Category Archives: GTG Activity

3/16/2009 2:00 PM

Bah! Back in East Lansing at Owen Hall. I’m supposed to be working but after making sure it wasn’t 100% necessary for me to paint anything I put my “street” clothes back on and read “Get in the Van” in the cafeteria. I had what felt like the worst headache of my life as I rode my bike into East Lansing today. I wanted to just keel over and lay in the grass and vomit. Everyone on campus would just walk by… that guy’s in pain but it doesn’t concern my superficial quest for self-satisfaction so I’ll ignore him. I hate college. I’m glad I work in the building I work at though… Owen Hall is a grad student hall and is comprised mostly of international students and other people who don’t give a fuck about the pathetic college lifestyle. I talk to some of these people and a lot of them are actually concerned with gaining knowledge and helping people instead of the petty moneymongering bullshit that my undergraduate student peers obsess over in between getting wasted and empty sex.

Wow, I’ve been reading way too much Rollins. Sorry. The days immediately following tour are always really lame, and this tour was such an amazing time. This day-to-day existence is so hollow and lifeless, and I would give so much to just get back in the van and play a show every night. The last show of the tour in Jamestown was really weird. The folk duo, Nate and Kate, that opened the show played probably a little longer than they should have, and then bailed immediately because they had another show down the street. They were good though, and seemed like really nice people, so I wasn’t upset at them or anything. The place was pretty small, so we didn’t load-in until right before we played, so we were already struggling to keep people in the room as we had to set bring everything and set up. We were coming along though, until Hattie realized that her kick drum pedal was still in Syracuse. Of course, this happens at the only show that we’re not playing with another full band, so we can’t just borrow one. Hattie asked the guys working the counter if they could help us out, and they called a friend who said he’d bring a kick drum pedal by in 15 minutes. Cool. We didn’t want to wait around and lose more of the crowd though, so we started playing songs that would have been tailored for an acoustic set, but we were still full band electric. It was pretty cool. We played “Shy” and “All That You’ll Be” from “Whatevers Forever” as well as the song “Exercise in Humility” that we’re currently recording for the next whatever we do. People seemed to be enjoying it, and then halfway through “All That You’ll Be” one of the guys working the counter brought in a kick drum pedal. Hattie put the pedal in place, and we kicked into “Sing Along.” It felt so great to be back in that zone. Comfort in the sound. We played a few more and really started cooking, and I wasn’t really paying attention to the room as I was just getting into the set. I finally looked up and there was one person in the room. There was another room where the coffee bar and some tables were, and I knew people were in there, but it was a strange jolt. For some reason, I just got more pumped and we launched into some new songs, and the one guy in the room left. I started laughing as we played, and we went into “Medic.”  Nich and I just started running around the empty room as we played the song, jumping off of furniture and having a blast. Of course, while I say the room was empty, James was in there filming the set, which should make some entertaining viewing. We just kept playing, and finally one of the guys working came into the room and sat down. I thought he was going to tell us to quit because everyone hated us, but instead he told us that people had been buying CDs and shirts as they left. Haha!!! The other guy working came in and we asked them what they wanted to hear, and we played a few more songs just for those guys. We closed the show, and the tour with the 45 second whirlwind of “Gaia.” Both of the guys working bought some CDs and shirts as well, and we chilled with them for awhile. It would have been cool to hang out with them some more and check out some bars, but we were kind of anxious to get back home. Jeremy told us to play in Jamestown because the people there were really cool. He was right. What a strange show. One of the guys working told us to stop at Waffle House in Painesville, OH, and since it just isn’t tour without a trip to Waffle House, we planned on it.

The drive home was, well, a drive home. I drank way too much coffee throughout the day, so I felt like I was going to throw up. I got a ginger ale to settle my stomach when we stopped to get gas, and lamented that no one makes a ginger ale like Vernor’s, which you just can’t find most places outside of Michigan. We stopped at the Waffle House and I got some hash browns with onions, peppers, tomatoes, and mushrooms, or peppered, diced, capped, and somethinged if you know your Waffle House lingo. They had a sign in their window that said “Go Cavs” which from the parking lot looked a lot like “Go Gays,” which would have made them the coolest town ever. Either they’re just very supportive of the LGBT community, or every Friday night the town crams onto the high school football field to cheer on the Painseville Gays. Alas, twas not to be.

On the drive home we listened to “Legend” by Bob Marley and the Wailers, “Fever to Tell” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (again), a David Cross stand up album, random songs selected by James (including “Six Pack” by Black Flag and tour theme song “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis”) and finally, a repeat of the first half of “Bleed American” by Jimmy Eat World. At 5 AM in a service plaza in Ohio, Nich prank called a hotel, saying that he needed one room for a 15 piece hispanic folk band, it had to be one room, and money was not an issue. Nothing like staying up all night and then fucking with other people that have also had to stay up all night. We got into Michigan, and I was doing my wierd half-sleep thing that I do in cars after being up all day, yearning for my bed, and James put on “Champagne Supernova.” For reasons impossible to explain, that song had been part of tour-long joke between Nich, James, and I. It was a super cheesy moment as I smiled in the back seat, reminiscing over our east coast adventures to that overblown psychedelic anthem of my youth. We got home around 8 AM, loaded in, and passed out.

It’s nice being back in Lansing. I like the way things move around here. I’m looking forward to seeing my friends. Cheap Girls was on tour the whole time we were, so I’m curious to talk to those guys and see how their tour went. It’s exciting to be part of this music scene right now… there’s a lot of great bands and a lot of cool people. Anyone who says the Lansing music scene is dead, or “needs help” (as I’ve seen in the Mac’s bathroom) is simply not trying and not looking.

Thank you Robbie, Paul, and friends in Baltimore, The Rivals, American Riot, Too Much Too Fast Too Soon, DEMO, Niki, Ian, Jeremy, Lee, Kinetic Stereokids, Portocal, Ryan and everyone at Cornell, Matt and the Syracuse crew, the guys in Jamestown, and everyone else (sorry I can’t think of everyone off the top of my head) that made this tour the best one yet. We’ll do it again. Soon. Forever.

tommyplural

3/14/2009 7:45 PM

Sitting in Labyrinth Press Company, a cool little cafe in Jamestown, NY. We’re playing in a couple hours. So, where I last left off we were getting to Cambridge, MA to play a show. Our old friend Jeremy (former GTG House roommate and member of Head and Toe) had set up the show as he lives in Boston these days. The show was at a place called Cafe Luna and it was with the Flint, MI band Kinetic Stereokids. A funny thing about this tour is that on almost every day of the tour we hung out with people from Michigan, the main exception being in New Jersey. That might be a testament to how shitty the economy is that people from Michigan are everywhere, or maybe we just played in a lot of cool places. The Break-Ups had played a show with KSK last summer, so I was vaguely familiar with them. Cafe Luna pretty much just does acoustic shows, but on this Tuesday night they made an exception for these two touring bands from Michigan. We met this guy Lee who worked there and ran the shows and he was super cool. He fed us and gave us beer and collected donations all night. KSK played first, in the crammed area by the window at the front of the cafe. They sounded really good in the room and structured their set nicely so it began quiet and lulling before building to louder and noisier sounds. They’re touring down to South by Southwest, whereas we’re doing our own east coast tour, so we were heading in opposite directions, but it was really cool that we got to hook up with them for a cool, weird little show. We shared a lot of gear with them due to space and time constraints. We did a set that cut some of the heavier moments but we pulled out a new arrangement of the “Whatevers Forever” song “All That You’ll Be” that we’re pretty psyched about. I love that song, but it’s really hard to pull off live, but I think this new arrangement is working. People seemed really receptive to the music and we sold some stuff. We split the donations with KSK and both bands walked out doing surpisingly well for a free show on a Tuesday night in Boston with no local support. We went down the street to a bar and Jeremy bought a few rounds of High Lifes for us. KSK was hanging out as well with some of their Michign friends in Boston, as well as Jeremy’s friend Rachel (also from Michigan originally). About 12 people from Michigan, meeting up in Cambridge for a drink. We filled Jeremy in on the GTG happenings, and he was pretty psyched about Too Much Too Fast Too Soon joining up as he went with us on a previous tour where we played with The Rape Babies. Back at Cafe Luna, Lee made a plan to have an after party where we would play again, but the idea fell from our minds as we remained in the bar longer and longer. It was great getting to hang out with Jeremy. We settled back into our goofy dynamic of the year that we all lived together, and he treated us to a good time in his current ‘hood. We eventually headed back to Jeremy’s house in Winthrop, on an island north of Boston, after a long ordeal where we were trying to find Rachel’s friend, followed by another ordeal where the exit we needed for Winthrop was closed. I was pretty drunk, so it was all just a confusing haze. I drink a whole lot more on tour than I do at home. I think when I get home I’m going to call off drinking for awhile. I don’t really like drinking. It’s okay sometimes, and on tour it’s a great social lubricant/ time killer, but as I sit here at the end of the tour I’m ready to live sober for awhile. Somehow I got more beer back at Jeremy’s house and passed out with Hattie on an air mattress that slowly deflated through the night putting me in weird contorted positons – I woke up with no feeling in my right arm.

We woke up around noon on Wednesday, March 11. Jeremy was headed back into Cambridge to meet up with Matt from Frontier Ruckus, who was in town for unrelated reasons, making him yet another Michigan guy who was just sort of around. We were down by the Harvard campus, hanging out in a bookstore, where I picked up a copy of “Get in the Van” by Henry Rollins for some tour reading (I put it on my debit card, not totally sure how much money was in there, and when I checked my balance later I had $2 left after the book purchase… success!!). Hattie and I went to go put more change in the meter but got lost on the way, and at one point I got so mad I threw my new book at a tree. I wanted to get in the van, but by god it was nowhere to be found!! We eventually found it at the same time Nich did, with no ticket, and then Jeremy and Matt showed up, shortly followed by James. We headed into Boston proper, got some food from a Vietnamese sandwich shop, dropped Matt off, then made it back to Winthrop. It was our only off day of the tour, and we got to absorb the Boston area. Nich wrote about his feelings for Boston already. It was cool enough but… when we were leaving Brooklyn, the singer of the band Top Ten Lovers (great band, by the way) told us to be weary of “The Boston Stare” which the bassist dutifully demonstrated. It was amusing, but… we certainly got it. Henry Rollins raves about Boston crowds in “Get in the Van,” so we’ll just have to try again and hopefully find “our” people. Our show was good, the people were cool, but.. .yeah. Whatever. The most exciting moment of the day, for me, was when I got online at Jeremy’s house (right around the time I wrote my previous blog) desperately searching for a show for Friday night as we still didn’t have anything booked, and then I got one in Syracuse! Yes! I love it when things work out at the last minute like that. We got drunk and watched a Sarah Silverman thing on TV.

We got up on Thursday, March 12, dropped Jeremy off at Berklee (where he was about to meet Paul Simon… wonder how that went…) and then met up with James’ cousin Alex at an awesome bar/ restaurant called The Other Side. This seemed like “our” kind of place. Alex was cool, and he was the four thousandth person from Michigan we hung out with. Feeling frisky, James, Nich, and I split a pitcher of PBR (this is at 12:30 or something) causing me to get pretty buzzed as I hadn’t eathen anything. If a day is divided into how many times you get drunk and sober up, this was a three part day. I ordered a vegan BLT, which was absolutely amazing. Alex went his way, and we headed towards Danbury, Connecticut for our next show. On the way from Boston to Danbury we listened to “Water and Solutions” by Far, “Downward is Heavenward” by Hum, and “Here Comes the Zoo” by Local H. This was a show that Portocal, whom we played with in Ewing several days previously, had set up and put us on. I knew nothing about the show, and when I know nothing about a show I prepare myself for it to be terrible – no crowd, the venue hates us, that sort of thing. We got to the venue, Billy Baloney’s as it was awesomely called, about three hours before load-in, so we took to the street of Danbury to kill some time. Danbury, CT is apparently the most ethnically diverse town in Connecticut or something, as many of the establishments had signs entirely in Spanish or Porteugese with little or no English. One of the guys at the show later told me that when Brazil won a soccer game (or “football” for you smarty pants out there) the whole town was one big party. Danbury also is known as “Hat City” for the sheer volume of hats the town once produced, which makes it Hat City Danbury… strangely similar to Hattie Danby. (cricket sound). Hattie and I hung out in a Mexican deli, while Nich and James went to the happy hour at a bar down the street. Hattie and I made our way down there, and thus I got buzzed for the second time. After more than an hour in this bar (which was playing all of “What’s the Story Morning Glory” by Oasis for some reason) we went back out to load in, promptly running in to the singer of Portocal. We met up with those guys and loaded in. At first I was thinking my “worst show ever” preperations were right – there was no local, just us and Portocal, and there was a story going around among the staff about how few people came to the previous nights show that they charged the bands for playing. I found out that two of the guys from Portocal were from Connecticut, and soon enough the place filled up with their friends and family. They were playing first though, so only a handful stuck around to watch us, but I was happy to play for anyone. I think our set was really good actually, even if onlya dozen or so people saw it. We played our new song “Bean” again and I thought it rocked. We sold some stuff, so it was well worth our time. We were soon poised with the problem that we had nowhere to stay. No one at the show seemed interested in taking us in, which is fine, not everyone is cool with turning their house over to strangers, but we still needed somewhere to go. We thought about buying some whiskey and passing out in the van, but liquor stores close at 9 everywhere but Michigan for some reason, so we aimlessly started driving towards Syracuse. At about 10:30, I remembered that our friend Ryan, whom Nich and I went to high school with, was going to college at Cornell in Ithaca, NY. I asked Nich if Ryan was on spring break. He called Ryan, Ryan said if we wanted to come up he could put us up. We pulled off at an exit in Fishkill, NY (for some reason “kill” was in the name of lots of places and rivers in this area of New York) stole some wireless internet from the Holiday Inn, got directions, and started getting the hell towards Ithaca. On the way from Danbury to Ithaca we listened to “(In) Organics” by Calliope, “War of the Worlds” by Jeff Wayne (the origin of the “Thunder Child” term – check it out!), “The Argument” by Fugazi,” and “Bleed American” by Jimmy Eat World.

We have to load in. I’m going to do that.
We didn’t have to load in. I’m back.

We ended up getting to Ithaca around 2:30 AM, and after an ordeal of dealing with a closed street on the Cornell campus, we got to the Watermark Co-Op and met up with Ryan. It was great to see Ryan. Since he lives in upstate New York most of the time we only see him occasionally, so it was awesome that we showed up, rather on-the-fly in Ithaca. Ryan also did a bang-up job finding us somewhere to crash at the last minute. We had a whole rec room with three couches, one of which folded out, to ourselves. We met some of his friends who lived at the Co-Op, and drank for a few hours before going to bed.

We woke up at 1:00 or something, and Ryan showed up after his class got out. He used his meal plan to get us some sushi and hummus. Awesome. Our show in Syracuse was a house show and started at 6, so we rolled out of Ithaca around 4:30. The people in Ithaca were awesome. We did a little networking and made plans to come back and play a show. Yes! On the drive from Ithaca to Syracuse we listened to “Braille” by Calliope and “Tiny Music From the Vatican Gift Shop” by Stone Temple Pilots. We pulled up to the house in Syracuse, dubbed “Castle Rockmoore” for its venue purposes, and met Matt, Mike, Chris (aka Adrian Aardvark), and Pinkie. The Syracuse crew was awesome, a bunch of really great, friendly people, who share a true love of music. The show was in a really cool space in the attic of the house. We played first, doing an abbreviated set of “Medic,” “Gaia,” “Sleepy Girl,” “Plastic,” “FTS,” and “Plurality.” People were really into it. Matt of the house, who was the one that put us on the show, did a set as Marco Polio, where he was joined by a girl Meredith on drums. Adrian Aarvark played, and then the girl Meredit (AKA “Mouse”) did a set with Matt on drums. It was a really cool scene. Two more bands played, but I don’t really remember them and they didn’t seem too interested in mingling, so… I’ll stop talking about them. Meredith and Mike started cooking some food, and Nich, Pinkie, and I went to pick up a 30 pack of PBR. The night was an awesome haze. When we got back Meredith had some vegan curry ready and Mike was baking a spinach pizza. At some point the organ in the house got pushed into the bathroom. They had a snake named Tess that came out of her little box in the cage whenever we played music and she moved around. She was surprisingly long; I looked at her for a long time and she kept sticking out her tongue at me. We fell asleep at some point.

We woke up today, after noon as usual, got our stuff around and said our goodbyes. What a great group of people. We’ll definitely be back. It was the best “booked a day and a half before” tour date ever (well, we’ve done some sweet day-of and day-before gigs in New Jersey, but.. y’know). We went to an amazing vegan restaurant that I really wish I could remember the name of. Then it was on to Jamestown, where I write. On the drive from Syracuse to Jamestown we listened to “Throwing Copper” by Live, “Arthur” by The Kinks, some Promo-EP-Thing by Shudder To Think that Nich got at Replay a few years ago, some mix James’ mom made for him (that had Steppenwolf and Edgar Winter on it), a couple Billy Idol songs, and a few songs from “Hard, Fast Ramones” by The Ramones. The first band, a folk duo called Nate and Kate is about to start. People seem really cool in Jamestown. I’m going to go watch. I guess… final blong tomorrow!

tommyplural

This is Nich, writing from Syracuse. We’re heading back west by this point, after we leave here it’s off to Jamestown. Happy to be sleeping in my own bed in 24hr, but it’s always bittersweet, especially when tour has been this fucking sweet.

Syracuse is great. Last night we played a game called “secret knucks” where we all wrote on the hand of the person next of us. James got the legendary “POOPZONE”. Some other guy got “FUCK YOUR FACE” written on, oddly enough, his face. I like New York. NYC, Syracuse, hopefully Jamestown. The driving is wearisome, though.

Boston was really kewl architecturally.. but as I’ve been saying to my road compatriots, me and the town had a bit of a Shinning thing going on (no, I don’t mean the title of that one movie, I don’t want to get sued.) We seemed to have been hanging out in a bizarre mix of touristy Boston and business district Boston, and I’m really grateful for how well Jer-Bear Quentin Rizik put us up, but the town reminded me of a giant mall… saturated in advertising, assholes, and xenophobia who loved to stare at the kid with long hair. I will gladly give the town another chance and hopefully play in more of the hip/punk/DIY thing, or where-evers. It is a lot to soak in and maybe my walnut brain was overwhelmed. Whatever!

I mainly had my commentary on Boston I wanted to get out there. Otherwise, you can get your tasty-three-piece-known-as-the-Plurals-tour-news from Tommy. I’ll say his blog should be mostly accurate. I plan on getting together a photo-accompaniment to this tour, so keep yer eyes open for pictures of things from faraway lands. So much thanks to everyone who’s put us up so far, and played with us, and watched us. It’s been gnarly. Last night was the greatest unexpected detour to the campus of Cornell… thanks to Ryan Jackson for that.

LATERS! VIVA MI!
-nichyplural

3/11/2009 1:30 PM

All right. I’m sitting in the living room of Jeremy Rizik’s house in Winthrop, MA just outside of Boston. Jeremy’s roommates are playing an organ in the kitchen while cooking. I’m going to do my best to keep this chronological. I’m probably going to get interrupted and I’ll be forced to stop writing for awhile. Lots of stuff happened.

We got rolling out of Baltimore right around 5 PM. It was fairly uneventful leaving the city. I don’t recall all of the playlist, but I know we started out listening to “Cheap Trick” by Cheap Trick and spent most of the drive listening to Motown singles. The show was at a place called The All Call Inn in Ewing, NJ which is just west of Trenton. We were originally going to do the show at The Mill Hill Basement in Trenton, which is one of our absolute favorite venues to play, but it got double booked so we did the show at All Call. We pulled up and it was just a straight looking neighborhood bar in, well, a neighborhood. I would’ve been pretty nervous about this being our show if the guy at the door wasn’t wearing a Pats!e t-shirt (our friend Dale’s old band from Trenton). We were the first band at the show, but it was really nice out so we hung out in a parking lot across the street where our van was parked and waited for people to show. The first people to show up of our friends were the band DEMO, which is our old friend Dale and his drummer Greg. Although I only see him a couple times a year, I really do consider Dale to be one of my best friends so it was really good seeing him. Not much later, I was standing in the parking lot when I hear a car pull in and a distinct Jersey voice yell “fuckin’ hippies!” which could only mean that Taff, the former singer of The Rape Babies and the current singer of Too Much Too Fast Too Soon, had arrived. The rest of the band was there too, which is comprised of Dim and Goggles (also ex-Rape Babies) on guitar and drums and a fellow named Jack on bass. Too Much Too Fast Too Soon was only playing their fourth show, but a band consisting largely of members of The Rape Babies was surely going to be awesome. The show finally got started with a band from Cincinnati called Portocal, and we all finally started hanging out in the bar where we discovered our undoing: $1 PBRs. These $1 PBRs were on draft, kinda stale tasting, but it was a room full of rough rock and roll bands and touring veterans, so it’s safe to say we partook liberally. Some familiar faces were scattered around the room, Portocal was rocking, the PBR was flowing. Soon enough, DEMO was set up, with a third member now on backing vocals, samples, and a floor tom, in addition to weird projected images. They were bone crushingly loud, with a great vibe from the heavy psychedelic music and the trippy images. They still busted out an old classic of Dale’s called “Real Man” that I’ve seen him play with every band he’s been in while I’ve known him. More people were trickling in and DEMO played an awesome set. What? The PBR haze was getting thick at this point. It’s time for us to play? Oh man!!

(We’re going to go into Boston for some breakfast. More updates forthcoming).

3/11/2009 7:30 PM

So, where I left off, we were about to play our set. It was exciting to play in New Jersey for the first time with the “Whatevers Forever” album out. Admittedly, we drank more than normal before we played – it was difficult as we were in a room full of friends, in town for the first time in a year, Nich had just turned 21, and… PBRs were only a dollar. We took the stage, and from the first chord of our opening “Sing Along” the room was singing and rocking out. We did a set similar to the night before, with a couple less album songs and our new-ish song “New Age” making an appearance. The set was a haze, and we were certainly looser than any other night of tour thus far, but the room was with us every step of the way, and it felt good. Halfway through our set I noticed Mark Vella, the former bassist of The Rape Babies, rocking out on the floor. I wasn’t sure if he was gonna be around so I was really happy to see him. After us Too Much Too Fast Too Soon took the stage, which Dale and our friends Greg and Chris prefaced by saying that it was The Rape Babies, but even better. They may be right. I loved The Rape Babies so much, their 2008 “The Killer EP” was one of the best things I heard in all of last year (with the song “Burnt Side of the Spoon” being one of my favorite songs ever), but Too Much Too Fast Too Soon retains what I loved about The Rape Babies but with more rock and roll and a little less punk – but still hard and fast. Taff is a great front man and Jack is a killer bassist, but the combination of Dim and Goggles is such an awesome core of a band that I’m pretty sure I would love anything they did together. Too Much Too Fast Too Soon is awesome. After Too Much Too Fast Too Soon played a band called The Loose Roosters played, but I missed most of their set because we ended up haning out in the parking lot across the street, initially just to cool off and catch some air but soon all of our friends ended up over there as well. What I did catch of The Loose Roosters was really good though (I definitely have an affinity for two piece bands) and I hope I get to catch them again. We ended up back at the Pats!e House, where Dale, Goggles, and Greg from DEMO all live, a house which has served as our Jersey home since the first time we played out there a couple years ago. We stayed up super late partying, listening to music, and watching some short films that Goggles and Dale had made. I ended up passing out in Dale’s bed, with Dale, but we were both so exhausted that neither of us gave a shit. I woke up in the morning to a weird screaming sound, but Dale assured me it was “just the lizard.”

We woke up at some point on Sunday March 8, and for a while we just hung out in the living room of the Pats!e House. Someone put on the pilot episode of “Twin Peaks” and we sat there, some of us hungover and all of us tired, watching “Twin Peaks” before eventually deciding we couldn’t take it any more and needed coffee and food. Hattie was feeling a lot worse than all of us, so Nich, James, Dim and I went to a diner over the Pennsylvania state line and got some food. I’ve been trying to be vegan for Lent, along with Hattie, Loren, Ryan Horky, and Dan “Funeral” Finks so I ordered an egg beater omellete and no butter on my toast. It was still an amazing meal. It was great getting to just relax and hang out with Dim. The night looked to be pretty eventful, with a recording session and a show on the plate. At some point the night before, Goggles and Dave, the guy who books Mill Hill Basement, had a conversation and it was decided that The Plurals and Too Much Too Fast Too Soon would do an encore show at Mill Hill on Sunday night. I was pumped because I love the Mill Hill and I would’ve been bummed to be in Trenton and not get to play there. Before this last-minute show, though, we went to Too Much Too Fast Too Soon’s rehearsal space at a converted garage called Microjazz in downtown Trenton. It was a sweet space, and I was able to use some mic stands and cords along with some stuff I brought from Michigan to record Too Much Too Fast Too Soon. We recorded four songs for a potential Too Much Too Fast Too Soon/ The Plurals split record, and at the conclusion of the session I asked them if they’d be interested in joining the GTG roster. They said they’d be honored. We said we’d be honored to have them. So, everyone welcome Too Much Too Fast Too Soon into the family. They’ll be putting out their first record, on GTG, in the spring or summer. Fuck yeah.

We made our way to the Mill Hill and Too Much Too Fast Too Soon was set up and playing by 11, but apparently people at the bar were mad at us for being a little late and there were some petty bar politics going on which kind of put a damper on the night. However, the show was awesome. There was a lot of people there for a last minute show, and I feel we played a much better set than the night before (probably because of the lack of dollar PBRs). We debuted a new song called “Bean,” brought out the old/ new song and one of my personal favorites “Plastic,” and closed our set with an extended jam on “Raspberry Alarm Clock” which we haven’t played in any capacity for some time. This version included me playing the guitar with drum sticks and screaming until I could barely stand. I’ll be interested in reviewing the tape of that one. There were also people there that hadn’t caught us the night before but wanted to, so it ended up being a really good move on our part. Too Much Too Fast Too Soon played a killer set, and the night was closed out by Weiner and the Beans, the new band from ex-Rape Baby Mark Vella. We were completely out of the bar by 1 AM, but still some people were mad for some reason (I didn’t even try to understand) – I personally thought that being in and out in 3 hours is pretty damn good, and if they were so concerned about having things start earlier they could have had Weiner and the Beans play as they were there before us. Whatever, I’m really grateful to Dave for letting us play as we had a great night (Dave is also the first guy that ever booked us in Trenton, so I definitely owe him much of our happiness). We went back to Pats!e House and didn’t all fall asleep until it was daylight.

I didn’t wake up until 2 in the afternoon on Monday March 9, so an afternoon diner trip was definitely in the cards. We went to to Pat’s Diner in Trenton with Dale and Goggles (more egg beaters) before making our way up to Brooklyn. This was the first time any of us had been to New York in any capacity, so we were a bit tense, but we put on some of New York’s finest for the drive with “Marquee Moon” by Television and some Wu Tang Clan. As we got into New York, with James doing a fine and admirable job of driving into one of the biggest cities in the world, we decided to absorb some local color so we turned on the radio with the first thing we hear being a talk radio thing about “what it means to be a New Yorker” and the next thing being some crazy fucking free jazz. Yes!

We wound our way through Brooklyn, passing a bunch of Hasidic Jews in the streets, eventually finding our venue for the night, a bar called The Alligator. Brooklyn looked pretty much as I imagined it would, with a bar every few yards and almost everyone in sight carrying a guitar case. We were able to park a little ways down the block, definitely manageable for loading purposes, so… so far so good. The street we parked on, the same street the venue was on, dead-ended at the river and we could see Manhattan from across the river, which was pretty cool. We walked up to the venue to check it out and a girl outside having a cigarette flagged us down and introduced herself as Niki. I had been e-mailing Niki for months about this show, so it was nice to finally meet her. Turns out she was in a band called The Sea The Sea a few years back, and I definitely have one of their CDs, so that was cool to find out. Niki is really awesome, and she gave us a great show in New York, which is… well, it’s pretty damn cool. Thanks Niki! Our buddy Jeremy Cassar, a Michigan transplant in Brooklyn, showed up for the show, as well as my cousin Ian and his friend Justin, so there were a few familiar faces around. It was great show… by any standards, not just the fact that it was a Monday night. Nate and Danny from Used Kids (ex-Modern Machines) were in attendance as well, so it was cool to see some guys whose band I’ve followed for several years in attendance and rocking out. I broke a string halfway through the set, and accidently got unplugged at another point, but by and large it was a great set, largely an abridged version of the set we played in Baltimore but with “Plastic” making another appearance. We wound our way back through Brooklyn after saying our goodbyes, and crashed on the futons at my cousin Ian’s apartment. Once again, we found a parking spot with relative ease. We stayed up for awhile with Ian, woke up and pissed off one of his roommates, and then went to bed with the plan to get up early, get coffee with Ian before he went to work and go check out New York City for a few hours.

Of course, we woke up at 1 in the afternoon (not really sure what happened to Ian…) and had to get our shit together, get directions to our next show, and be out of the city by 2-ish. So, I suppose I have been in New York City now, but I only saw the skyline aside from Brooklyn. We’ll be back though, and I’m sure I’ll get my chance to be a tourist. We made it out of the city pretty painlessly, so… New York wasn’t nearly as intimidating as we were built up to think it was. Of course, we really only were in Brooklyn but… I’ve had a worse time in traffic in Grand Rapids or Detroit, and it certainly wasn’t as bad as driving in Chicago. The Plurals win!

On our drive from Brooklyn to Cambridge, Massachusetts, we listened to “Star Time” by James Brown, the song “Killing an Arab” by The Cure in honor to Nick’s tour reading of “The Stranger” by Albert Camus, “Chronicle” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Live Through This” by Hole, “The Killer EP,” by The Rape Babies, and “Warehouse” by Husker Du.

(I’m getting kind of sick of writing… I’m gonna call it for now. Safe and sound in Winthrop, MA).

tommyplural

Hey. Tommy here. I’m sitting in a little cafe in Brooklyn, NY outside my cousin Ian’s apartment building. I was keeping a decent current journal but I had no way of posting it on the internet for awhile. So, I’m going to post my first two entries right now. They’re about driving to Baltimore and our experiences there. I should find some time tomorrow to write about New Jersey and New York. I will say right now that this tour has been fucking awesome so far. We’re all in good spirits, and we can’t wait to see how the rest of it pans out. We have to take off for Boston ASAP. So without further ado, here’s the first entry….

3/6/2009 3:30 PM

The “Thunder Child Tour” has begun. What is the Thunder Child? The Thunder Child is the 1997 Dodge Caravan that thundered across Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland in the night of March 5, 2009 to carry The Plurals with loyal confidant James Spreitzer to the safe haven of Robbie and Paul McCord in Baltimore, Maryland. Thunder Child came to a well deserved rest outside of the McCord complex at about 8:30 this morning. James, the true champ that he is, piloted Thunder Child for 8 of the 10 hours of the drive. Ohio and Pennsylvania take forever to drive through, and at night it’s completely monotonous, but I’m very glad we drove through the night. It makes it feel like it’s already been days since we’ve been home. It’s beautiful in Baltimore… I slept from 8:30 to 2:00 and I’m now enjoying some coffee in my brother’s apartment while listening to the new U2 album for the first time. My love for U2 is something that I often struggle with… I adore the U2 of the 90s (“Achtung Baby,” “Zooropa,” and especially “Pop”) which doesn’t seem to usually be the case with most people I meet, and the first two U2 albums of this decade have been pretty disappointing. I’m really digging this new one though, it’s definitely more in line with the weird, experimental U2 that I fell in love with, with only one U2-by-numbers song (which is what the last album was 100% composed of) and that song redeems itself to a large degree by having the awesome title “I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight.” As always, there’s chimy Edge-y guitars and lots of “whoa oh” vocals, but this time they’re not trying too hard to sound like U2, which makes them sound more like U2 to me. I really wish they’d put out another song with Edge on monotonous vocals backed up by vintage synth and Bono’s falsetto shrieks (“Numb”), but I suppose I should be happy that there’s at least one of those songs out there.

So yeah… music. Past readers and friends of mine will remember that I have a really hard time sleeping while in a moving car, and last night was no exception. Even though I barely got six hours of sleep the night before and got up at 8 AM yesterday and had a full day of school, work, and running around prepping for tour, I was generally alert and awake for the majority of the drive last night, which, aside from a couple dozing-off-for-a-few-minutes bouts here and there put me awake for 24 hours by the time we got to Baltimore. Hattie, Nich, and James each got some sleep on the drive, so they went walking around Baltimore when we got to my brothers’ apartment, but I hit the couch promptly. I still remember last night’s playlist though, due to my intense focus on music as my only means of entertainement for 10 hours. Something like this: “Let it Be” by The Replacements, “Rated R” by Queens of the Stone Age, “Come on Pilgrim,” by The Pixies, “Thirteen Songs” by Fugazi, a Frank Zappa album of James’, a Rocket From the Crypt album of James’, a couple random songs – “Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangster” by Geto Boys and “Smile” by Lily Allen, “Good News for People Who Love Bad News” by Modest Mouse, random song “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” by Rod Stewart, “The Bends” by Radiohead, “Fever to Tell” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Angel Dust” by Faith No More, and “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” by Neutral Milk Hotel. Not a bad run.

I just got a call from my brother Robbie. He just got out of work, so he’ll be home in a little while. I’m psyched to see my brothers. We’re actually getting to spend today, tonight, and tomorrow in Baltimore as opposed to the last few times we’ve been here when we’ve just been around for a night, so that’s cool. I’m excited about our show tonight… yeah! Updates forthcoming.

3/7/2009 4:00 PM

Listening to Sugar in my brother’s apartment. We’re taking a quick round of showers before beginning our trip to New Jersey. The show last night was awesome. We played at Metro Gallery, which is an art gallery, bar, and live music venue, so the vibe was really cool and the staff was real easygoing. We played with two Baltimore bands, American Riot and The Rivals. American Riot did a 25 minute set of distorted pop/ rock a la early Replacements and Bay City Rollers (whom they covered). The Rivals closed out the show with a great set of anthemic alternative rock (the good kind). We played their first show ever with them in Baltimore last year and they sounded awesome last night. Super cool guys too, I’m hoping to make it a tradition to play with them in Baltimore. I think our set was really good. I usually know if the set was good if I can barely stand at the end of it. We played a set comprised mostly of songs from the “Whatevers Forever” album and three new songs (“Gaia,” “Queensy,” and “The Sun”). There was a great turnout at the show and everyone seemed really receptive to our music. Basically, about the best you could ask for on the first night of a tour in a town where we’re relatively unknown. We made vague plans with the manager to come back in late June, so… looks like Baltimore and The Plurals will continue to be friends. Yay.

After the show we hung out in the Forest Hill neighborhood of Baltimore where my brothers live. It’s basically the “college town” part of Baltimore, and walking around at 1:30 AM there is akin to doing the same in East Lansing except there’s a bar on every block for several blocks. Nich, James, and I walked around and made a game out of saying stereotypical “bro” things as we walked by groups of bros getting out of the bar – a couple lines I delivered were “Bro, I don’t mean to get fresh but that shit was just fuckin’ ‘tarded” and “Bro, I know you thought that bitch was tight but she was a fuckin skank.” Then things gradually got more absurd, leading me to saying when we walked by some wasted guys hanging outside an apartment: “I mean, what do you do when you’re asked to assist a suicide?” Our enemy is the status quo, our only friend is chaos.

We wanted to get a couple beers before we called it a night, but the bars were expensive and all of the liquor stores close at 9 for some reason, so we were resigned to concluding the night dry. As we were walking back to my brothers’ apartment after our bro-baiting adventure there was a big truck blocking a side street and the 50ish guy driving it was talking to a woman and not paying attention to anything around. We noticed a pack of Miller Lite in the bed of his truck and as we walked around the truck Nich reached right into the bed and pulled out three beers as we kept walking. Laughing all the way back to the apartment, we retired by enjoying our sweet Miller Lite and watching “Billy Madison” on the On Demand.

We spent today hanging out in the Fells’ Point neighborhood of Baltimore where there were a lot of record stores and hipster stuff of the like. My brothers treated us to a nice greasy breakfast at a diner called Jimmy’s (excellent home fries, might I add). We stopped at the nationally reknowned record shop Sound Garden (great name) and Hattie and Nich picked up some records. My brothers are awesome… they treated us to a great time out here, and it’s awesome that it’s just the beginning of tour. Of course, we’re probably experiencing the nicest weather of the trip, but… yeah, tour! Jersey’s coming up in a few hours… we’ve never had a bad time there. Looks like my shower turn is here. Thunder Child, go!

God, I Love NASA. Does anybody else like NASA like I do? I know some people who are mad about NASA and they say things like, “Why don’t we just spend the money on the things we need to do here on earth, like feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless?”. Well, I’d like to see full people and sheltered people do anything as awesome as what NASA can do.

on March 7, 2009 at 3:49:57, NASA launched the Kepler Mission, A totally awesome thing that only totally awesome people like.

I dig space, man. I dig space hard.

ALSO, up on our blog at THE EUREKA FLAG, We Have a Excellent Cover Version of an excellent song by SparkleHorse, off of their first album, “vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot”. I didn’t even google how to write out the album name; I like the album so much, I just know how to write it.

That album qualifies as an extreme influence on my childhood (even though as you’ll read in our blog, I hated it first) and it made me wonder about all y’alls childhood influences. So, reply to this blog with some of your favorite old records, and if you want you could record a cover like we did (well, I did).

LOVE A PASCHAL CIRCUS

I hope to see a Plurals tour diary soon.

TimmyGTG

Thanks to everyone who come out last night. It was probably the best time we’ve ever had playing a show at Mac’s Bar. Take that as you will. Lots of familiar faces, old faces, new faces, small faces… yeah. Special thanks to Mike and D from fucking Almost Argyle who drove up from Elgin, IL to catch the show. Coolest guys ever – http://www.myspace.com/almostargyle. My parents and Nich’s parents made it out too, which is a bit of a rare occurence. I’m always glad to see them… I hope they enjoy themselves. I understand watching your son flail onstage and scream “crumble at the feet of the starving elite” might be a bit uncomfortable, but… it’s not like I wasn’t doing something similar and lamer 9 years ago.

Sorry I didn’t make it to the after-party at the Owl House… I ended up, uh… unable to drive, at my house.
We’re about to go on tour, and, boy, I’m feeling good about it.

tommyplural

We (A Paschal Circus) Have Got An Idea That Might Be Fun For All Of Us To Do.

But First, every good blog post deserves an excellent picture, so here is “Anton and Spider”, two men you don’t fuck with:

Anyways.

We just wrote a song for a compilation record “The Cedar Rock Basement Program”. We had to tab out every single chord for the song so that other people all around michigan could learn how to play it in order to contribute to the track.
It gave us an idea; We’d like to learn some GTG songs, in some sort of a song swap! Pretty much we will all tab out our songs, post the tabs here, and then listen to what other people make of them!

Because this is our idea, we’ll start it off. We Expect High Turnout! This is great “Blog” content!

Our Song Contribution is “It Was Barren And Then It Died”. The tabs and song audio are posted over on our blog, The Eureka Flag. We’d love to hear what you guys can do with it! Maybe It’s Too Hard For You Suckas!
LOVE A PASCHAL CIRCUS

I am sitting here at school next to a giant display of a family sitting around a television. The display looks like a window looking to a house, or so I think, the display is painted like bricks. Anyways, the entire family have televisions for heads. It’s pretty rad actually. I’ve been hiding out on the 3rd floor lately between classes. There is this girl that I’ve become sort of friends with that is really kind of getting on my nerves. She knows I hang on the second floor between classes, so she comes to talk to me. So I’ve decided to start hanging out on the 3rd floor. It’s not that I don’t like the girl. She is a nice girl. Its just she talks a lot, and when I say a lot I mean just simply saying a lot is an understatement. I have her in my painting class and she talks my head off there. I know this is really mean, but when its between classes on Mondays and Wednesdays I really like to put on my headphones and just listen to some music. There are a handful of places I can actually dissect and listen to albums so I can truly form an opinion. And between classes are one of those times. So this girl has life full of drama, and I do truly feel bad for her, but honestly the friendship was formed by me simply asking a yes or no question and suddenly she felt compelled to tell me her life story. Am I an asshole? Probably. I barely tell her anything about me so why would she be compelled to me everything? I don’t understand girls. She keeps telling me too that she has to meet my girlfriend so she can “approve” of her. What the hell? Approve? I’ve known her less than 5 months. She was suppose to be my future roommate along with this other girl, but I decided that before I got to know her. Once I decided to live with her, since she seemed nice, I decided I should probably get to know her. Anyways, I dodged her today by hiding on the 3rd floor, she found me, talked my ear off. I started to act like I was paying bills online and she left. Awesome huh? 

So tomorrow is the last day before I go all organic for lent. I have been forcing myself to eat bad lately. I had Burger King the other day, yesterday I ate a 5 dollar pizza, I have been drinking a lot of pop too. Tommy, Hattie and Loren are going vegan, I think along with some BMP guys. I would like to do that but I enjoy meat too much to give it up. So I decided to go organic. I made a few rules with it. Everytime I am around those that go Vegan I will eat Vegan along with them. Anytime I go to eat somewhere and they have a vegan selection I will choose from that. Other than that, it has to be simply organic. I am decided whether to drink organic milk or soy milk. I am really starving now too, at school they have these chicken flourentines that are amazing. So I have to get my fill of those today, I’ll probably have my last vanilla latte from there too. 

I was thinking the other day while going to work, I was comparing different musicians to members of the GTG. When thinking of Loren, I thought of Pat Smear right away. I could see the Plurals make it big and Loren would just show up and play with them every once in a while. Same thing with The Break-Ups, I couldn’t imagine touring without Loren for some reason. Weird? I don’t know. Tommy, as far as musically would be a cross between Dave Grohl and Jack White. Because like those two, Tommy seems to find himself everywhere. I thought of the Jack White scenario simply because he is involved heavily in two bands, The Plurals and The Break-Ups just as Jack is involved in The White Stripes and The Raconteurs. But its the same thing with Hattie, I would call Hattie our Dave Grohl too. She is everywhere. I don’t know. Someone should reply to this and give me their opinion. Yeah, do that.  Who would you compare each member of the GTG too? Now.