Pics on the Journey Home

TEXAS PICS / ARMADILLO FEST

Some More Pics from our time in Texas. I still have a few more to post of the drive home.

SXSW X LA or BUST

Last time I posted I'm pretty sure it was on the way to Austin while I was stuck in Throwing Seven's RV with Nash and Leilani. That was the last and pretty much only time I was able to get internet. Since their drummer had a wireless card. Well let me just say Austin was unreal! It is seriously one of the coolest cities ever and I know the entire band agrees. We pulled into Austin Thursday night and helped Bo-Peep out at their show. Then all of Midnite Theory and Bo-Peep went to the PF Changs in Austin (Thanks Lisa!) and we stuffed our faces and celebrated making it to SXSW. After dinner we rolled out to a backyard party on 6th street that our buddy Moose was playing and finally got to relax and have some beers. We starting meeting people right away and were handing out business cards left and right. It was St. Patty's night so everyone was drinking alot. Nash ended up sitting down with Kris and some locals and started playing a drinking game with them. About half an hour later the guy Nash was sitting next to got up and we all noticed he had been wearing a little green mini-skirt the whole time. Hahahah. It was hilarious. The next day we got up and rolled out from our hotel in the RV into downtown Austin. Traffic was crazy and we were worried we might not make the gig. When we finally got into the heart of it all it was crazy. All of 6th street (which is the main hub of SXSW) was closed down and people were everywhere! We had to carry all our equipment about half a mile to the gig rolled down 6th street with wide open eyes and huge smiles on our faces. The gig was at Treasure Island at 4pm. We proceeded to rock the house (Thanks Ace!) as people coming down the street would stop at the open window and rock our while others came inside to listen and take pictures. It was pretty surreal to realize we were actually in the heart of SXSW playing a gig. After the show we realized we were gonna have to carry our gear 2 miles to the RV so Danny ended up finding a Beer truck driver and giving him 25 bucks to load our equipment in the back. It was awsome. While bringing our equipment over we were followed and interviewed by a camera crew that was doing a SXSW special for CBS. We rolled around for a while on 6th street then headed back to the RV which was parked across the street from the Texas State Cemetery. Later that night we met some kids from Dallas that took us to an underground party on a huge bridge overlooking Downtown Austin. It was amazing and they had two stages side by side with two bands trading off. I found out one band was Thee Oh Sees from San Francisco. The energy was crazy and the bridge was literally rocking back and forth. I ended up seeing on Spin.com that they called it the Best Underground SXSW show of Day 2. Pretty cool. The next day we had a show at a spot a little off the SXSW trail at a spot called the Krush Lounge. We ended up playing sitting in stools and put on kinda of chill laid back set that everyone really seemed to enjoy. After the show we rolled back out to 6th street with everyone and partied our asses off. It was so much fun and people were everywhere. SXSW is seriously like Mardi Grais but with a bunch of Indie kids in bands. There are bands everywhere! Later that night we ended up getting invited to a 1000 person party at a Co-Op student living center on the campus of The University of Texas. It was unreal. All the stairwells and hallways were crammed with kids and u could barely walk. It was like one of those motels with everything outside and people were peeing off the railings and throwing beer cans. Kristafari described it as Animal House times 10. We met a lot of cool kids and J and Nash ended up freestyling with some local MC's. We had two shows the next day so we bounced and crashed for the night in the hotel and RV. The next day we had a show at 1pm at The Whole foods in Austin. It was located in a shopping mall alot like one you'd find in Thousand Oaks or Westlake with Starbucks, an Apple store etc. We played inside and did another acoustic set which went over really well. Bo-Peep played after us and brought down the house. They played fully plugged in through our gear and I swear grandmas were dancing in the aisles and everyone was coming over to check it out. I love those girls, they shred! After the show it was time to leave Austin and we made our way out to Taylor, Texas for our final show of the tour. When we pulled into town we were a little shocked because it really looked like a ghost town out of a movie. You can see it in the picture above. We pulled up to the venue and realized we were playing in a barn that we later found out was actually a tractor wherehouse. I went in first and checked it out. We were for sure in small town Texas! They were serving huge turkey legs and beer in cans and everyone was smoking inside. In the main room they had a bunch of folding chairs set up and the spot actually had a huge stage with a band rocking out. At first we weren't sure how they'd react to our style of music but then the promoter Marlon came up and greeted us with a very warm welcome. The show ended up being our best of the tour and we really played our asses off. We finished the set off with a crazy rendition of PTS with me and Danny ending up on the floor jamming out and the end. Throwing Seven tore it up after us then Bo-Peep came on. Everyone was drunk by this point and having an awsome time and celebrating the end of tour. During B0-Peeps last song all the members of the bands on tour got up on stage and sang their last song with them. It was so cool. You can see video of it on YouTube under Armadillo Halls page. We ended up signing a bunch of autographs and meeting a lot of amazing people. The venue even had a thrift store attached to it and they let us go in a grab anything we wanted which was really cool. Then it was time to leave and we had a journey in front of us. It is supposed to take 24 hours to drive home from Taylor to Los Angeles and we set out on our way. By 7 am trouble set in and Dolores starting giving us problems. The problems continued for a while before we ended up breaking down and having to go see a mechanic in Sonora, Texas. We ended up spending 5 hours in this tiny tiny town. But their was a silver lining! I finally got to go to a Sonic Burger! Hahaha. I've always seen the commercials but have never been to one and on this day we ended up eating there twice. The food was ok but I would have to recommend the Cherry Limeade for sure! Anyways we finally got Dolores somewhat running again but by this time were way behind schedule to make it home. We still had over 300 miles to go before we go out of Texas! Dolores made it through most of New Mexico before finally calling it quits for good in Arizona. We ended up having to call AAA and get her towed to a truck stop in Tuscon. We decided we had to let her go and ended up leaving her at the truck stop to be towed home later. We went and rented another RV (Mark and Dickie from the label had been following in another) and hoped to finally be on our way home. By the way at this point we were on around our 35th hour with no stops to sleep, shower or really rest. We unloaded Dolores packed everything in the SUV's and took off. About an hour into the ride our trailer which was hitched to one of the RV's popped a tire and we had to pull of the road. The only problem was the one place we could pull off was in between the 4 lanes of traffic and the freeway on ramp lane! We were basically stuck there. One SUV went to find a new tire and when that took to long the other SUV took off to get a flatbed trailer to put the other trailer on top. This left me, J and Danny alone in the middle of the freeway in Phoenix with then sun baking on us for almost 2 hours. We ended up laying lined up on the freeway with the trailer as our only shade as cars whized by our heads and feet! Finally the suv's came back and we got the trailer up on the new trailer, but not before we had to first unload all our gear while in the middle of the freaking freeway. It was insane. By this point we were past our 40th hour and needing a real meal. So we stopped at the Changs in Phoenix for one last time to fuel up. We said our prayers and hit the road for what we hoped would be our last time. We finally made it home around 3 in the morning on Monday night after leaving from Texas on Saturday at 4am. The ride home took almost 50 hours! In that time we could have left Texas come to LA and left again and made it back to Texas. Or we could have drivin to New York!!!!! We were all so happy to be home and we unpacked and said our goodbyes. Our first tour was finally over and we were super proud to have pulled through in spite of all our setbacks. I'm pretty sure we earned our Tour stripes and I know we are all itching to get back out on the road. Thank you to everyone we met along the way and all the people who helped us out. You are all amazing and we will remember you forever. Can't wait to see you again!!!!

-Lieb-

Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona

Ok so where to begin. Well we played the Joint in Flagstaff on Sunday 3/15. It was a cool little venue and was actually a Bar/Venue with a strip club in the back. Let’s just say the strippers were of questionable quality. We seemed a little tired but it was to be expected after a long day/night in Vegas and a long drive into Flagstaff. Bo Peep was absolutely amazing and we all love watching them perform. At the end of the night we all piled in the Dolores and that’s when the problems started. We tried to start the RV and the battery was dead. So we jumped it and slowly made our way back to our hotel which was pretty much covered in Ice and snow by the time we got back. We all tried to get some sleep and woke up the next morning early to hit the road. We were headed to Albuquerque , New Mexico and had a lot of land left in Arizona to cover. Our Generator in the RV had stopped working so we were without any power which meant no fridge, no microwave, no TV and no laptops. An hour or so into the drive Dolores really started acting up and we ended up stopping at a truck stop in Winslow, AZ. The same Winslow made famous by the Eagles in their song “Take it Easy.” We met some really cool locals who helped us get the Generator running and we topped off a bunch of fluids in Dolores and attempted to get her running ok. We pulled out and made it about 20 min before Dolores started smoking from the engine. We had to pull off on the side of the road and try to get her to cool down. About half an hour later we started driving again only to have the battery die about 3 miles down the road. This time we ended up on the side of the road for about 2 ½ hours trying to get the RV to start working again. We almost abandoned her but ended up getting her somewhat running and headed towards New Mexico. We were planned to play a show that night in Albuquerque but were so far behind that we ended up pulling into a Kampground of America in Gallup, New Mexico so we could get some rest and work on the RV in the morning. We were pretty sure the Alternator was shot and planned to get a new on in the morning. It was only about 10pm and we were all hungry. We ended up getting a shuttle ride from the RV Park/Hotel to an Indian Casino called The Fire Rock, which was seriously a tent/dome on the side of the road. Dinner was great and we all hung out and gambled a bit. It seems they don’t have many people coming in and playing the tables because by the end of the night they gave us all Players cards and begged us to come back on the way home. When we got back on the shuttle the driver was bumping the Planet LA Sampler CD and he threw on Love Song and Angel on Sunset for the ride home. Seriously the people in New Mexico were some of the nicest people I have ever met. The next morning we got up super early and switched out the Alternator and made some tweaks on Dolores. We hit the road and started to make our way across the entire state of New Mexico and towards Texas. The drive went well for the first 7 hours but was pretty grueling. I went to sleep in the back of the RV and by the time I woke up we were in Texas and our Battery was about to die and our Alternator was shot again! We pulled into Lubbock, Texas with no headlights and proceeded to get stuck in a parking lot full of mud. We met a couple of guys that helped tow us out and in the process almost killed one of them when they almost got crushed between the RV and their pickup truck. It was super scary but he ended up being ok. We proceeded to make our way over to the venue in Lubbock and found out they had no PA!!! So like we always do we made the best of it, and ran the vocals thru a guitar cabinet. We ended up having a great show and spent the rest of the night getting drunk with Throwing Seven and Bo Peep. By 2am we ended up at a local Ihop and stuffed our faces thanks to our awesome waitress Paula! Then it was back to the Rv/Hotel for some much need sleep. As I write you now we are on our way to Austin for SXSW and should be there in about 4 hours. Can’t wait! We all have heard Austin is awesome and we are so stoked for SXSW. I finally got an internet connection so hopefully we will be able to update you day by day. Till next time.

-Lieb-

LA to Vegas to Az

Hey all, so we finally got a chance to chill out for a minute and post a new entry. It's been a wild last 2 days and the tour has only just begun. We took off from 4Bros on Sat at 9am and ran into a problem before we were out of the parking lot "literally" It seems our trailer hitch was a bit too low and it decided to dig into the pavement of 4Bros very steep parking lot. So before we even hit the road we were forced to jack up the RV and get the hitch out of the ground. You can see from the above pics it was in there pretty deep. So after that little fiasco we finally hit the road and made our way towards Las Vegas. On the way we made sure to pop the bottle of Champagne Lisa gave us and started celebrating. We pulled in to Vegas at around 6pm and found our hotel. The show we were playing that night was at the hotel we were staying in and it was a pretty ghetto hotel to say the least. It was in downtown Vegas about 4 miles off the strip and was pretty beat up. What was 3 rooms we were gonna be getting turned into 2 and we all chilled out and met up with friends who came out for the show. We took the stage at about 10pm to a bunch of our friends and a decent crowd. We proceeded to blow the roof off the place and ended things with a crazy version of PTS. Then we all hit the strip and partied the rest of the night. At 9 am today we hit the road towards Arizona. We made a quick pit stop at The Hoover Dam which was really cool and pushed on. About 4 hours into the drive we started seeing snow on the mountains and by the time we pulled into Flagstaff it was snowing out. I didn't even know it snowed in Arizona! Now we are chilling in our room and waiting to head over to the Joint for our Planet LA Showcase. Tomorrow morning we are off to New Mexico for show #3. Until then, wish us luck on the road! Oh by the way check out the pic above of a t-shirt I found at a rest stop in AZ. Pretty hilarious.

-Lieb-

On The Road Again

So the RV is packed, the trailer is hitched and we are 7 hours from leaving on tour. I should probably be getting some sleep but I'm way to excited. We will be heading to Vegas tomorrow for a show that night at The Neon Reverb Festival, then we are off the next morning to Flagstaff, Arizona. I will make sure to post after our show in Vegas with some new pics and video and stories from the road....By the way we named our RV Dolores after the Bus from Almost Famous. She kinda looks the same. You can be the judge. Check out the above pic to see her. Thats our home sweet home for 10 days. Can't wait.

Midnite Theory x Nero Tshirts

We just got two new t-shirts designs done. I only have the pic of one but you can check it out above. Thanks to Nero of Clandestine Rabbit Tattoo shop for the artwork. $10 a pop. Get yours today.

Spring Southwest Tour

So we are going on Tour March 13th - 21st. This is our first tour outside of California and we are all really excited. Since we've signed with Planet LA Records things have been moving fast and they set us up with a Spring Southwest Tour with the Japanese band Bo-Peep and our label mates Throwing Seven. We are gonna be hitting Vegas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas all in a 10 day span. We are getting a sick 32 foot RV and it should be quite an adventure. We are gonna be using this blog to keep everyone updated on our journey on the road with pics, videos and updates about what is going on. So make sure to check it out everyday and we will see you all when we return. By the way we are playing one last local show Wednesday the 10th at The Good Hurt in Santa Monica. Its the official tour kickoff party and its only $5 at the door. Hope to see u all there.

-Lieb-