FINN RIGGINS

Apex — The Peak of Good Living. Pleasantville? sort of seemed that way. in a very suburban sprawl sort of way… pretty hilarious name for a town however you look at it. We visited with my friend Tisha and her cute kids until just after 10am, then tried to find some sort of local restaurant to eat breakfast in… we drove around forever before finally settling on a Cracker Barrell, which was on our checklist, but was definitely not a local restaurant. It was fun though. And the apple dumpling was heavenly.

We arrived in Wilmington — the home of Michael Jordan and lots of Civil War history — sometime mid-afternoon and made our way to The Soapbox. Rad place. Three story venue with a laundromat too. Our show was on the middle floor and the main laundrolounge. Lots of cool art on the walls. It was a stellar day in Wilmington and we quickly made ourselves at home. Our friend Mamie from Moscow (now Missoula) had called our attention to her brother Adam that lives in Wilmington and plays in a band called Ponchos From Peru — he took us under his wing for the evening and put together this show and promoted it and opened his home to us and cooked us vegetables for dinner… some much needed vegetables. So rad of him.

Show that night was so good. The Soapbox is a rad place. It’s able to be all ages and a bar simultaneously, which certainly helps, but the bill that night was great and a bunch of people came out on a super nice spring Friday night in Wilmington. Upon arriving we found out that Minmae from Portland, OR had been added to the bill, which was a fun surprise — another band from the west, but also folks who knew our buddy Jared Mees and some other friends for ‘ol PDX. Helped shrink the world once again. Since they were added last, they went first. Pretty cool Crazy Horse inspired moody rock tunes. Really nice guys, and a good start to the evening.

We followed and managed to hit the crowd at its peak. Really really fun set. Lots of energy in the room and enthusiasm to feed us… The Nothing Noise from Chapel Hill followed with a rad set of emo quirk rock featuring trumpet, bells, violin, rad bass playing, and cool vocal delivery. Really rad band. and super nice. check them out at www.myspace.com/thenothingnoise

Ponchos From Peru were super generous all around, including offering to play last on a four band bill. They pulled the weight in fantastic form, and were a fun end to the evening. Super fun. Rad lyrics. Great tunes. Very creative and quirky stuff. Cool arrangements. They’ll be recording soon and we’re excited to hear what comes of it… in the meantime check out what they’re up to at http://www.myspace.com/ponchosfromperu We had a blast with them all around. Adam, McKenna, Matt and Andrew. oh my. crack ups.

we hung out late into the evening with Adam and his girlfriend Nicole… awesome people. we laughed and laughed and tested our growing vocab with their GRE vocab flash cards and ate cheese sticks and half-cooked pizza into the wee hours. oh my.

slept so good that night.

reporting from North Carolina for all of us Finn Rigginses
)))gilbert

check out our gracious and hilarious host Adam in his sandy front yard:

on our fall tour we played at The Flat Iron in Greensboro with Jew(s) & Catholic(s). that night, our bartender was this really nice guy named John, who also happened to be the lead guitarist in a local prog-metal band called Nyos. he was stoked on our set and we exchanged info. as i was booking this tour, i got in touch with him and he was able to get us on this show they were playing at The Blind Tiger. we didn’t really know what to expect, but were pleasantly surprised.

we spent the pre-show watching some march madness basketball as all the North Carolina fans cheered UNC to a blowout win over Washington State University — Palouse brethren from near our beloved Moscow, ID. as soon as the game was over, we started our set. with the addition of Florida-based jamband Burnin’ Smyrnans to the bill — a rather odd fit to the evening — we ended up playing pretty early, and before most of the crowd showed up. it was a fun set regardless, and those there seemed to really dig it. BS followed, and were ayight… got the hoola-hoops spinnin round and round. then Nyos followed with their epic prog-metal. really got into their set. some serious shredderness. nice and light-hearted too. really fun stuff. cool attention to detail compositionally and really tight. nice dynamics too. and great guys. gave us tons of props and we’re extremely thankful for that and for adding us to the show in general. check it check it out http://www.myspace.com/nyos

here’s a couple more worthy photos from the evening:

we had an appointment to hang out with a really good old friend of mine (and high school girlfriend — Tisha) at 9am the next morning in Apex, NC. so we drove after the show. about a half hour into the drive we stopped for one of the most all-star Waffle House experiences yet. 3am. and the place was bumpin. lots of southern drawl being thrown around and one particularly frisky old man who’s conversation we were overhearing all too well. it was fascinating. and extremely classic. we’ll leave it at that.

we drove on and crashed in a grocery store parking lot about a half mile from Tisha’s house in Apex — home to her, her husband Curteis and her two beautiful children Adley and Ani. It was 4:30am. we had a solid 4 hours of sleep to look forward to…

reporting for all of us Finn Rigginses
)))gilbert(((

this was a date we were particularly excited for since we had had a good show at the Joli Rouge in October and were enthralled by Asheville in general… unfortunately, the show didn’t live up to its hype as it ended up being a quiet wednesday night at the ‘ol Joli Rouge that has apparently been going through some internal strife… and definitely showed as the overall energy in the place was pretty dead. and despite the low turnout, it still managed to be super smokey. ahhhh!!!

the saviors for the evening were Stephanie and Chuck from local band Stephanie’s Id that came out and gave us their enthusiasm and support. and offered up their home and comfy beds for our travel weary bodies. so incredibly kind of them. they even took us out to breakfast the next morning and gave us a tour of the town… helping to point out the places we should look to play next time through. really really sweet of them. can not thank them enough. we didn’t play with them, but may someday. either way, check them out. so awesome. www.myspace.com/stephaniesid and such sweet sweet people. we had a blast with them.

show was pretty fun despite the smoke and lackluster crowd. thanks to On The Take and Agrolola — also from Asheville — for playing. Agrolola is pictured to the left basking in their red light and post-hardcore rockisms. nice guys and appreciate their help setting up the show and attempts to get people out.

by the way, drive up from Georgia that day was absolutely stellar thanks to the recommendation from the bartender at Tasty World… as we took the scenic route through the Black Mountains of northern Georgia up into North Carolina. even stopped at a roadside chocolate shop for some ice cream and truffles. oh my. gorgeous drive. here are some photos from the drive and of our afternoon in Asheville…

reporting for all of us Finn Rigginses from North Carolina
(((gilbert)))

time on the internet or with the computer has been hard to come by recently… so i’m going to employ some quicker tactics for reporting on recent adventures… we’ll see how it goes.

hung out all afternoon in Athens. historic Athens. rad town. beautiful day.

show that night was great. mostly because our buddy Matt made the trek up with us and Jeremy and Kevin from the night before cruised over as well. drove over three hours for the show. the three of them brought so much energy and helped make up for the mostly empty room with their ecstatic dance and overall enthusiasm. the set was really really fun. going to let the photos do most of the talking.

the other factor that made the show rad was that after us, Captain #1 from Athens played. awesome set. acoustic guitar, toy piano and girl+guy vocals. tim and jenny were so rad. super cute. and took us in for the night. and directed us to a rad burrito ristorante the next day. their music is awesome. checkiddy check them out. seriously. www.myspace.com/captainnumber1

jeremy + kevin + matt = ecstatic dance clinic

reporting for all of us Finn Rigginses
(((gilbert)))

Consistent with our looping strategy that we seem to employ when out East, we found ourselves returning to Georgia for another couple of days for shows in Atlanta and Athens. We were shocked as we were driving into Atlanta to see some snow flurries — it had cooled off a bit — but we were caught off guard by these reminders of home. It flurried just long enough to justify mentioning it, then subsided.

It was a Monday, and a day just a week and a half ago we were supposed to have off, but our good friend and former roommate from Moscow, ID — Matt J. Lowe — was currently residing in Atlanta and managed to find us a place to play on super short notice across the street from where he worked in a cute little neighborhood in Decatur, GA — which Atlanta blended into. The place was called Kavarna — a Czech word meaning cafe/coffeeshop, which is essentially what it is. Very cool place, with a rad owner and stellar staff. We were very grateful to fill the date on such short notice and be able to play for our friends in the Atlanta area. And they were kind enough to feed us from their tasty menu.

The show was a lot of fun. They had a nice big stage surrounded by all kinds of rad art throughout the place. Great environment, and despite having to play as quietly as possible, was a super fun show. Actually kind of enjoyed trying to translate our stuff in a quiet setting, and it gave us the opportunity to play some quiet tunes like “Passing Through” and “Pokerface” that we hardly ever play. It was fun. Nice to have Matt there — he brings a whole new level of energy to the plate when he’s around — very cool. And our friend Ashley — who spent last summer in Sun Valley — also made it out. And our new friend Jeremy Sharp — met him in Chattanooga — came down and brought his buddy Kevin. It was rad. Loved hanging out with both of them. Rad rad guys. And toward the end of our set, during “Hraka”, despite the mellowness of the environment, Jeremy started bouncing around and helping channell the dance madness of the Chattanooga show into that room. So awesome. Really pumped up the fun factor.
We wrapped things up by 9:50pm, ending before most shows start. It was nice, but we ended up taking our time getting out of there, and then managed to stay up super late hanging out with Matt, Jeremy and Kevin in Matt’s studio apartment. A lot of fun, though. Covered all kinds of conversational goodness, including the pros and cons of the existence of Las Vegas. That one was fascinatingly tense. We all piled up around 3am for what would be a spotty night of sleep, and then greeted by the remodeling crew outside in the hall sawing and hammering around 8am. Quite classic. We managed to sleep through it for the most part… and it made for some interesting audio-inspired dreams.

Atlanta treated us so well. Really pretty city. Lots of trees and blooming flowers. Pretty pretty pretty.

Thanks to Wystan, Greg, Lisa, Jimmie and the rest of the Kavarna crew for hosting on such short notice. And thanks to Matt, Jeremy, Kevin, Ashley and everyone else that also helped to make it such a special show.

Reporting for all of us Finn Rigginses ==
== gilbert

On our tour in the fall, we fell in love with North Carolina. All of our shows there were super fun and all the people we met were awesome and the between them and the countryside the state really reminded us of home. So we were pretty excited to be headed back there, and we got our NC fix started with an Easter Sunday show in Charlotte — a place we didn’t play in the fall, but were pumped to be hitting this time around… It was a really short drive from Florence, so we got in town with plenty of time to chill — went to the neighborhood where Snug Harbor was and set up camp at a nearby market with wi-fi and eats.

Snug Harbor is a pirate bar, which had us curious about the North Carolina / pirate connection, since the Joli Rouge in Asheville, where we played in the fall and would be playing soon, is also a pirate bar. Not really sure on the historical ties that North Carolina might have with pirate-dom, but regardless, you can’t go wrong with a pirate bar. Snug, like the Joli, has a great scene built around it — ran by great folks and overall stellar vibe to the place. Nice stage setup too. And it was one of the regulars’ birthday and several people had brought some trays of cheesey mash potatoes and fritatta with some Texas Pete hot sauce and some other goodies and were kind enough to share with us. Very grateful for the home-cookin and the pot-luck community dinner.

Our friends Jews(s) & Catholic(s) made the drive from Winston-Salem to play with us. We rocked a few shows together in the fall — including at the Joli Rouge in Asheville — so our pirate escapades were closely tied. They opened the show. Great to see them again, both personally (eddie & alanna are awesome — and Alanna is from Idaho too… and childhood friends with our buddy Milo) and musically (very interesting drum machine w/ electric guitar + upright bass + vocals stuff… they had some sound trouble early, but by the end of their set were scorching the place. They have a new EP coming out April 2nd. Very excited to hear it. Dug the new stuff they played at Snug). Definitely check them out.

One big reasons why we had ended up with a show in Charlotte is because of this girl Leah who is a friend of Woven’s and had befriended us on myspace and encouraged us to come there, and thus we obliged. She had driven about 45 minutes from Waxhaw, NC for the show on a Sunday night — it was rad to finally meet her and we all hit it off fantastically comparing Woven stories and chatting music in general. Awesome girl. And we had her to thank for what turned out to be a really sweet show, despite it being a Sunday — and Easter Sunday at that.
We got started around 11:30pm. The crowd had filled out a little bit more, with a nice little posse of people that had apparently checked us out online and had come out to see us. Combined with J & C and their friends that had stuck around, we had a great little crowd — an enthusiastic one at the very least. Inspired a really fun set out of us. They even milked three encores out of us, which was a lot of fun. We finally ended with a rambunctious “TV” and then yielded to the DJ.

Thanks to Daylon, Lisa and the rest of the staff at Snug Harbor. What a rad bar. Highly recommended to other bands or anyone looking for a good place to hang in Charlotte. They definitely seem to be the hub of a really cool scene there. Thanks to Leah for being awesome and for encouraging us to come to Charlotte. Thanks to Jew(s) & Catholic(s) for playing with us again and for being rad and for all the support in general. And thanks to everyone else that helped make our Easter Sunday 2008 so radical. Oh my.

We hit the road for Atlanta and found a nice cozy truck stop to park the Ghost Ghost at and crashed out in her belly of goodness.

Reporting for all of us Finn Rigginses =
= gilbert

PS and in a somewhat holiday appropriate reference, thanks to Cheesus for being a funny piece of conversation for a good 4 days — starting on friday thanks to the local news in Jacksonville — check it out… some guy found Jesus… in his bag of cheetos… and has spread the good news for all to hear:

This was the first day in two weeks — since our Colorado dates — that we wold be playing somewhere we had played before as we had played at the 511 House back in October during our Fall 2007 East Coast Tour. It was a rainy October evening and despite there only being a few people there, was a really fun and unique show. Thus we were pumped to be back despite the rather limited space and limitations considering our big sound. We were pumped for multiple reasons, but mostly because the people behind the 511 House are awesome. David is a music enthusiast / technophile / photographer with a fantastic beard and a ton of goodness in his heart and his dancing feet — all of the action photos in this blog were taken by him. Carmen is a sweetheart and writes rad tunes for her ukelele driven duo with her brother Tony called The Mountain Yellers. Really awesome stuff. She also makes some killer muffins. She’s also an owl lover. So we get along great. So many fun knick-knacks throughout the house… but the wall of owls is definitely a highlight.
They greeted us so warmly again and cooked up a couple of pizzas and we all plopped down on their couch to watch a movie. Truly felt like we were home having a casual family evening. So nice. We put in “Lars and the Real Girl” per their suggestion. Great movie. Really funny and interesting about a guy who falls in love with a life-size doll. Sort of. It’s pretty wild. Definitely recommend checking it out. We didn’t actually finish it before people started showing up, so we paused it and would finish it in the morning.

A band from the Columbia, SC area called Castalia cruised over to play with us. Beth from Castalia is originally from Florence so that helped get some people out. That and there had been a positive buzz from our last show there. Made for a fun scene. And Castalia was great. Nice edgy alt-rock stuff. Beth playing bass and belting out the vocals. Fun set. We, however, didn’t play that well. Sound was weird for us and overall vibe was a little off. Made for a weird set. We did get some crazy dance moves out of some folks by dropping Pump It, Fill It midset — which was fun. We weren’t horrible, but we did all feel uncharacteristically off. Grooves weren’t hooking up and kind of affected our energy. Still, everyone was nice and clapped and moved their bodies all over. Then we all through our fists in the air and hung out into the wee hours. It was fun. We got over kinda sucking for a night pretty quickly. The good news is that David got some radical photos. Check em out, we’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story:

thanks to everyone that came out to the 511 show. we had a blast. y’all are a special breed.

reporting for all of us Finn Rigginses.
g:/bert

We enjoyed an absolutely stellar drive on some backroads through South Carolina as we began the trek down to Florida. Drove through some cool little towns and were blissfully enjoying the near perfect weather. One area we drove through appeared to have suffered a recent tornado knocking down portiions of the forest and causing scattered damage amongst some homes and a town, including one particularly striking image of a steeple knocked off a church and laying in the yard next to it. Pretty epic. Should have stopped for a photo op. Then again, maybe the damage was caused by an army of choppers like the one pictured to the right.

Our drive then took us down through Georgia, however, most of that drive was on I-95 and not near as cool as the backroads. Much more traffic. Much less personality.

We had plugged in the wrong address to our GPS babe and found ourselves in Jacksonville, but out in the middle of nowhere. Upon fixing the address, which luckily hadn’t taken us too far out of our way, we were still 15 miles away from our destination, yet still in Jacksonville. Weird. We’d learn later that evening that Jacksonville is the largest city in America based on its city boundaries — not on population — a big sprawling city area… interesting that we got to experience it first hand. That, and it was the first place we’d ever seen almost all the highway signs mysteriously blocked out… lucky for us, our GPS babe takes such good care of us. Oh how we love thee… fairest GPS babe of them all…

The show that night had been put together by Kevin from local band Helios Eye, and he and his girlfriend Cameron were kind enough to play host to us as well. Kevin even cooked up some dank chicken fajita/burritos for us all. So yummy. Oh my. What a blessing in the midst of tour.

The show was at a little divey / local hang called Shantytown. Very cool place. Tiny, but with tons of character and a really cool backyard with a fire pit and lots of chill space… and apparently with a very cool built in scene. Very cool scene. We had a blast. This dreaded fella that goes by Zeke opened the show, despite being really drunk due to drinking all afternoon. He tried to get out of playing, but everyone heckled him into playing, and had to continue to do so after each song with him flipping everyone off and resisting with all his might. It was classic. Despite his condition, he was pretty rad. Really cool tunes and surprisingly well delivered considering. A few fell apart into expletives, but that only fed the show. It was great.

Helios Eye played next. Apparently they used to be totally acoustic and just a couple of guys, and this was their first show electric and with drums — now a six piece. We all lovvved their set. Sweet sweet psychedelic / garagey / punk stuff. Awesome tunes and stellar presentation. Loved it so much. I had left my camera back at the house, but i was able to snap a few shots with my camera. Thus the fuzzy photos you see around.

We played after that to a packed, pumped and sweaty sweaty room. It was so fun. Vocals feeding back and distorted. Super raw and energized. One of the hottest shows on tour thus far. In several ways. Temperature included. Can’t imagine what that room would be like in the heart of summer. Wow. Jacksonville was so welcoming and warm to us. What a blast.

Local duo Elevators Making Analog closed the show out with their wall of amps and stellar female drumming. It was a fun set as well, although i had to take most of it in from out back in the fresh air. Holy goodness. Met lots of rad people and felt incredibly at home in Florida. My first time there.

Went back and hung out late at Kevin and Cameron’s. Great people. Thanks to everyone that made our short stay in Jacksonville so good and so memorable. Especially: Kevin, Cameron, Amber, JT, all the Helios Eye clan, Thomas, Zeke (mike), Charlie and EMA co-conspirator, Aubrey and all the other characters who’s names are alluding me. thank you thank you thank you.

Reporting from the warm confines of the South for all of us Finn Rigginses :::
::; gilbert

PS lisa captured the Shantytown in the act of a common misspelling / missreading / missunderstanding of the name of our created character and band name:

We spent the day basking in the sun and near perfect weather that blessed us in Aiken, South Carolina all day… 70 degrees and sunny. We cruised around town a little bit and then caught up with our new friends Nick and Elizabeth in a cute little neighborhood where Elizabeth and her kids lived. Cam and them ended up never returning to the hotel room the night before as they raged it until sunrise… sounded like quite the escapade… and thus they were all a little pooped. We were thoroughly entertained by Liz’s kids: Ellen Wallace, William and Cannon as we all played out in their front yard for a good chunk of the afternoon… riding skateboards, playing basketball, playing badminton, riding big wheels, etc etc etc.

Lisa and I also cruised over to Nick’s parents place for a bit where we met Gepetto — his large horse friend of the Belgian sort. He was a big friendly horse. He tried to talk to us a few times but couldn’t seem to get the words out.

The show that night was actually across the river in the town of Augusta, Georgia — home of The Masters golf tournament and James Brown. In fact, we played at The Soul Bar, which James Brown apparently frequented right up to his death and often played impromptu shows there. They had James Brown memorabilia all over the place. The venue was amazing really. One of the coolest bars i’ve ever been in. Rad lighting. Rad music. Rad staff. Rad beers. Rad high ceiling. Rad sound, despite the funky stage setup. It was such a cool place. The scene was fantastic. Thanks to Coco for owning and operating such a treasure. And he DJ’ed all night before, between and after the show setting an absolutely pristine mood in the place. Hard to fully explain how rad this place was, but trust me, if you’re ever in the area, go check it out. There and Nacho Mamas a couple doors down… cheap and epic mexican food.

We played a nice long set. It was a really really fun show. Great crowd through it all, apparently pretty pumped too. All really nice and enthusiastic — called a really inspired set out of us.

After us, The Burgundy Curtain debuted their live set for a bunch of friends and locals that had come out to support. They’re set was rad, despite some technical problems with the computer that was housing the programming. Really cool electronic / pop / post rock stuff. Check them out at www.myspace.com/burgundycurtain The sound and whole setting of the room was intense and inspiring, loved every moment of it. Thanks so much to Nick and Andrew for making this show happen, to Nick and Elizabeth for the hospitality, to Coco and The Soul Bar for hosting and for being rad, to Al and Leela and Lee and the rest of the staff for being stellar, and to everyone else that made the evening so radical.

Off to Florida!!!

Reporting for all of us Finn Rigginses :::
::: gilbert

Woke up around 10am, rolled out of the van and stumbled into the gas station to go to the bathroom. The guy behind the counter was the one that was there when I wandered in around 3am to brush my teeth before going to bed. Felt a little funny that I had been sleeping in his parking lot for 7 hours and he was still there. Curious what he thought of seeing me again. If he even noticed. If he knew we had been sleeping outside the whole time. By the time I had used the restroom and brushed my teeth again, the sky had unleashed a massive downpour. I puddle-jumped my way back to the van getting quite soaked on the way. We shuffled ourselves around then hit the road for Augusta, Georgia where we’d be playing the next night and had some new friends to meet up with.

The rain kind of cleared up, but after about an hour on the road the sky once again unleashed the fury and we were driving in one of the worst rainstorms I’ve ever been privy to experiencing. It was relentless. Pounding our windshield. Our wipers couldn’t keep up at all and we were slightly concerned that the big cracks in our windshield might give way to this onslaught. The freeway was a legitimate river — solid sheet of water. We decided to pull off and eat some breakfast rather than crawl along at such a slow pace, or risk getting in some sort of accident in the current conditions. Cam and I settled into another Waffle House adventure while Lisa cruised off to Target to quell her shopping urges.

By the time we were all done with our chosen indulgences, the rain had mostly cleared and we hit the road again. Just a few miles down the road there were a couple of major accidents holding traffic up and reassuring us of our decision to pull off when we did.

As we headed into Atlanta we heard from our buddy Travis — from his perch in California — as he had been seeing on the news about extreme weather out in Georgia. It had mellowed out, though, and we definitely seemed to be missing the worst of it. As we drove through Atlanta we noticed a bunch of the damage from the tornado that had ripped through the city just a few days prior. We also started hearing about major flooding in Southeast Missouri and Eastern Arkansas, an area we were in just a few days ago. Just a few steps ahead of the disasters it seemed. Pretty wild.

We got stuck in rush hour traffic in Atlanta for awhile, but soon broke free and cruised on to our hotel in Aiken, South Carolina — the home of The Burgundy Curtain and right across the river from Augusta, GA. Nick from The Burgundy Curtain had set up the Augusta show and had helped us track down a cheap hotel room for the night — our first of tour. Upon arriving, him and his childhood friend Elizabeth cruised over and we all shot the shit for a few hours before Cam and them decided to hit the town and Lisa went to bed while I nestled up with the computer to catch up on some work.

I’ve been thoroughly addicted to the current presidential campaign, as I’ve been sincerely moved by Barack Obama — first back when he spoke at the 2004 convention, then again when my sister got me his book The Audacity of Hope, and now during this presidential campaign. I sincerely believe that he can help transform the political and overall mindset of our country. I believe that he represents a future that can help this country mature out of its adolescence that has had us as a nation thoroughly confused about who we are — riddled with internal struggles, disagreements and immature bickering — like any awkward teenager trying to figure out its path to adulthood. I not only trust that he will provide some truly sound judgement in the oval office, but will also be a leader that we as a people can trust — something it seems we haven’t had for a long time. And that, coupled with his speaking ability and willingness to speak to us as if we’re intelligent creatures capable of understanding the complexities of our country and world, will help to renew the spirit of this great county and help us all tackle the growing challenges of an uncertain future here on earth together. Its wild. Its historic and an opportunity that we would be fools to let pass us by. Its been frustrating watching the cheap political maneuvers of old from both the Right and the Clinton campaign — the kind of tactics that prey on our perceived ignorance and short attention spans and that at times are successful with many voters. Especially with this recent distortion of Obama’s former pastor and what that relationship means about Obama and Obama’s views of this country. Complete and udder distortion. Then Obama gave one of the boldest and most remarkable speeches I’ve encountered in my lifetime.

Two days ago Obama gave a 40min speech on race relations and politics. I saw snippets about it on the front pages of all the newspapers at our stops all day yesterday, so around 2am I took a break from my work, sat back and watched his speech. Truly historic. Completely moved by what it asked of all of us, and it’s candor and willingness to talk frankly about the “elephant in the nation’s closet”. I felt myself transform. I felt myself being able to be honest about how race is perceived in my own mind and I sensed the transformation and realized what a mature conversation this was for anyone, much less the country as a whole. I noticed that this video had been the most viewed video on Youtube since it was posted and suddenly felt like I had entered into a new paradigm with everyone else that had seen it. It was unbelievable. I have little doubt that Barack Obama will be our next president, and know that it will be a great disservice to us all if he isn’t. Imagine a world with Obama leading the nation’s dialogue. The possibilities for a return to moral and intellectual greatness would be wide open to us. We could start carrying the responsibilities of being the leaders of the free world with true honor once again and be a part of a nation truly proud to be a part of itself, with the populace willing to do what it takes for the good of us all. A pipe dream? Maybe. But we’d certainly be a lot closer to it with Obama as our leader than anyone else that’s being offered to us at this point in time. I highly encourage everyone to watch this speech in its entirety. Don’t rely on the soundbites and the intense spin on him, race and so many other worthy issues in this country. Most of the press continues to fail us. Constantly sensationalizing and pushing us apart rather than helping us better understand the truth and what can help us work together. Remember that they’re profit machines. Nothing else. They are no longer here to serve us, only themselves. Listen to Obama and others willing to speak to us like adults… Watch this speech and continue to pay closer attention than the Clintons, talk radio, and others afraid of Obama would like you to. Pay close attention and make up your own mind. Here’s a link to the speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU

word. sorry for the monologue. don’t mean to shove anything down anyone’s throat, just wanted to share how i’ve been feeling about this whole issue recently. this speech re-stoked the fire for sure. pretty incredible.

Reporting from a moment of renewed inspiration and a lot of faith in our country’s future.
::: gilbert

Cruised out of Nashville relatively early in the afternoon despite a fairly short drive to Knoxville as we had been informed of a free pizza buffet at the venue between 5-6:30pm and didn’t want to miss out. We made it with plenty of time to spare, shoveled in some pizza then proceeded to explore the Market Square plaza that the Preservation Pub was a part of — thoroughly enjoying the spring weather. As it got dark, I wandered around the square and came across a monument to the Women’s Suffrage movement and the women who had laid their lives on the line for the cause. Reminded me of the movie Iron Jawed Angels, which does a great job of capturing the spirit of the movement and the women that were a part of it. Some of the quotes on the monument really struck me and sent me into a nice inspired and introspective state of mind as I wandered amidst the street lamps and warm spring evening. Pretty intense imagining those women and the battle they fought against their own government. Hard to imagine that they faced so much resistance for something we take for granted now — the right to vote. Hard to imagine that this great nation put up such a fight to withhold this right from women — as if they’re not as qualified as us men. I can only imagine the nightmarish things that talk radio would’ve said about these women had it existed at the time. Had me thinking about what our generation’s big calling is and how we still see intense resistance to any calls for progress as if those fighting for it are anti-american or anti-family or anti-moral, etc etc etc. No different from what those women faced. Sometimes hard to put the present struggles in the context of history, but I suppose that’s the role that monuments like this one play in our everyday lives. Although, as a I stood there, a guy walked by me and asked me what the monument was for, said he walked by it everyday and had never stopped to look at it. Rather telling i suppose — one example as to why history is so easily forgotten… And why the sensationalism of talk radio is so popular…

Anyhow, it was a Tuesday, the University of Tennessee was on spring break, and it was the day after St. Patrick’s Day. We were warned that it could be a pretty quiet night by the staff of the Preservation Pub. Didn’t matter too much to us, we knew we had a long set to play and were excited to get the machine up and running again after our first day off. Sound guy Daryl rolled in around ten — turns out he does sound for the Del McCoury Band, including a recent show at the winery outside of Boise that does music. Really nice guy. Enjoyed rapping out with him. We started around 10:30pm to a crowd of about 20 people.

The Preservation Pub is a big long rectangular box, with a high ceiling and the stage at the back end of the room. The 20 people there were hardly a dent in the big space. We did our thing. They did theirs. They were pretty subdued in general, but as the show went on showed some life and bantered with us about geography and other randomness. We had a good time with it. We were supposed to be splitting the evening with a band from Georgia, but they never showed — odd, not really sure why a band would not show, not call, but I guess they knew it was going to be a quiet night and decided to bail. We stretched our set a little bit longer, then wrapped it up so that we could hit the road.

Had some interesting post-show conversations, and was psyched that several of the few folks there bought a bunch of merch. They were sweethearts. Despite this being the quietest night of tour, we left there warmed up again and pleased with the overall outcome — and grateful for the opportunity to explore Knoxville. Met some good folks and will definitely be back. Hopefully sometime when school is in session and on a better night of the week.

Drove into the night — headed toward Georgia. Pulled over before too long and crashed hard in the van. Felt soooo good. Another glorious night of sleep in a gas station parking lot. ahhhhhh…

Reporting from the land of infinite Waffle Houses for all of us Finn Rigginses ::::
::: gilbert

This is our second tour that has taken us across the U.S. so extensively, and second time that we’ve landed in Nashville on such a tour, and we’ve yet to play a show in Nashville, although, it once again played host to a pretty epic day off. Due to our adventures the night before — thus a noon wake up — and an extremely pleasant early afternoon in Chattanooga where we had a leisurely breakfast at Aretha Frankenstein’s with our new friend Jeremy then went and did some good food shopping at a Greenlife market, we didn’t roll into Nashville until about 6pm.

We had arranged to visit our long lost buddy, bandmate and schoolmate from Moscow — Brian Smith — who now is taking the Nashville music scene by storm. He’s a 1st class guy with an incredible tendency toward laughter and generosity, as well as being an incredibly professional drummer, all of which are serving him well in Nashville. He’s been doing a lot of studio work, and session work and whatnot, but recently his main project — pop-country band TelluRide — signed a pretty major deal with a label there and just recorded a pretty major record at Sony Studios that will be released in a couple of months.

He definitely works in a whole different realm than us, as TelluRide recently reached #8 on the CMT video charts, and is in general putting out a super polished product to speak to an already established audience of pop-country enthusiasts. It’s a well-branded product for sure. It was interesting to meet them all and get their perspectives on the whole game. Great guys. Really no different than us, just with different goals i suppose. Definitely different approaches to those goals.

We’re psyched for Brian and his wife Angie, though, as he’s living his dream and she’s hammering out a nursing degree… their definitely living life to its fullest and we had a fantastic time catching up with them. That and Brian kept us super entertained on St. Patrick’s Day running us around to all the local hangs and introducing us to folks. We saw some pretty epic coverbands and this amazing venue that Brian has been playing at a bunch recently called the Wildhorse… opening for acts like Foreigner, Sister Hazel, CCR, Hootie & the Blowfish, Richard Marx and other names from the past. Pretty wild. Pretty funny scene in general in Nashville. A world all its own — it was super cool to get the insider’s perspective. He even took us to “music row” where all the studios, labels, management companies, dentists, plastic surgeons, entertainment lawyers, publishers, music business school, etc etc have buildings. All within walking distance of themselves. Craziness.

We cashed in relatively early, then stayed up late sippin the high life and makin veggie sandwiches before finally yielding to a comfy night of sleep and dreams.

Reporting from the Goodyear blimp for all of us Finn Rigginses:::
:::gilbert

We entered Tennessee via Memphis sometime midday with Chattanooga still around 300 miles away. We were wishing we had more time so that we could stop in Memphis and check it out for a little while, but alas, we settled for some whirlwind sight-seeing from the inside the Ghost Ghost as blew through town — giant posters of Elvis and faux pyramids whizzing by. We drove through the Volunteer State towards the end of our fall U.S. tour, but besides an afternoon goofing off in Nashville, was mostly in the dark and we didn’t get a chance to see much of the Tennessee landscape — or maybe it just didn’t strike us then. We were really impressed with the what the state has to offer, especially in between Nashville and Chattanooga, where they have some pretty good size mountains and some impressive lakes and other waterways. According to the locals, kayaking and other whitewater sports are really popular in the area as is the bass fishing — not a whole lot of trout out this way — but other than that was reminding us a lot of Idaho. Chattanooga in particular, as it was nestled in the hills and lakes, with a nice downtown area that was super mellow.

It was a sunday night. Sunday night before St. Patrick’s Day. And upon arriving at JJ’s Bohemia we learned that the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga was on spring break. Luckily, we do a good job of maintaining low expectations. It was our 12th show in a row, we were all a little spaced out from lack of sleep and showers, but we were all pumped to be sportin t-shirts in the startlingly perfect weather, and the vibe at JJ’s upon arrival was instantly good. Rad murals on the walls outside and all kinds of goodness on the inside — including a Kissing Booth.

This turned out to be a real darkhorse of tour. A sleeper show if you will. We ended up with two stellar and enthusiastic locals on the bill in Antebellum and Coy, both of which were quite different from each other but really talented and tasteful in their own ways. Antebellum reminded me of the experimentalism of Radiohead or more so My Morning Jacket or Wilco with the folk elements and sections of their set. Their friend Ben did video projections during their whole set and they overall did a great job of setting the vibe for the evening and getting folks pumped up. Coy followed with a high energy set of upbeat and funky pop, slightly reminiscent of early Ben Folds Five. Really fun tight set. Even through in a cover of the Beastie Boys’ “Sure Shot” which was pretty cool. Definitely had the crowd riled. Already we were really impressed with the turnout considering all the factors, but curious how many would stick around for us Idahoans in town for the first time.

First of all, huge thanks to all the guys from Antebellum for leading the enthusiasm charge during Coy’s set and then carrying it over during ours. Some more folks left before we started, but considering that it was 12:30am on a Sunday night, there were a lot that stayed. A posse led by the Antebellum boys (John Michael, Stratton, Eric “the Croatian Sensation”, Travis, Jeremy, Leif… and others) brought the fire throughout our entire set with some of the wildest dance moves we’ve seen in years. Including a point during DeTamble when they were all on the floor writhing ecstatically. It was quite the scene. And made for a really really fun set and a lot of energy in the room in general. Their friend Ben did projections during our set as well, which increased the visual experience of the whole happening. Truly a dark horse show, and despite better overall turnouts at some shows, probably the best show of tour thus far — a great way to end our first 12 days leading in to our first day off. Other folks deserving our thanks: Coy, Ben, Mandi, Zach and the rest of the JJ’s staff.

We went out to some great american diner in downtown Chattanooga after the show with the Antebellum crew then made our way to the comfy confines of Stratton & John Michael’s place. Nice to have a clean place to stay again, and a shower awaiting us in the morning.

Reporting from a laundromat in South Carolina for all of us Finn Rigginses –
–gilbert

We woke up in the van for the first time all tour, breaking a solid streak of nights slept fully stretched out on floors or couches or even beds. We managed to sleep in to 10am, though, in the gas station parking lot that we had selected in the dark of night and a power outage in the area. In our search the night before we had driven a majority of the hour and a half to Russellville, and thus had some extra time, so we jumped off the motorway and drove into the town of Ozark to explore the area a little bit. We tooled around some thrift shops and some antique stores in historic downtown Ozark — or atleast its skeleton of a more vibrant past. There were some pretty interesting cultural landmarks around, like this tobacco store — pretty classic. That and the Hillbilly Carwash. The Hillbilly Burger. The Hillbilly One-Stop Shop. Etc. etc. etc.

We rolled into Russellville around 1pm and made our way to the Station House Bistro where we’d be playing that evening. The Station House is a cute little café / coffeeshop with rad murals on the wall and the coolest staff and ownership ever. They took great care of us as we hung out all afternoon drinking Rich Irishmen and munchin sandwiches and checkin ye ‘ol internet and learning about the local scene — the drama around the current theater production of “Assassins“ at Arkansa Tech University, the hippies in the hills, the straight up hillbillies, the nature of a “dry county” and everything in between. So much cultural education to be had — in this country alone — we’re learning a ton. Love it.

They cleared the tables completely out of the room by mid-afternoon and opened the place up into a decent sized little venue and we setup basically in the middle of the room. The sound in the room was really really good. — it held the sound really nicely — it didn’t bounce around too much or get too muddy and muffled. It was pretty amazing.

There was a nice little crew of kids that made it out in time for our set which began at 8pm. It was a really fun set as we finally gave the new version of Mahoney (My Homie) some love and pulled out a few other things we hadn’t played as much. Cloud Minder from Philadelphia played after us. Super nice folks playing some pretty epic instrumental music ala Tristeza and other post-rock heroes. The textures and nuances in their music translated extremely well in the Station House as they had the crowd — including myself — mesmerized. Local William Blackart wrapped the evening up with his “hand-rolled voice” crooning some pretty rad tunes over his fingerpicked steel string guitar. Really moody and he too sounded soooo good in that room. Loved it. Great show. Cool bill thanks to the Fort Delicious crew. Everyone was rad. Thanks to Colin, Stan, Jamie, Michelle, Amy, Emily, Brandon, Dustin, Daniel, Amber, Dalton, Cloud Minder, William Blackart and everyone else that made the whole Russellville experience so educational and joyous.

The after parties were pretty epic in their own right as we explored Russellville with the locals. The Fort. Some late night piano duets. A ridiculous amount of riduculousness. And other adventures carried us into the wee hours before Cam and I saddled up the van (with Lisa sleeping in the back) and cruised to a Waffle House for a quick hit of greasy breakfast before hitting the road for about an hour to give us a head start on our big drive to Chattanooga, TN. We slept in the van again. It was good. Oh so good.

Reporting from the Ghost Ghost in motion for all of us Finn Rigginses.
==gilbert

PS here’s a little video taste of William Blackart’s set:

We had Friday, March 14th off, which was shaping up to be our first night off so far on tour after 9 straight shows. We had several invites to venture down to Austin, TX to go to some SXSW parties on this day, but with no guarantees of an opportunity to play, we couldn’t justify the 8 hour drive since we’d be headed back to Arkansas the next day anyhow. So we tooled around Fayetteville all day. Did some laundry at The Dinosaur House and went out to lunch with Justin before packing up and heading downtown to a coffeeshop to spend the rest of our afternoon catching up on some internet work and hanging outside in the beautiful spring day. After hitting up a nearby pizza joint for some dinner, we made our way toward a movie theater to drop Lisa off to go watch a movie. Somehow we got confused on times and missed the start time on her movie but found Dickson St. — the main college strip near the University of Arkansas that’s lined with bars and clubs — on our way. Cam got all fired up to find us a gig for the night and jumped out and went on the hunt. After close to an hour of asking around, he finally found a place called Toothpicks that was up for letting us setup and play until atleast 10pm when they would most likely be closing since UofA had just gone on spring break.

We scoped it out and despite doubting that the empty pub would gain any customers in the next couple of hours since it was dead during dinnertime and definitely slightly hidden on the strip, we decided it would be fun to setup and play regardless, to at the very least practice some tunes we hadn’t really been playing much.

We busted a quick load-in and started setting up as the waitress/manager Alyssa and the cook Steve stood by watching and chatting with us. Around 8:30, though, as we were about half way setup, this party of about 10 stumbled in all rowdy and ready for dinner after being at the happy hour of a place up the street and watching the UofA basketball game that afternoon. Oh my, they were some giddy and toasted middle-aged folks that were rowdy as all getout from the start. They were pretty vocally excited about the fact that there was a band setting up to entertain them for their dinner and the continuation of their drinking excursion. It was quickly pretty hilarious as they were begging for us to start. They all had Electric Kamikaze shots then ordered their dinner.

We started around 9pm and were surprisingly greeted with a bunch of enthusiasm by these crazy dinner eaters of apparently the wealthier and older sort. Granted, we were consciously playing stuff of ours that we thought might go over a little better with them (and they were significantly lubed up), but still, we didn’t expect such a warm reception. Drunkenness could’ve certainly led to violence and some intense heckling if we offended them in any way — so we were psyched it was going the other way. They got their dinner about midway through our set, and soon after we decided to play our sexy dance tune Pump It, Fill It just for shits and giggles. About 2 min into it the entire table had emptied and had broken out into an all out dance party right up in front of us. At one point, one of the ladies, who had been adding some pretty rad harmony vocals throughout the evening, started bustin some funky funky rhythm on Cam’s washboard. It was unbelievable. What a random happening. We played about 4 more songs after that as the dance party continued to rage, and these crazy people worked off their dinner. It was 10:20. Time to close. Time for us to be done and time for our random little crowd to leave. It was a wild convergence of epicness. An experience that none of us will easily forget.

We packed up and drove out into the night to find a place to sleep. We were greeted with some magnificent lightning — spidering all across the night sky. Really wild stuff. And then a downpour for about an hour. Same storm system that had sent a tornado through downtown Atlanta, GA that night.

Still no days off — 10 shows in a row — with two shows over the weekend that would extend that streak to 12. Our St. Patrick‘s Day show on Monday got cancelled though, so that‘s looking like it will probably end the streak and be our first day off, but who knows, as tonight had proven — anything can happen.

We slept in the van for the first time this night. Our streak of 9 days without doing so ended, we were ok with it. Nice to keep to ourselves for a night.

Reporting from orbit for all of us Finn Rigginses
–gilbert