the Piper Downs North West Tour Journal Journal Entry: Our Bon Voyage Show Friday in L.A. was amazing, and we are ready to go. We have a ton of North West fans, and I have never been to Seattle, or Oregon before. Maybe I'll come back with some Birkenstocks... Maybe not. Here we Come! Written By: Yell Date: 3/23/2006 Journal Entry: Today is the first day of he tour and we are off to a great start. It was 78 degrees this morning as we were loading up. Right now we are in the mountains 55 miles outside of Reno, and it is 32 degrees and snowing. Nice. To top it off, a fuse blew in the truck, and our dash lights don't work. Now this feels like a tour baby! Written By: Yell Date: 3/24/2006 Journal Entry: You know, it just ain't a tour until something blows up, breaks, or just generally goes wrong. This particular tour has already met all these challenges and we haven't made it to the first gig yet. Fuse blew inside the truck, rain has pelted our food in the back, and we're driving thru snowy mountains to get to Reno unsure if our headlights are working... And we friggin' love it! Yah, touring! Look out Reno, we're bringing our broke asses to your town! One of the general things that went wrong before we even loaded a single guitar today... our tour van fell thru. We are a towing a trailer and riding in Yell's truck. It's actually not too bad. It's a nice new truck, rides smooth, comfy enough for the four of us. Wish us luck, tonight! Written By: Garner Date: 3/24/2006 Journal Entry: Been on the road for about 26 hours now, and struggling with the fact that I left my "personal" bag in Los Angeles. What this means is that I don't have anything to read, and my cel phone is back at home while I'm longing to stroke it's sleek exterior...anything to break up the tedium of Yell complaining about driving safety and Garner talking incessantly about Jesus. Also, it seems I've made a tragic error picking which pair of sneakers I'll be wearing for 10 days stright. Written By: Bobby Date: 3/25/2006 Journal Entry: We had a great show in Reno last night (Sparks,NV, actually) at Cantina Los Tres Hombres. Our friends in Suckapunch played with us, and there was a pretty good turnout. Sold quite a few Cds, a couple T shirts, and got paid...overall, a very nice kickoff to the tour. After the show, Garner and I hit the casino. While Garner carfeully managed his money, making great poker plays and intimidating other players with his "stare-downs", I lost the $200 I had won earlier at the craps table on my first hand. Yep, $200 on one hand of poker. Good thing money means nothing to me any more, now that I'm famous. Written By: Bobby Date: 3/25/2006 Journal Entry: Reno is cold. Very cold. Teeth chattering, knees knocking, "Yell is a jackass for telling me to just wear my swimsuit while going to the truck" kind of cold. Written By: Bobby Date: 3/25/2006 Journal Entry: Note to self: when at a Chinese Buffet, no matter how good it looks, don't eat the shrimp. Written By: Bobby Date: 3/25/2006 Journal Entry: Wow, what a way to start out a tour! We had SUCH a great time last night with Suckapunch, and the folks at the Cantina Los Tres Hombres really treated us well. It's reeeeaaaallly cold out today - we've seen some snow flurries, and Bobby was wearing SHORTS! I think he regretted that after a while, but I was cold just looking at him. Snowing - I can't believe it. Oh, but I have this fantastic new hat that I've been able to wear! It's a knit beanie with holes in it for my pigtails! It SO rocks. Got an 11 hour drive to Seattle first thing in the morning, and I know we'll be out late partying at Knuckleheads. We'll be able to actually get about 3 hours of sleep before we head out. Hope tonite rocks as much as last night... Written By: Ellen Date: 3/25/2006 Journal Entry: Tonight we play Knuckleheads, a great name for a club, I'm sure I'll fit right in. We're still in Reno. Last night was the Los Tres Hombres gig which was technically in Sparks. The crowd there definitely didn't appreciate us lumping in their beloved town with Reno. Bobby compared it to Hollywood people being told they live in "the valley". Okay, fair enough. The show at Los Tres was ass-kicking! We had a ton of fun with our old pals, Suckapunch. As soon as we walked in the door we knew we were going to be in good shape for the show when the sound guy, Byron, ran up to us and declared, "The Piper Downs! Hey Bobby! You write those great 3 minute pop gems similiar to Elvis Costello!" We almost formed a line right there to kiss him on the mouth. What can we say? The club fed us, watered us, and peeps bought the merch! Thank you SPARKS! Written By: Garner Date: 3/25/2006 Journal Entry: This is our second day in Reno, and we saw snow again. No Good. Ready to ROCK tonight. Written By: yell Date: 3/25/2006 Journal Entry: Whew, we FINALLY made it to Seattle! Wow, yesterday was quite a day - 113,558 hours in the truck, 235 different odors, 835 variations of snoring, and 3 stops to pee. The O Lounge is a super cool place, made cooler by Joshua the cute bartender. The stage was super small, so the boys did a downscale PD show with bass, guitar, and an acoustic. While I was giving my percussion support from the bar, Claudette came over to say hello. Claudette and her husband drove 3 1/2 HOURS to come see us!! Holy cow, that's devotion. So great to see them. This morning, we all slept in as much as we could and tonite we're due to rock out at a place called the Nectar Lounge. Supposed to be a great venue, and I'm really looking forward to rocking out. HOT! Written By: Ellen Date: 3/27/2006 Journal Entry: We made it to Washington! We left Reno at 5:30am, and made it into Seattle around 7:45. Brutal! Through Snow,and Sleet,and Rain... Nothing can stop Rock n Roll! Written By: Yell Date: 3/27/2006 Journal Entry: Our show at Knuckleheads was pretty cool. Big thank you's to Pierre from Suckapunch hooking us up with this show. We played a GREAT band called All Day Drive, and also Crushed By Jefferson, who headlined and packed the place. Mike, the drummer from Crushing, totally hooked us up with a drum head we needed,and was just totally cool. It really seems like Reno has lots of very nice people...they just don't seem to like to applaud much. Written By: Bobby Date: 3/27/2006 Journal Entry: Waking up at 1pm in the afternoon was a luxury I had forgotten. But here I am bleary-eyed in Seattle at 1 in the afternoon. The last two days have been a blur of rock-n-roll, shallow sleep, rain, and road lines flying past the windowsheild of the truck. Let's see... ah yes, now I remember! We rocked Knucklehead's Bar back in Reno the other night. Everyone was so nice and gracious. The staff, the bartenders, the other bands (especially MIKE from Crushed by Jefferson)were all real nice! And then we took the stage. Fortunately, there was a core of people in the main room that appreciated that there was a live band playing their hearts out for them. God bless those people. The rest of the patrons were in the other "wing" of the club surrounding the pool tables. From the stage it looked like 70% of the audience had their backs to us. What the hell where these people doing? Those people can kiss my ass. Maybe that's what they were doing, were they involved in a butt kissing contest? If that's the case, I forgive them. After the gig we had a few hours to shower, nap, and play the shortest games of poker and craps in the history of gambling. 5:30am: On the road again... After a "short" 14 hour drive later we roll into Seattle just in time for our O Lounge gig. The O Lounge was the nicest, smallest stage we've ever been on. We squeezed Ellen out of this gig, since there was no room on stage for a drum. So we did a semi-acoustic styled show pulling out a lot of slower country-tinged songs in the key of "G". It was a nice show, a "warm-up" for tonight's show that will bring out the full rock assault. Our in-town host Ethan, was there last night and was very helpful in getting us up to speed in the ways of the Seattle people. Written By: Garner Date: 3/27/2006 Journal Entry: Yesterday was a LONG one...in the truck for about 14 hours, and then when we got to out gig the stage was so small, that ellen couldn't set up! Super nice place, though, and the show went about as well as it could have. A fan of ours (Colette) and her husband drive 3 1/2 hours to come see us play. Since the last time she'd seen us play was years ago, we ended up playing a set made up of almost all our old stuff...Songs we literally haven't played in years, including "When I Needed You" and "Christie Anne". We were pretty happy with the way the night turned out. Written By: Bobby Date: 3/27/2006 Journal Entry: Our secind night in Seatle, and while it wasnt a complete bust, it wasn't amazing either. The Good: We played really well, good sound system, the room was GREAT, and the people who saw us loved us. The bad: the room was really empty. The club was called Nectar, and it was one of the nicest clubs we've ever played, but here was no one there! We were supposed to be playing with a local Seattle band, which fell through, and there's just no way to recouperate from that. Well, if we ever get back up to Seattle, I would love to play there again. For right now, though, Seattle was a bit of a bust. Good news, though...we've booked another show in Reno for our way back! Written By: Bobby Date: 3/28/2006 Journal Entry: Oh, my GOD. I just ate about 304 lbs. of seafood. AND I had some strawberry rhubarb cake. Folks if you're ever in Seattle, visit the Crab Pot, and order the Alaskan - you won't need to eat again for a week. But don't take Yell if you are going to be spending the next day in a car with him - your nostrils will regret it. Written By: Ellen Date: 3/29/2006 Journal Entry: Another day in Seattle, and our one day off for the tour. While Ellen, Yell, and Garner went out to see a horror movie, I stayed back at the hotel and read a book, watched tv, and took a nap. I know that's not really exciting to read about in an online journal, but for me, it was pretty damned cool. Written By: Bobby Date: 3/29/2006 Journal Entry: Question: If a rock assault occurs in a kick-ass club called Nectar and nobody is there to hear it, did the rock assault actually rock? Well, friends, The Piper Downs put that saying to the test last night. And yes, I do believe the rock assault rocked, even though nobody was there to hear it. Here's an equation for all you promoters and club bookers; Out of town band + No local band = No audience. Written By: Garner Date: 3/29/2006 Journal Entry: Well, We are about to leave Seattle and head down to Eugene. We have 2 shows there, and then we do 1 more show in Reno. We got a call yesterday that Reno wants us back. We thought that ment in a month or two, but they wanted us to play Thursday! ROCK!!! Written By: Yell Date: 3/29/2006 Journal Entry: Just couldn't catch a break in the NW, I guess...Last night we showed up to the Good Times Lounge, and we weren't booked after all! Lucky for us, the manager felt bad for us, and got us booked at Downtown Lounge (which was a beautifull club)last minute, and at least we got to play. I'm ready for the final Reno show...we seem to do pretty well there... Written By: Bobby Date: 3/30/2006 Journal Entry: Wow, Oregon was a bit on the rough side, at first. The in-store at CD World went fine but when we arrived at our evening gig. We were looked upon with blank stares, "There's a band playing here tonight?" Nope. Not anymore. No PA, no promotion, no local band, no gig. We've officially seen it all. Luckily, we were able to find a last minute show at another club down the street. Our Oregon contact brought over his friends and ran sound for us. Ironically, one of our pals had moved to Oregon from Los Angeles and was there at the show! We stayed at her fiance's house for the night. That was such a blessing! The whole situation could have real bad, but it turned out okay! A special thanks to Scott, Colin, Stephanie, and Todd! Written By: Garner Date: 3/30/2006 Journal Entry: Well... We are out of the Pacific Northwest, and back in Reno. We had to drive through the mountains again, and guess what? We ran into snow. Not good. I am ready to Rock Reno, and get back home to some snowless days. Written By: yell Date: 3/30/2006 Journal Entry: Wow, what a week it's been! We almost weren't able to play last night in Eugene - thanks to Scott over at Good Times, we got a last minute hook-up at a great club called Diablo's. Not only that, but we got to shower and crash at Colin & Stephanie's place afterwards. The BEST part, though, was getting my puppy fix - their dog Sicily was about the cutest thing ever. Can't wait to rock Reno more time before hitting the road again... Written By: Ellen Date: 3/30/2006 Journal Entry: If you ever want to catch some good Jazz in Reno, NV; don't go to the Jazz Club. And that's a good thing, since that was the club we played at last night. It was actually a punk rock club, and a real cool place to hang out. The local band we were playing with, "No Nothing Party", were one of the nicest bunch of punk rockers I've ever met. From the moment we rolled up to the venue, they greeted us with a beer toast from the sidewalk. They jumped up and helped us load in our gear into the club in record time. The vibe at this club was so cool! The band and their fans loved us and jumped around while we rocked the place. Tim, the guitar player, said it was so refreshing to hear a band like us come thru Reno and rock some mutha f-er's. Well, we were happy to deliver. And we'll be back. Written By: Garner Date: 3/31/2006 Journal Entry: Well, we are on our way back to sunny (I hope) L.A.! We just got through the Tahoe area with TONS of snow - sheesh, that was cold. At least I can actually see a patch of blue sky ahead - yay! Last night at the Jazz Club was just awesome - thanks so much to No Nothing Party for having us and helping us end our tour with a bang. That was the friendliest, craziest punk club I've been to. Hopefully we'll be back to rock out again soon! Written By: Ellen Date: 3/31/2006