girls. Delicious.) I spent long stretches of time working on new songs. FRESH PERSPECTIVE. However, to prove that we weren't just sitting on our asses, here's a video of us playing in Berkley since we're been home.
  
• Now, it's a New Year and it's time to resume telling the tale. In the next few days we'll have the next official Tour Blog post which documents the conclusion of our winding, wayward jaunt to the east cost. (These episodes will cover the existential conundrum that was BATTLEHOOCH IN THE MIDWEST. Profound. Deep. Exhaustive.)
  
• If you followed our trip via Twitter, Facebook, E-mail, Carrier Pigeon, etc. you know that we spent over 6 weeks in NYC and had a ridiculous amount of adventures. An overwhelming amount of said adventures were captured with our cameras (Thanks Kickstarter Backers!) and will be presented in some form (short film? concert movie? episodes?) shortly after the next Blog post. STAY TUNED!
  
• While you await the exciting conclusion of the story of our 4 month Odyssey, please feel free to revisit all the prior episodes. A collection of all the Vlog episodes and accompanying posts can be found if you press THIS LINK.

SECOND:
The Next BATTLEHOOCH Album

We have started working on the next BATTLEHOOCH album. However, unlike past releases where we would work on a hand full of songs for a while and then record them on the cheap as quick as possible, we are going to be trying things differently.... cause we like to be

SO DIFFERENT
(said in sarcastic mocking tone. we're so meta, yo)

So this new plan kinda is shaping up as follows:

• Everyone is writing songs/riffs/progressions/rhythms/concepts/etc. (We'll call these little musical units TIDBITS.)
  
• We're gathering together each week and showing each other the new tidbits. The tidbits are then demoed, jammed on, rehearsed, altered and generally molested and mutilated.
• We move on and do it all over again with a new batch of tidbits next week.
• Net Result: LOTS OF TIDBITS. A Whole Pile of New Ideas that we cherry pick the tastiest, funkiest, most mind-blowing parts.
• We put it together so you can listen to it while you a) do your homework or b) get high. (Ed note. BATTLEHOOCH does not endorse doing homework or getting high.)
• If any of these demos are presentable, we'll share on this blog.
  

This doesn't mean that you'll have to wait indefinitely to hear the next new, sexy and official BATTLEHOOCH recording. No ma'am/sir! In fact, if you've seen us in the past year, you'll know that we already have 7-8 new, unrecorded songs that have been prominent parts of our live sets. The plan as of this moment (Sun 1-2-2011 - 1:16 PM - In bed, listening to "Mud Shark" by Frank Zappa) is to go into the studio in the next month or so and record one or two of those songs. The sad fact of recording music is that it always takes way longer for the song to come out than you ideally want, so these recordings probably won't be out until spring BUT... still Spring will be here before you know it. Promise. :) STAY TUNED!

THIRD:
What Are They Listening To? - New Years 2010/2011 Edition

• Captain Beefheart -

He died. Here's my post about Captain Beefheart. Avant Garde Sentimentality. True Hero.

• Ariel Pink -

2010 was a big year for Mr. Pink. The men of BATTLEHOOCH were among the throngs that fell in love with the twisted alchemy of his music and we fell hard. It started with a friendly interest in this year's BEFORE TODAY album. The interest continued to grow, so when we were filling up my Ipod with new music for our 4 months on the road I made sure to get a whole gaggle of Ariel Pink albums. It wasn't until New York that we started digging through them. First it was THE DOLDRUMS, whose "For Kate I Wait" became a band favorite. Then "L'estat" and it's epic "(Popping noise)-CHEER UP!" breakdown became another favorite. Then we discovered "Among Dreams" and it's serpent bass line and sun burnt beach boys wobble. Then we found out WORN COPY was an amazing album. Now, we're obsessed with it all. On our recent drive down to LA, our van playlist was utterly dominated by Mr. Pink. BEFORE TODAY is hands down my favorite album of 2010 and seems destined to be one of my favorite album ever. (He also gets points for reminding me a lot of early Mothers of Invention albums and leading me back into yet another major Frank Zappa kick.)

• Can - "Turtles Have Short Legs"

Grant showed me this jam last night. So good. Tago Mago-era B-side. I love how the piano kinda sounds like "Penny Lane" style Beatles but the rest is pure juicy KRAUT. Also, a Damo lyric for the ages, "Turtles have short legs, not for walking". Wonderful example of juxtaposition working out (i.e. Bouncy 60s style pop AND tribal, sprawling, textural future beats)

• Tame Impala

INNERSPEAKER was another album that got played a ton during the tour. Different members had different favorite songs, but it could always be counted on to provide a sweet blast of hazy rainbow bliss. Recently discovered their EP is pretty baller also (accompanying video is of a song from said EP). Saw them recently at the Independent and it was totally epic. They opened their set with "It Isn't Meant to Be", "Solitude is Bliss" and "Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind". It was fucking beautiful and me and my homies danced like tripped out animals.

• Depeche Mode - "Everything Counts"

I don't know if everyone else in the band feels this way about this song, but I always kinda felt like it was a "Theme Song" of sorts on the tour. Or at least I often found myself thinking about the chorus during brutal points of the tour: "It's a competitive world. Everything counts, in large amounts".

• Tobacco -

This music is filthy, trippy and funky in all the right ways. Both FUCKED UP FRIENDS and MANIC MEAT are flaming gobs of awesomeness. Don't eat the berries around you.

• Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

A quick RANT, if I may.....

This album wasn't a band favorite per se. In fact, I think at least half the band hates this album. But this album has been a big topic of discussion as of recent in the music world (I guess getting a 10.0 from the fork will do that.) and that includes the world of BATTLEHOOCH. We listened to the whole thing as a band on the drive back from LA and it lead to some interesting debates (Is he any good at rapping? Does it succeed based purely on ambition? Are the incredible beats compromised by his tabloid status? What does a 10.0 rating mean?)
Personally, I think the album is pretty staggering. When I listened to it by myself for the first time, I couldn't help but feel like I was being enveloped... Like I was in the presence of something GARGANTUAN. I'm amazed by the scope of the music: how unabashedly ECCENTRIC and WEIRD it is AND how unabashedly EPIC and POP it is. And dig the half hour video for "Runaway". That's some seriously mind bending Fellini style shit at points.

This is a GRAND artistic statement. It sounds like the Future.

I think it proves Kanye West is very simply the bravest pop musician out there currently. Lady Gaga might be more conceptually out there, but she still is seriously lacking in the over all jams department (Even though I admit Paparazzi influenced the bass line in our song "Joke"). Even if you don't dig his raps, you can't deny he makes HUGE BEATS and has some straight up EPIC HITS. (Or as the man himself says, "At the end of the day, I'm KILLING THIS SHIT. I know damn well you're feeling this Shit"). I don't think the album is perfect but I don't think that's what these mags/blogs are talking about when they drop a 5 star/10.0 review on it. I think this album's ambition is undeniable. Just the other day, a homie told me that to make this album Kanye block booked a whole studio indefinitely, flew in his favorite musicians (RZA, Bon Iver, Elton John, etc.) and would work all day at making this music!!! He would take a 90 minute power nap every 4 hours but otherwise, this dude was working all day to bring this vision to fruition. I think that's tight and quite inspiring as a matter of fact. I feel like it'll be a while before this album really sinks in and peeps can really discuss what this album means, what it attempts and what it achieves. For now, I'm kinda just in awe of it.

That's all for now. Peace and Love (and Kanye West).

-Archaeology Johnson

The South, in 2 Parts OR PROVE IT! PROVE IT! PROVE IT! - BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Episode 11

THE SOUTH

Say goodbye to the comfort zone, yo. (i.e. - Places where family/friends are in abundance. Places where we've played on tours past. Places where we weren't always a LITTLE bit afraid that some crazy police officer or roided out bro would pounce on our brains and faces. Places we know.)

Say hello (HELLLLLLLLLLLLO!) to strange new worlds and undiscovered territory.

We left Oklahoma, stopped through some cities in Texas, making our way into the SOUTH.

(Editors Note: we certainly had great times in Texas but for some reason we didn't really accumulate that much footage. My memories of this visit to Texas were as follows:

• Best grilled Chicken Sandwhich I've ever had in my life in Austin.
• Generally, miles and miles and miles of Texas.
• Walking barefoot on a bar, while doing a guitar solo, while the bartender poured vanilla vodka into my mouth.
• A HUGE twister matt at a backyard party (Everything is bigging in Texas).
• Another long night of hanging out with Shaggy.
• Visiting old buddies, whom I love.
  
• More epic BBQ than you could shake a stick at.
• Drunken weirdos spouting out vaguely racist utterings and then pulling a French Exit....

All this and more went down in Texas, yet it wasn't captured. Use your imagine perhaps, dear readers.

Here's a video of the BUTTHOLE SURFERS. They are from Texas. We love them.)

The REAL South. A land that for as long as I could remember existed purely in abstract. I knew it was a land responsible for a wide variety of things such as Gumbo, Racism and The Allman Brothers... a place that I had been told time and time again was basically just a totally different country.... a place that seems to love Republican politics... a place that wasn't the Bay Area in Northern California.

(Delta Blues. Cotton Fields. Scarlett O'harra. Rugged Accents. Bugs and thick heat. Gators. Hospitality.)

The South.

But I wanted to see if for myself. I think we all did.

PART 1: New Orleans

First we rolled into the utterly delicious city of New Orleans. Here's the New Orleans Episode--->

This city was probably the hottest city we visited during the course of the tour. Como ce dice, "HOT AS FUCK". I have a vivid memory of sitting in the house we were staying at, in my boxers, working on video blogs, sweating so intensely, with a fan on full blast about 5 inches from my face. There was no other way to operate. It was too hot to think.

Sticky. Slimely. The air was like roux. Which brings us to the next point of interest for Nola....

THE FOOD. In my humble opinion, 'twas the best food we ate on tour. They got their own thang goin' on in Nola in terms of food. Jambalaya. Po' Boys. Red Beans and Rice. Beignets. All amazing. And I assure you, dear readers, the authentic food is the way to go. It reminded me of when I went to France for the first time and I had a real French croissant. As I bit into it, my whole concept of the croissant melted. I ate croissants every day for lunch in 7th grade. I've eaten lots of croissants. Or so I thought. As I bit into said pastry, it was an utterly different experience. All I could think was "What the fuck have I been eating all this time?" Upon my return to the US I couldn't eat a croissant for years because I knew it wouldn't compare.

That's essentially how I felt went I had my first plate of authentic red beans and rice. Words can't do justice to how gooey, warm and delicious that stuff is. And the Beignets at Cafe Du Monde. Fried, chewy heaven. So much powdered sugar that it gave ya nightmares. DELISH.

(Battlehooch @ Cafe Du Monde)

We had an amazing show and a lackluster show in Nola. Lets just ignore the lackluster one. Not worth getting into. Not really bad... just kinda.... Smeh. Ya Know?
The amazing show was at a place called The Saint. We rolled in on a rainy, muggy Sunday night and from the outside the venue looked dead. But upon walking in we found a room full of crazies getting down HARD to epic jams (in a 10 minute period I heard "California Love" by Dre and 2pac and "I want to be your lover" by Prince. These cats knew how to mix jams). Apparently the occupants of the bar this evening were a wild crew of kick ball players who had just finished their kick ball season and were looking to get ROWDY. They were wearing costumes, yelling exuberant gibberish and all kinds of stuff. We set up our gear in a corner and within the first 2 minutes of our set it was clear that these people were ready to throw down.

AND THROW DOWN THEY DID. (what a crowd)

It was here that we learned about NoLa's distinctive chant: "WHO 'DAT?!? WHO 'DAT?!?"
At one point, I was tuning my guitar and the crowd just started in with the WHO DAT chant. Not missing a prime opportunity, Ryan dropped a fat beat behind this chant and quickly the rest of the Hooch fell in. Before ya knew it, we were laying down some greasy funk with a crowd full of nutsy southerners chanting. Dear readers, it was really magical. Silly, but awesomely magical.
They also liked yelling "PROVE IT!" For example:

(After playing some rowdy music and getting a super rowdy response...)
Battlehooch: Alrighty, enough of this mellow shit, we're gonna play some crazy, rowdy music...
New Orleans Crowd: PROVE IT!!!!!!!
Battlehooch: (starts playing "The Special Place")
New Orleans Crowd: (GO. FUCKING. CRAZY.)

God damn. Even just writing this stuff I'm getting giddy. One of the best gigs of the tour for sure.
Great city.

Nola. You have stolen the heart of BATTLEHOOCH.

PART 2: Florida

(St. Augustine, FL with our new BFFs, Jane Jane Pollock and Lighthouse Music)

Here's the Florida VLOG---->

Full disclosure: Wasn't really TOO stoked on visiting Florida. Just had a feeling it was gonna be kinda mediocre. But such low expectations meant that the AWESOMENESS that was Florida was felt much more intensely.

It all started off with us filming our 3rd Desolation Video. We played a song standing in the middle of a swamp. Definitely one of the most memorable "venues" on the tour, fo sho. Every official show we played in Florida was cool. Cool bands, cool promoters, cool venues, and cool crowds.

First, there was Orlando.

(Will's Pub - Orlando, FL)

(I - Archaeology Johnson - turned 26 in the fine city of Orlando. My birthday consisted of swimming in a natural water spring, going to see "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" in a movie theater and grubbing down hard on Sushi - thanks for the meal, Ma and Pa.)

Orlando is also, sadly, where we had to bid farewell to our soundman GABE. Thus, the end of THE GABE LEG. :(

(Then Lake Worth....) While in Lake Worth, we made a point to make it out to the Atlantic Ocean for a swim. The water was over 80 degrees. Best experience I've ever had swimming in the ocean. So delightful. Here we played at a joint called "Little Munich". The version of Hope from Vlog #12 is taken from this performance.

In St. Augustine, we played a music festival that was held in a Surf Board making shop. (The word on the street was that St. Augustine was the Santa Cruz of Florida. In general, Florida reminded me a lot of California.) We also played with my favorite bands that we've come across on the tour: Jane Jane Pollock and Lighthouse music. I was laying in the grass, staring up at the sky when Jane Jane started playing... and (sorry to be laying the cheese on thick right here) I found the music literally calling to me, ushering me to get up and go to it... I made my way through the crowd and just stood totally transfixed by their music. The way I described it after the fact was some kind of lo-fi, Chinese(ish) dub pop music: mellow electro beats, awesome vocal harmonies, GREAT GREAT GREAT songs. (I don't know why I describe it as Chinese. Just feels correct.) After their set I stumbled up to them and gushed like a loony fan. Because I was.

LOVE THAT (Those) BAND(S).

(The Red Moon Festival)

In St. Augustine we also got free pizza from the promoter. Free food means SO MUCH MORE to me now than it ever has. Especially pizza. It was like happiness covered in greasy cheese.

Before leaving Florida we stayed in Jacksonville with new friends... at a college dorm. It had been days since I had stayed over in a college dorm... We watched that shitty Oliver Stone Doors movie and went for a swim. 'Twas nice. We also got a healthy dose of southern hospitality in Jacksonville from BIG WALT. BIG WALT was a friend of a friend, and we rolled up to his house one night and he brought us in, told us hilarious stories and gave us a bountiful RIB FEAST for free. (Once again, free food is so incredible when you are struggling to stretch yr money to get enough food just to survive.) Here's a video we shot of BIG WALT doing a rant about how Bay Area sports sucks... in effort to ruffle the feathers of our buddy Petechow... Squire of the BATTLEPAD and avid sports fan.

THE SOUTH. What a place.

"Wayne Coyne is kinda like everyone's Dad..." - BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Episode 10

... and then the mid-west.

A state called OK. An OK State.

(This certainly wasn't California... or anything close to the west coast, really.)

This was new, this was different. This was Oklahoma. And Oklahoma was where my conception of this whole damn country started to mutate.

Before the tour, I'd spent 99.9 (with a line over the last 9) PERCENT of my life in California. Day in day out in a place that as far as I could tell was heaven on earth and the most desirable place to be...

I mean, why be anywhere other than California? I wasn't necessarily HATING.... I just didn't understand.

California: The sunshine state, with the bomb-ass hemp beat. The State where you never find the dancefloor empty.

But there was something under the surface in OK (Oklahoma). Anyone there would tell you that everything was a little bit BEHIND... it's not the center of the world... not really EXCITING... and it doesn't necessarily explode with eccentric creativity (see NYC, Portland, SF, etc.). BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT... the people who live there (in OK) were great people.... interesting people... friendly people... open minded people... basically people that you would find in a stereotypically progressive city (see previous city list).

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, most of the people I talked to loved OK.

I heard tales of going out to the shooting range and firing off some AK-47 rounds. Tales of cow tipping. Tales of crazy hippie freak outs in the woods of Missouri (!!!!). Tales of wild jam bands that live in the outskirts. And then I recalled that the Flaming Lips are from OK (The title of this blog is a direct quote from the resident "OK Super Hippie" (Johnny) talking about the infamous Lips front man).... Sounds like GOOD TIMES, Right?

... So a cursory glance at this mid-western institution would reveal it to be so very very boring. So very very up hip. So very very UN-noteworthy.... but such an assessment denies the fact that there's still wonderful, creative and interesting people that dwell within it's borders, having a blast and living a good life....

The core essence of this realization - THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE EVERYWHERE - kept popping up in my brain constantly with every new town/state/scene we went into. This is a beautiful thing. Makes me love this country A LOT.

HERE IS THE VIDEO DOCUMENT OF OUR OK ADVENTURE:

WHAT ABOUT THAT ARGUMENT IN THE CORN FIELD?

What can I say? Some of us lost our tempers. We yelled. We got in each others faces. SHIT GOT UGLY. But at this point in the tour (As of this writing I am in the early stages of week 15) we have yet to have another blow up.

(HA?)

Yet, I think this little squabble that we had, while quite unpleasant, was necessary. I have never had people this UP IN MY GRILL before in my life. I literally spend every day with these guys. And not just every day, but pretty much the ENTIRE duration of each day, too. We wake up together, we eat together, we travel together, we unload/reload the van together, we play shows together, we even sit together when we're on our computers just chillin out. WE ARE CONSTANTLY IN EACH OTHERS FACES... thus we are aware of each others little delightful quirks, eccentricities and randomness.

(VERY AWARE.)

And that's what I think our little fight in the corn field was all about... trying to figure out how to deal when you have no personal space and when your mental state (or really just ones GENERAL state of being) is directly tied to another person (or persons). Its like we're a creature with 6 personalities inside of 1 head. If one personality is angry or bummed... it's hard not to have it effect the other personalities in a negative way. I personally got to a point where I was letting another persons mentality totally dictate the way that I was feeling and that ain't healthy at all. (Fuck, we're getting into some DR. PHIL Shit right here. Maybe we can get Dr. Phil to be our personal band psychiatrist, just like METALLICA!!!!!)

BATTLEHOOCH, QUIT YR BITCHING.

... but thus is the nature of this whole adventure. Learning and discovering with my brothers. Going out into the deep end... doing what is hard in order to achieve something MORE...

My dear, dear brothers. Love 'em.

But it's all good now, friends. Whatever ugliness that may have occurred is but a small smidgen in an ocean of good times. We may be in each others grills, but we know how to work together.

Basically what I'm trying to say IS....

PEACE.

"...And we entered the Mountains to test our METAL" - BATTLEHOOCH U.S. Tour 2010 Part 9

THE MOUNTAIN REGION, boys and girls.

Where air is thinner.

Where we had our first real "struggle" finding lodging. (Admittedly struggle is far too extreme of a word, but it WAS the first time that we had to really hussle to figure out where exactly we would lay our heads each night.)

Where gawdy weed dispenseries littered the roads, devoid of tact.

Denver, What are you? (COLORADOoooooooooooooooooooooooo???????)

Here's this edition's Vlog ---->

HERE'S A DETAILED TALE
(illustrating an aspect of the existential nature of a touring band's life on the road)

Our time in Colorado was quite interesting. It was the first place we visited where we had some truly STRESSFUL shit to deal with. Days that would probably lead to any other band getting INSANELY PISSED at each other... Yelling and fighting and what not.

Not BATTLEHOOCH, dear friends. We're a band of brothers.

(Audience member: "Hey, didn't ya'll get in a shouting match in a field in Oklahoma?"
Archaeology Johnson: "QUIET YOU! That's the NEXT Episode. We're talking about Colorado.")

Actually, it was basically just one particular day that was kinda rough. So here's how it went down and how we persevered:

We roll into Downtown Denver, totally jived from how well street performing went in the PacNW... we pick a chill looking spot and set up our gear. We start up our first song and then we are IMMEDIATELY SHUT DOWN. The culprits were a small gaggle of smarmy little "Hospitality Officers", who peruse Downtown Denver... keeping it "In Order". Apparently, "Order" did not entail "Electric BATTLEHOOCH Street Performing". "Electric" being the key word here.

So we packed up....

Then we argued. "What should we do?" "Where should we go?" "Should we give up?"

Lots of options were presented and debated... and somehow the one that we decided upon was that Grant should go buy an $800 acoustic bass. Logical, correct?
So we returned to the same spot and then tried our first ever all acoustic street performance AND (drumrolllllllllllll)....

it BOMBED. So Ruggedly. Here is a picture taken from this show....

The cars passing by were just too loud for our instruments, it was wimpy sounding and worst of all the brand new Bass was totally inaudible if you weren't standing right next to it.
Defeated, we packed up. Then Ryan almost got arrested for being smart alecky with the cops.

So we regrouped and argued more and made lots of snarky, bitchy comments to each other. Tempers did get a little heated but we still didn't FIGHT.

(...also keep in mind, all we had eaten that day was some Cereal early in the morning. Grumpy boys, indeed.)

Once again, after all the ideas were presented, we made a logical decision on what to do.... We ended up deciding to drive 30 miles away and try to play for people in the parking lot of a Primus/Gogol Bordello show at the legendary RED ROCKS Amphitheater.

(Again, very logical, right?)

This gig, however, turned out to be a big success. We met lots of cool folks, people seemed to enjoy our music, and we made a little bit of money. General faith for the band was restored.

After all that, we drove back to Denver and then headed to our actual, official gig of the evening. In the car, we bro'd down pretty hard and everyone apologized for being irritable. The bro bond was strengthened. Or as my man Ari Gold says.....

As luck would have it, the venue we played that night gave us a delicious and free full on BBQ meal and free bowling. Very excellent.

SO THE MORAL TO THIS TALE:

When street performing, just about everything is uncertain - where to play? will we get caught? will anyone like us? should we play electric or acoustic? etc. The only thing that is certain is that perseverance will lead to success. When all was said and done, despite all the setbacks, we made some new friends, played our music in an amazing location and then got free Ribs. Sounds okay to me.

The rest of our time was much more delightful. We checked out Boulder, CO the following day and gave the acoustic street performing set up another go. This time we found a more ideal acoustical spot, far away from cars. We played two sets and ended up making about $300. No hassle from the FUZZ. (You could even hear the bass!) Someone even shot 30 seconds of video. (see above.) GOOD TIMES. We played a gig later that night at a Pizza joint. Free Pizza. Flamenco dancers. We played last of 3 acts and only 15-20 people were around when we played but funny enough, we sold merch to about 15-20 people.

BATTLEHOOCH. Gettin' across to ya.

And then we came down from the mountains and stumbled into Oklahoma... that LITERALLY is another Story that will have to wait.....

(P.S. - the lateness of this post is blamed on the fickle nature of YouTube uploads. that is all)