El Paso Tx

spent all day yesterday driving. i slept the majority of the whole time getting to our final stop for the day in el paso. which we werent too excited about but we didnt want to pull an all nighter. we got a tip that we had a place to stay at a friend of a friends house but we had to wait before they got off work at midnight. killed time at bars till than just to make the decision that a hotel would be a better option. wish we wouldve just decided that earlier. would've saved me money. slept ok, first night out of my own bed after a few weeks home is always kinda weird, but i'll get used to it fast. tonights stop is tempe at the yucca tap room where we pick up t.j.'s replacement for the next two weeks, his roommate pryor, or as we have been saying:"t.j. 2.0". leaving hotel shortly.

florida.

So we've been holed up at erics moms place for the past 3 days, so awesome to stay somewhere that reminds of you of your own mamas place, homecookin, tv watchin, laundrysizin.yes. Today we had to say our farewell to momma hq and head off to jacksonville where we will be making a racket on the water, literally on a boat. Should be fun, hopefully we wont sink..Past couple shows outside of tx have been kinda slow, metarie was cool for the fact that we got to meet 3 different folks that drove hours to come see us, tampa was a slow starter but ended up fun, orlando was early as fuck, but still pretty fun. Cant wait to head up north and get up in boston and nyc. We get to hang out with marky ramone. Crazy. In the van now, king khan and the shrines, 2 more hrs till our destination, word up

2 more days and were off

just got off work, its 4:31 am here in austin tx. perfect weather out the past week which is saddening to have to leave behind but im really excited to get out there and start playing again. im really excited to see all my old friends around the country and catch up, its been far too long it seems (it really hasnt but being home for a month after touring constantly can seem like an eternity) our first stops are in texas than we head through the south to florida, up the east coast, through the midwest and back. than were home for like 2 weeks or so and than we head out west to meet up with our buddies in rise against and rancid, now thats gonna be fucking crazy, cant wait. i'll definantly keep up with this little journal while were out. what sucks is that i lost my camera during sxsw! im gonna try and get another before we head out, i really liked keeping track of everything visually as well as writing. i think i have a couple of solo shows while were out as well, i know sure in baltimore and possibly chicago, i'll keep it updated as info comes in! till than...lay em down and slap em yap em!

what happend again?

i havent been keeping up with this since we got home, so im gonna try now before we soundcheck here in houston..
australia was awesome, many thanks to all the folks that helped us out,bedouin soundclas, the dudes in and with goldfinger, gina, bianca, the dudes in evergreen terrace, lots of fun was had with all of em. the shit part of the whole trip was the very end of it. we woke up the last day in perth pretty early, like 5 am hung over as fuck from 'last night of tour' partying with bedouin the night before. jumped in a bus and caught a 5 hour plane ride to sydney. we were delayed at sydney international for close to 8 hours. thanks to tj for wrangling up free meal vouchers 2 times in a row! needless to say they were used for booze the whole delay..we finally got on the plane, trent reznor was pissed! haha..when we got on they told us we would have to make a stop in honolulu airport to do a service check..our plan had a chance of not making it. awesome. we finally got to lax to find out we missed all of our connecting flights back home, so it was either wait 6 hours and leave at 12:50 am or stay the night in free hotel rooms and leave the next afternoon, we all stayed except for erick. went out and hung with our pal from volcom mike and our girl from villam ginny. had some drinks at the cha cha and split for austin the next day. it was awesome to get home and see all my buddies and my two roommates. so from there...we hung out at home, i worked a few bar shifts and now were in the middle of a little texas run. the record came out this past tuesday which was really exciting. we did an instore at waterloo in town, total blast.
we went to corpus the next day and played an alright show, it was a weekday and we never really do that great in corpus, it wasnt a total bust though. now we at rudyards in the dirty third, about to soundcheck, im sure its gonna be a good time...

adelaide, australia

sitting in a hotel lobby in adelaide, i had a weird time playing today. i think it just seemed a bit un-organized when we were setting up , no one really knew what was going on and than next thing you know were playing. after that i just sat around in catering and used up some free internet, shits sparce here! i havent drank much today...been kinda rolling hard since we got here. made some new friends with the dudes in goldfinger and mike hererra. good times! got see some good shows but fucking blew it when i didnt go see bedouin soundclash do the club date. alkaline trio was good..glad i got to see them in a club and not at the festival. i dont really enjoy hanging out and watching bands in a festival setting, it always sounds weird and the sets are too short. i stink right now..we played around noon here, hung out and had to go to the airport after the show to catch a plane. i dont think any of the other bands who flew today showered before the flight either. luckily it was only an hour..been at the hotel for awhile now but like i said, the slim chance you may have internet in this country you use it, because it'll be a long time before you get it again. i made a little video of our first couple days here..mostly just us in planes and buses. i miss mexican food so much, im going straight to marias when i get home, gonna be good!! might go walk around but im so damn beat and totally broke. heres that video

till next time...back to adventures in thunderdome!

austrailia feb 21st-23rd

feb 21st-sydney austrailia
sitting here in a hotel room in sydney, spent the last 2 days traveling hardcore.
left austin with guitar and bag in hand, got on a plane to LAX at 7pm, had a hazy layover and than got on a 14 hour flight to sydney. what a flight...longest one ive been on to date. i thought it was pretty funny to hear the stewards talking over the intercom about how this unicef donation they were doing was keeping other retired stewards who were doing the counting of the donations 'out of the pubs and clubs' you dont really hear about something that keeps the people who are serving you from getting wasted..surly stewards! we arrived in sydney and jumped into the biggest clusterfuck of bands and gear ever imagined. let me remind you that we are not the only band arriving...theres 60 bands on this tour...many from the u.s. and arriving from other countries all at the same time..definition of a CLUSTERFUCK. after hours of standing in line with gear and missing a flight we made it to our gate. had some drinks, stood in line some more and got on another transferring flight to brisbane. that one was not so bad, only an hour in the air. fine. we arrived..fadi and i's guitar didnt show up...but one of the fine folks working for soundwave took the hit and stayed to wait for it. got picked up by a bus and taken to our hotel. swanky to say the least. the rest of the day was spent drinking and eating in brisbane. lovely city lovely nightlife, great city

feb 22nd
got up at 9 am, showered and headed to the lobby, ate some lobby food and hopped on a shuttle to the festival grounds. we sat around and sweated for most of the morning, fucking humid as fuck today.

feb 23rd
cant really remember were i left off...or what happend i mean between where i left off and now, its been a whirlwind of a past few days..so yesterday..
we arrived at our hotel night before last, the vibe in sydney, place looks like a giant american apparel/ikea ad. cool so far though. i'd be more up on these updates but internet is sparce unless you're paying for it. we woke up pretty early yesterday to catch a coach with the other bands to be taken to the grounds..weather was alot breezier/cooler. when we arrived to the grounds we were met with a squad of police officers with drug sniffing dogs. weird. apparently they have a no tolerance rule after an incident last week where a girl got freaked out about cops being at this festvial so she swallowed a handful of hits of acid and died. luckily no one on our coach had anything. after alot of confusion about where we were supposed to go (this grounds on this place were fucking enormous) we finally got to our stage.
got all set up and played a quick set, it was pretty good i thought, very hot and sweaty. most of the dudes wanted to run back to the hotel since it was pretty early. rob and i decided to stick it out and try and catch some of the bands we've been wanting to see on the tour. after about 2 hours we decided we couldnt hang and bailed back home. got back and had some dinner with the singer and guitarist in goldfinger, walked around a bit, walked in a cathedral where a huge ceremony was going on, pretty cool. i have video and pictures galore..i gotta sift through all of it to see whats worth putting up. probally at the end of this big trip. after that i headed back to my room and conked out by 6pm, didnt wake up till this morning. i think all the traveling finally caught up with me.
got up this morning and met up with some of our dudes and walked to get a veggie kabob, good shit! bought a couple beers for later and now im sitting in my hotel room..day off..might go get my hair cut later, make a run for the beaches, we'll see!

get me outta austin

im getting stale. ready to leave this town...one more day technically. i feel as if ive soaked up 'homelife' as much as i can and am ready to get the fuck up out! starting weds rbg will be hitting up the thunderdome aka austraila...hilarity will insue im sure..so keep checking back, i will definantly be taking hordes of photos and writing alot.gonna be a blast and im way looking forward to it.