theriotbefore.com

It was inevitable I know—that the van would break down—but it still hurt when the small part of me that still held out hope for the impossible withered and died on I-75 N near Bowling Green, Ohio; in unison with our van’s fuel pump. Only a few hours after leaving Columbus in good spirits, stomachs full of pancakes, tour half over and quite successful, everyone looking forward to our time in Chicago the following day, we found ourselves stuck on the side of the freeway near nothing but farmland and farmland, which, luckily for us, was infested with thirsty ticks. It’s funny (read: tragic) how things change so quickly.

After hearing from AAA that the tow truck driver would not be able to take our trailer, Jason and I started walking down the highway towards the off-ramp in hopes of bribing a nice truck owning local to pick up our trailer for us. After walking a mile on the highway, we rounded a bend and approached the off-ramp only to find it completely devoid of civilization. Our spirits were given a brief boost when we saw a round sign about a mile down the road that appeared to be for a Dairy Queen. But on closer inspection it turned out to be a stop sign only a few hundred yards away, which also functioned as an indicator of just how nuts we had become. Fortunately for us we were startled back into sanity by the sound of a police officer’s siren directly behind us—we were being pulled over, possibly for speeding. After checking to make sure we didn’t have any “knives or anything stupid” he informed us that a tow truck was on its way and he would escort us back to the van. “On its way,” as it turns out, has a very loose definition in northwester Ohio, and as a result we spent the next two hours sitting in the van, sweating, and swatting at ticks.

I noticed that while broken down I went through a number of psychological phases. The first, denial, was shallow and unfounded and led straight into a more logical yet less fun, depression. As the van’s engine died and we quietly drifted over to the side of the highway I pictured us being forced to cancel the tour and return to Richmond. I would have to call up my jobs and tell them I was available to work earlier than I had previously stated, that our tour had failed. Everyone I’d see at home would ask me how tour went, expecting to hear all kinds of fun and crazy stories from the road, and instead I’d tell them that our van fell victim to I-75 North, just outside of Bowling Green, Ohio, and we had to come home early. No one would be surprised but would instead wear false and transparent empathy over facial expressions all saying sarcastically, “So being in a band didn’t work out, huh? What a shocker!”

Luckily my depression didn’t last long because it was soon replaced by a comfortable, albeit unfounded, optimism. I convinced myself that things would work out, the van would get fixed soon, the repair would be minor and inexpensive, and we’d be back on the road in no time; our little detour would end up an exciting adventure, actually increasing the overall fun of our tour rather than depleting it. That mindset lasted for as long as I could entertain myself with that story in my head—about ten minutes, and as I came down from my high of optimism I passed briefly through depression again, which then turned into defeat, which, when mixed with the elation of the previous minute, morphed into a sort of delirium.

While the phases I passed through may have not been an entirely accurate description of the rest of the band, we all somehow ended in delirium at the same time. As a result, the focus of our conversation drifted from possible causes and cures of our current predicament, to debating whether or not it was better to have a lifetime supply of Chipotle burritos or $5000 cash. We took this latter conversation quite seriously. Math was used extensively. We decided that it would be better to take the burritos only if one planned on eating two or more per week, and especially if a stipulation in taking the money was that it could not be used to buy any sort of burrito. After that, Freddy began to ponder life in a society where burritos were the accepted, even preferred, currency, questioning quite earnestly as to how that type of economy would functions. This, of course, led me to asking the question of how one would go about buying a burrito if burritos were money, to which Freddy replied, “With rubies…Duh!” The absurdity of this conversation never fully hit us because, before we allowed ourselves any sort of self-monitoring, Jason and I began discussing all things lemonade.

After an exhausting stay in the delirious that left me with an insatiable craving for lemonade, the tow truck arrived and brought us into what we will loosely call civilization. The following hour brought us the van’s unfortunate diagnoses of a broken fuel pump, the cure costing at least one day of loitering in nearby Bowling Green about $600 in parts and repairs. We got dropped off at a budget hotel (which now was far outside of our own budget) and immediately began wallowing in those now familiar emotions, depression and self-pity. I also ate some of Jason’s Skittles.

As it turns out, wallowing burns a pretty significant amount of calories (put a wallowing booth next to the Stairmaster?) and hunger soon overtook depression as the dominant feeling in the room. A quest for pizza was began, and it found fruition about ten blocks down the road at a place called Myle’s. It was filling, delicious, and served by nice people who, after getting off work, bought us beer and showed us the town.

And so, as our least successful day on tour came to a close, we fell asleep with enough pizza and beer in our stomachs that we temporarily forgot about vans, fuel pumps, and guitars, amps, and drums that stayed quiet in Ohio when they were supposed to be played in Michigan.

This guy didn’t have too good of luck in Ohio either.

-Brett

After spending a little more than a day in Ithaca, NY, we left pretty much even with the place. Following the cancelled show in Penn. we decided to drive straight to Ithaca where we, like the high rollers that we are, holed up in the Economy Inn for the night. It was cablelicious! I would like to take the time right now to say that, and this is a hard thing for me to admit, the Colbert Report could very well be funnier than the Daily Show. The show is genuis and it made our stay at the Inn all the better. So far, Ithaca up 1. The following morning at about 6 am our neighbors at the hotel decided that it was imperative to blast some sort of Mexican music from their idling car as they prepared to leave. We woke up and did not salsa. Ithaca down 1. Back to 0. The following day we met some cool people who took us to a sweet swimming hole.

Ithaca back up 1.

Because I am from California and say gnarly, I felt a lot of pressure from my east coast companions to prove that I was indeed “extreme.” So I jumped out a window.

The scary part of the whole thing was climbing to the window, which had to be done by scaling the broken bricks under the bottom right window. These bricks were above slippery rocks which turned into a little water fall of sorts. Any sort of slip would be very bad. Seeing as how I was nervous about the upcoming jump, it made the climb that much worse. But nothing bad happened and my west coast reputation was maintained.

After a good sesh at the swimming hole we headed back to the van with the goal of catching a happy hour at cool bar, but when we opened the door we noticed that the van was a bit deshevled. We quickly realized that our van had been broken into while we swam! Ithaca down 1. Luckily the theives had only visible cash on their minds and missed the two laptops and our money box. They did steal Freddy’s money though, so if you see him, buy him a beer or something.

We got to the venue and realized we each recieved drink tickets and the bartender was a really cool guy. Ithaca up 1. A pitcher of drink was made, drank, and caused Cory and Jason to look like this:

But when it came time to leave we realized that there was no money for the bands. Gas, by the way, is incredibly expensive. Ithaca down 1.

Good times were had in Ithaca but they were countered by equally bad times. We broke even, packed our stuff, and drove to Ohio.

Today we went to the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. There was no photography inside so I took a picture of Freddy outside instead.

I also attempted to walk down a very steep grassy hill outside the Hall. It all went well until I neared the bottom and the grass decided to be wet. I fell. Others saw. I tried to play it cool but ultimately failed.

Tonight we played possibly the hottest show of the tour at the Legion of Doom house. Jimmy, whose a super nice guy and has longer dreads than you do, cooked us up some delicious vegan mac and cheese, salad, and tofu. I’ve never been much of a fan of mac and cheese and I realized tonight that maybe it was the fault of the cheese, because tonight’s cheeseless mac and cheese was amazing. I had three servings.

Following the show there was much porch hanging out on.

Tomorrow there is talk of pancakes and then we’re off to Michigan.

Brett

The thing about tour is that if affords one the opportunity to make decisions with little or no immediate consequences. Most of the people one is surrounded with on a given day will, within a mere 24 hours, be replaced with a new set of strangers, affording the traveler a sort of infinite distance between them and the previous day’s actions. And while removing the restrictions of long-term social accountability can be a freeing thing, reducing stress and social anxiety, it can also be used for ill. Unfortunately, the latter is true of Garrett who, outside our show in Syracuse, NY, and high on the buzz of the inconsequential, made a horrible decision. He had Eric do this to him:

It’s sad to see such a promising young man fall into the trap of foolishness. We have tried our best to steer him straight but still, two days after the fact, the Chelsea (read: dumb) haircut still exists. I may have to put it out of its misery one of these nights Garrett is asleep. It would be for the best.

Our band had a day off in Buffalo after the Syracuse show and it was decided that our time would be best spent looking at a waterfall in Canada. So we drove over to Niagara Falls, home to the hottest parking lot attendants in the world. According to, Garrett, our expert on all things Niagara, the falls are best viewed from the Canadian side, so we walked across a bridge to see what all the fuss was aboot. Once in Canada, though never really out of sight of the United States, all our talk for the following three hours centered on how strange everything in this new foreign land was. Every difference in culture that could be found or imagined was pointed out and marveled at. An observer of our conversations would have concluded quite quickly that we were morons, and, well, at that time, they would have been completely correct.

As far as the falls were concerned, they were neat but not neat enough to warrant some sort of pleasant facial expression:

Here’s the deal with the falls. They’re objectively beautiful. I don’t know what it is about water falling off stuff, but it’s amazing, and if that was all that Niagra Falls was I’d be quite the fan of the place - possibly even planning a return visit. But Niagra Falls is not just water and gravity, it’s also thousands of tourists and the cheap money wasting entertainment and souveniers that follows them wherever they go. Tourists and beautiful scenery can’t coexist without the former robbing the later of its beauty. Back in high school I climbed Mt. Whitney and while the view from the tallest peak in the lower 48 was breathtaking, it was diminished by the fact that I was sharing it with 100 other climbers. I kept looking at all the other mountains around us that were nearly as tall and completely empty, and I wished I had climbed them instead. So as far as Niagra Falls is concerned, skip it and go hike to an isolated waterfall where you can really appreciate nature.

At night the good people on the Canadian side shine lights on the falls that turn them colors. This is much less exciting than it sounds. But the source of the lights makes for cool pictures:

You know what is awesome? 34 oz. beers!

Garrett and I got married.

We’re very happy together.

After our day off we headed over to Bradford, Penn. to play what turned out to be a cancelled show. This made us sad:

Seeing as how we lost money driving to no show and that our next show was further away from VA, Worn in Red decided to leave tour early and head home. And so on a rainy afternoon in Bradford we said our goodbyes and the great dudes in Worn in Red drove home with their driver’s side window stuck in the down position. They will be missed.

We’re currently in Ithaca and there is talk of swimming. This is good talk. I’ll keep you updated.

Brett

You know that show on VH1, The World Series of Pop Culture? That’s a good show. It’s like Jeopardy except I get some answers right. I’m watching it right now and, due to my inability to multi-task, my rambling will suffer. I regret nothing.

Here’s the thing I’m learning about touring: most of one’s time spent on tour is idle (kind of, but also nothing like, war) – mostly just sitting around in a van or at a show – but it’s a busy kind of idle that makes it hard to really get anything productive accomplished. As a result, I have not written in here in a few days because, while I was sitting around and bored much of that time, I was somehow too busy. Weird.

We played a show in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania three days ago and it was a fun show, blah, blah, blah. But here’s the thing, Wilkes-Barre, how would you say that? Wilkes-BAR right? Well, apparently to the inept town name pronunciation council in Penn decided to allow the latter part of Wilkes-Barre to be known as BARRY or BEAR, but not the more obvious BAR. You can choose between two lies but are forbidden from uttering the true, God given name of the town. This linguistic injustice upon a small, innocent Northeaster community could not be tolerated by either us or Worn in Red (sans Eric, who hates justice) and we made the conscious, courageous, and morally sound decision to refuse the system’s oppression of right sounding town names, and we only referred to the town that was home to our first show in Pennsylvania as Wilkes-BAR. Hopefully the people of Wilkes-Barre will be inspired by our bravery and also stand up against oppression. I truly believe that if we all remain united, Wilkes-Barrians will never have to suffer the pain of referring to their town as Wilkes-BEAR or Wilkes-BARRY, while keeping the true name of their town bottled up in their hearts.

And who says music is only entertainment? We’re really changing America for the better on this tour. It’s inspiring. I hope you’re all inspired.

I got really sweaty at the show and attempted to air dry my shirt afterwards.

It did not work. The shirt was damp for two days. Gross.

Eric would like to point out right now that Sondra is the obvious answer to the question, “Who is the oldest sibling on the Cosby Show?” and that the two contestants who got that wrong are morons of sorts.

At the show in Wilkes-BAR (see, doesn’t that just feel better?) the venue’s walls were plastered with numerous stickers from all the bands that had played there in the past. I wanted to put a The Riot Before sticker up and join in on the tradition, but, because we are poor, we had no stickers to put up. Unwilling to give up and still on a bit of a rush from bringing down the system earlier in the day, I decided to not let poverty stand in the way of my band making the club wall a little bit tackier. I grabbed some masking tape, a sharpie, a lion’s share of determination, and did this:

These are now our tour stickers and have been applied in more than one location. You love them.

Back in Philly we acquired a bag of day old bagels from a nice coffee shop employee.

They were delicious, free, and delicious. But a few days later in Wilkes-Barre, I noticed that there was a white, mold looking substance on the side of these bagels. See:

But after some critical thinking we decided that there’s no way the white stuff on the side of the old bagels that have been sitting in the hot, humid van for the last few days could possibly be mold. The bagels were eaten and still delicious.

After sitting around the house in Wilkes-Barre on our day off until mid-afternoon, Joe and I decided to head over to the local little league baseball field and watch some little kids play baseball while their parents, reliving their own childhood failures, placed far too much pressure to win on their young, innocent children. Refs were argued with, increased hustle was demanded, and the hot dogs were tasty.

Did you know that the obstacle course in the American Gladiators was called “The Eliminator?” I did not. Nor did anyone in the room with me. Nor did the contestants.

I don’t want to write anymore. So I’ll finish by saying that Freddy left his stuff outside and it got rained on.

It was kinda sad but mostly funny.

- Brett

Us:

Today marked the beginning of the quote ceiling. We finally bought some label maker tape and plan on covering the ceiling of the van in funny quotes. This was a brilliant idea that we stole from Fairweather, who may or may not have stolen it from someone else (probably goes all the way back to Plato or something).

Here’s a little piece of advice for those of you planning on relying on your Sprint cell phone to give you accurate driving directions: DON’T! Halfway passed Philly (today’s tour destination) we realized that we did not have a clue where we were going and decided to follw the directions on Jason’s internet able cell phone. The directions almost immediately sent us over the Franklin bridge, away from Philly and into Camden, New Jersey (which I’m almost certain is the most dangerous city in the U.S.). It sure looked scary. I made this face:

The more optimistic members of the band propoesed various theories including: 1) We have to drive away from Philly and into Jersey to get back to Philly to the house where the show is. 2) The people who live at the house claim Philly but technically live in Jersey (I wouldn’t blame anyone who actually did this). And 3) We are not in Jersey at all but rather in a very Jersey looking part of Pennsyvania (this theory was shot down pretty quickly when Cory went ahead and asked a random guy what state we were in).

I had only one theory concerning our perdicament which went like this: 1) We are lost.

I was, unfortunately, correct.

But we did not stay lost forever, and only a five dollar toll and thirty minutes later we found ourselves in front of the Veggieplex house.

Seeing as how we were in Philly, cheese steaks were quickly sought out.

We found some here:

Cory approved:

The show was fun and sweaty. We play basements twice that size in Japan. Worn in Red was great.

Towards the end of our third song, in a part that is very quiet and serious feeling, the mood was entirely killed by a potent fart that saturated every bit of oxygen in the room. No one fessed up. I have my suspicions.

We ended the night in a failed quest for more cheese steak, but settled on some pizza. It was pretty cliche Philly in that a sign on the wall of the pizza place read, “If you have a question, the answer is no,” with the sign next to it stating, “All those being irratable, annoying, or stupid will be charged $10 extra.” I considered taking a picture of this sign but then stopped because I worried I’d end up having to pay $10 for it.

Goodnight.

Brett