CAMP A LOW HUM 2009

Currently uploaded videos from Camp ‘08

Die! Die! Die!
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=v3iTC30OdPo
Ladybird
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=QFNc8ss90EQ
Disasteradio w/Alphabethead
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=NXq7PH0KL7w

ARTISTS

Over the Atlantic

The first single “Loveless Devotion” off Dimensions is released today!! You can download it for free from here: http://alowhum.com/free/over_the_atlantic_loveless-devotion.mp3

Over the Atlantic are playing their first AKL show in almost 2 years this Saturday night!

Over the Atlantic + Disasteradio + The Bemsha Swing
Whammy Bar
Oct 4th
$10
Doors 10pm. Bemsha 10:30, D-rad 11:20pm, OTA 12pm
www.myspace.com/overtheatlanticband

Disasteradio

Enright House

Mount Pleasant, Red Steers and Secret Knives

Camp A Low Hum 2009

Feb 6th-8th, Homedale.
Camp A Low Hum is happening again in 2009 and well……

Need I say more?

Limited tickets are on sale right now - click here
Click on “Camp” above and then FAQ to find out a little more info
Travel Tickets will be avail from Monday 22/9 and will cost $150. Go to the FAQ in the Camp 2009 section to find out more.

A LOW HUM Label

I am very stoked to announce not just one, but two new artists on A LOW HUM.

While recently tour managing around 8 countries, always on the lookout for new and exciting music, ripping anything awesome to my mp3 player that I could find. I heard 100’s of new records from all around the World, but ironically the two that I played the most were from right under my nose the whole time.

Whether is was listening to There are no Roots by Mount Pleasant on my headphones while dozing in my car, bathed in the perpetual twilight that is the Scottish summer evening, through to dropping Katzenklavier by Red Steers to some unsuspecting party goers at impromptu DJ sets around Europe, these two artists were doing the most interesting take on pop music that I found anywhere and I’m proud to say they are both from right here in New Zealand.

You can download the Self titled EP from Christchurch’s Mount Pleasant for free by clicking image below.

You can download “Laga Luga Lagoon” by Wellington’s Red Steers for free by clicking image below

Red Steers - Lagaluga Lagoon

A LOW HUM on the interwebs

I have set up Camp A Low Hum on Oldfriends.co.nz - http://www.oldfriends.co.nz/Institution.aspx?id=300853

Also, along with all the other rats fleeing the sinking myspace ship, I’ve set-up A LOW HUM on facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=23470259846&ref=nf

Blink/Over the Atlantic Homecoming show!

It’s been four months and 8 countries touring with my favourite band in the universe, I can’t explain in words how good this band currently is.

A LOW HUM Presents
Over the Atlantic
Four Month World Tour Homecoming Show
Auckland show on Oct 4th at Whammy Bar with Disasteradio!

It turns out we needn’t have given it even a seconds thought. Nobody even checked the guys’ passports as they walked into France, and the dude who checked me just asked where I was off to, glanced at my passport, then simply waved me forward.

Meeting up together on the ferry was a beautiful moment.

The ferry from Dover takes around 90 mins, but since you cross a timeline you step forward an hour also. The ferry ride isn’t that spectacular, I slept through most of it.

Getting into France gave us our first real culture shock of the entire tour. We stopped at a grocery maybe 30 minutes along the highway, we discovered very quickly that the French don’t care much for helping young foreign speaking lads. We struggled through buying some basics knowing simply bonjour and merci. Pretty much our technique was simply to nod, gesture and keep saying Merci as much as possible. We manage to get some food, somehow.

Two things you need to know about France, the locals generally all despise you and the road tolls you need to pay driving on their highways are ridiculous. It cost us I think 18 Euro just to do the 3 or so hour drive from Calais to Paris. We were freaking out because we thought this was going to be the case all over Europe… luckily it turns out its only France who follow the US east coast local governments approach to user-pays highways.

Driving into Paris from Calais along the highway is hilarious. First up, Calais is the crappest port town you’ll find, even Timaru is a million times more exciting. We drove into France expecting the most beautiful country ever, you hear all the time that The South of France is where it’s at, haha, and I tell you, it cant be worse then the North of France. I’d go as far as to say that a lot of the drive in, especially the outskirts of Paris resembled the worst slums of the US.

Ash's Pants - After being harrassed all over the US by rednecks, he could finally "fit in" in Paris

It was really funny, because our first show in Paris was on the northern side of the city, and this was all we knew of Paris as we headed into the first show.

The first show in Europe was at an awesome venue called Mains d’Œuvres. It’s like a co-op art’s space and they throw amazing parties, there are awesomely talented people lurking all over the place, artists studios and galleries all over. Tonight we also met for the first time our French booking agents (Summery Agency) – Celine and Vanina, the two of them made our time in Paris so awesome, buying us sandwiches and making sure all the venues paid up, they also booked some kick ass shows. They also introduced us to Isabelle, our French guardian angel who let us crash in her tiny little apartment for a week and showed us all around the city.

Our Booking agents Celine and Vanina

The first show we were playing with Audrey, an all girl group from Sweden who I am very fond of. Adam (Kill The Zodiac) first introduced them to me a few years ago and I featured a track of theirs on one of my compilations I released in 2006. When I saw they were playing in Paris around the same time as us I bugged our bookers to get us on the bill (mainly so I could see them for free).

From Rhys's perspective

This was a really great show. A reasonable crowd of 100 or so people were there and aside from this show being technically the worst show of the tour, niks pedals and guitar were giving him grief for the first half of the set, people really dug it. We made friends with a little group of fans who would come along to the other Paris shows, and one new friend Hana even shot some nice video of them playing:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x657qx_over-the-atlantic-mains-doeuvres_music

Audrey were awesome, you could tell it was an off night for them, the singer seemed sick and they didn’t seem to be quite firing, but they have such great songs that didn’t matter too much.

Seriously check them out if you have time: http://www.myspace.com/audreyswe

After the show we went back to Isabelles little apartment. This started perhaps the most monotonous part of the tour, the constant carrying up and down the 6 flights of stairs to her apartment between each of our shows all of our gear….and to make matters worse, her stairs were skinny and a winding staircase. It was worth it though as Isabelle made us feel totally at home, so much so, Rhys thought he would go and block her sink. We had to squeeze the 5 of us in her one bedroom apartment, so I ended up sleeping on the kitchenette floor, wedged in between the rubbish bin and kitchen counter. One night I tipped over a trolley of onions all over myself.

With Isabelle as our guide, she actually showed everyone the truly beautiful side of Paris. My favourite thing (yes, the simple things which make me happy) about Paris though was that I managed to park the car illegally not paying for any car parking for 6 days in Paris and didn’t get one single ticket! I tried to pay for parking, but couldn’t work out how, I even asked a parking warden I saw how to pay, but they couldn’t explain it, so I simply didn’t bother paying (and for once, I got off).

On our first day off Isabelle chaperoned us to an amazing free festival (part of Villette Sonique) http://www.villettesonique.com/ that was happening in the Parc de la Villete, that famous one with all the cool red sculptures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parc_de_la_Villette . It was a free festival and in really beautiful surroundings. We got to see El Guincho and High Places, two of the most hyped blog bands around for free outside on a sunny day in Paris with maybe a few hundred people…it was amazing. Both acts were great, but I guess in being “friendly” to the walk by all ages audience, it was quite quiet and no way as awesome as it should have been…still….stoked

High Places

We hang out and lie around the park grounds for another hour or two with a few of Isabelle’s mates who she had met up with. Me and Rhys were getting fidgety around now, I hadn’t been online for at least 4 hours, and having come from the US where you can be online all day, everyday for free, I hadn’t gotten used to the crap internet off Europe and the UK yet, so we decided to rock the tube back to Isabelle’s house.

I have become fascinated with Tube systems. I think Sallys Dad’s influence has finally worn off on me. I love skipping from train to train, transferring between lines and simply being in awe of the incredible feat of engineering the whole system is.

We left Nik and Ash with Isabelle who right about as I was drooling over super-long bending carriages of the Parisian tube trains, were being let into the VIP area of the festival as Isabelle had blagged them some passes. As they were wining and dining, talking shop and exploring cheese boards me and Rhys had made our way to “goodtimes”, the kebab shop we pretty much bought 90% of our meals in Paris from.

Our second show in Paris, man, I am getting sick of saying “strangest show ever”, but I really can’t come up with another way of describing it. The shows on this tour really seem to push the limits of absurdity. When we had told some Paris locals we were playing “Le Baron”, we were always greeted with “Really?!”, people were totally surprised and we learnt that it was one of the most exclusive clubs in Paris! A club where celebs like Kate Moss are regularly seen at, where the prices are INSANE and the doorman is crazy harsh, only letting beautiful or rich people in. So much so, that once I was in the venue for soundcheck, I didn’t leave again because I knew there was no way I was getting back in, even with my “excuse” as being the tour manager.

We set up in the middle of the dancefloor. The club doesn’t open until 11pm and we had to be finished by midnight, so unfortunately the place wasn’t packed when OTA played, but there were a few dozen people and by the end of the short set they seemed to be really loving it. The most exciting thing…I kid you not, about half way through their set, a dude in sunglasses who looks EXACTLY like Jeff Goldblum arrived with an entourage, the owner of the bar ushered him through to a special corner, even booting out a crew of people already there. I’m pretty sure it was Jeff, I was trying very hard to look, without being a total tool. I’m pretty sure it was, but whoever it was, they were pretty bigtime, and they really enjoyed OTA. This was a crazy atmosphere, try to imagine…

Le Baron

Ash - Le Baron

OTA play on a dance floor in the middle of a room in which a few dozen people are littered around, sitting on plush red couches drinking overpriced champagne and cocktails. As the clock neared towards twelve the sound engineer got nervous as slappers in mini-skirts started piling in and he was desperate to start cranking some Britney, he got his way. Within 30 minutes the entire place was pumping with people basically having sex on the chairs infront of us. Rhys was getting extremely stressed because we had used up our rider and the beers were like 9 euro each, so him and his friend Sarah who had flown over from Spain to hang out with us went elsewhere looking for cheaper drinks. I was just laughing at all the idiots who thought they were really classy and sophisticated but were behaving just like any other trashed tarts at a Courtney place bar.

It was an odd situation, definitely car crash syndrome. We couldn’t stand being there because it was so hideous, yet, it was so fascinating to watch we found it hard to leave.

Paris

Paris

Back to Paris in a few days for one more awesome show…but first, the mission to Clapham!!

Best thing about getting to the UK is finally healthy food was reasonable again! We have been living off sandwiches since we got here. You can grab a nice little egg and cress sandwich from any service station for less then a pound, and you can usually grab a decent amount of fruit (plums, mandarins, bananas etc..) for a pound. Compared to the US where a bag of half a dozen mandarins costs $6US (around $9NZ), it’s more like 1 pound UK ($3NZ) here. We are truly stoked as we were getting ridiculously fed up with fast food. We have discovered our new home - ASDA! Our almost daily routine was to stop at an ASDA in the morning and load up on groceries (Mums…we’re finally looking after ourselves). If you come to the UK and need to eat good and for cheap, go to an ASDA, or an Iceland, if you can’t find either…settle for a Tesco.

Each time we stop somewhere we usually all run into the shop and race to grab the cheapest sandwiches. Ash always wins, could be to do with that he is the youngest, but probably, cause he is the cheapest.

Our second show in London was the next night at a sweet party ran by a sweet night called “Club Popaganda”, it was an end of university party and we were expecting a drunken brawl as you would expect from a typical NZ end of term party, but instead it was a sit down, refined affair with spoken word between acts and people being glared at for talking. Still a fun show, though the first time OTA have played to a sit down audience on the tour. Caught up with some more friends from Wellington again tonight, even Claire ex-Radioactive had just arrived that afternoon. Unfotunately the So So Modern boys were not arriving until the following day, which would start our criss-crossing and near meetings with them all over Europe.

Played with a band called Jonquil. Really nice. Fans of The Phoenix Foundation, Ghostplane etc should check them out.

Customs London was THE crappest customs experience yet. Warning to all bands, man, get a DAMN good story and get your acting face on. Rhys and Nik went separately from Me and Ash, and were on the verge of being kicked out of the country, I don’t know when I became such a damn good straight faced liar, It’s actually quite disturbing the web of elaborate lies I can weave on the spot. I manage to talk Nik and Rhys out of their imminent booting out of London and with some big sighs of relief, we walk out of the airport onto the street.

Like NYC, nobody in London has a car so I couldn’t wrangle a pick up, a taxi to town costs 60 (s)quid…or almost $160NZD, the tube was 4 quid each, so we to tube it to Nik’s sister place who we were staying with. Was a classic hour carting all our gear, drumkit included through various tube stations onto different trains and transferring to other tubes. I had to learn the tube system in a hurry…but wow it’s amazing. On one of our rides I asked a lady standing nearby if we were on the right train (the very first person we speak to in London), she asks me straight away if I’m a kiwi, she then tells us she is too, not only that, she is from Khandallah and she went to Onslow College!!! (like 3 out of the 4 of us) And she is friends with some of the “Rhythm and Vines” dudes, who were actually partly organising a show we were playing at 2 days later. CRAZY small world.

Below is the “Box” we had to cart around the tube. It had the drumkit in it and was ridiculous and heavy. You should have seen the ladies face when we checked it in in NYC. Haha, most flimsy packaging ever… I was glad to see the back of this box.

I’d told some people previously to arriving in London that we were staying in Maida Vale, upon which I received the typical kiwi “Flaasssh” in response. I had no idea, but we were staying in a really, really nice area of London. While most of our mates and other bands live in the Shoreditch/Hackney (Crackney) areas of London, we were just 5 mins down the road from Regent Street and the flashest/poshest area of London.

Our pad in London

Nik’s sister Julie, her partner Seeby (who is simply ridiculously proud of his brother’s band “Zitty/New Friend” – Some of you may have seen them play at an A Low Hum show) and their flatmates hosted us over the first few days in London, they were expecting Nik for one night, but they got all four of us for a week! (Typical bloody kiwis) and were really amazing, making us some incredible dinners, making us sandwiches, and helping us work their futuristic washing machine. Julie and Co. really saved our ass that first week in London. Their house is just 1 min away from a Tube stop, so was a great base to getting around the city, but first things first….the main priority was to buy a CAR! I had two days before the first show in which to buy a car, so I had my work cut out.

I’d been checking out cars on ebay for the week or so before hitting London and had a few in my watchlist. Once I hit London there was only really one option that we could afford, it was a Ford Escort Station Wagon for 500 Pounds. I bought online and then started the mission to collect. The car was in Oxford, so first I had to get out there. I caught the Oxford Tube, which is actually a Bus, and is an amazing bus with free wi-fi, but I happened to catch it on a day in which there had been bad flooding of the highways, so it took around 3 hours for the 1 hour ride to Oxford. Once there I got picked up at the station by the parents of the bloke who owned the car, they were a wonderful couple who took me back to their home where they take care of a dozen pre-schoolers, amongst the screaming of toddlers, they made me a sandwich and juice, and then let me use their phones to try and arrange insurance.

Arranging car Insurance is NOT easy in the UK. Basically you need a UK bank account (which incidentally is very difficult to open for a non-resident – can take months!), an IDL - international drivers license (which I didn’t have) and a heap of money (which I definitely didn’t have). You need to have a car with an MOT (their WOF) and you need to also pay for compulsory Road Taxes, which you can’t pay for till you are insured. I called a dozen companies, none of which were happy to insure for a short term, eventually I just had to tell a few lies to get insured (again with the lies), I had to find a policy that I could take out for a year, but cancel after only three months without paying a penalty, The parents of the guy I was buying the car with were then good enough to let me give their bank details to the insurer, I said this was simply because I’d only been in the country for a day and hadn’t had the time to open one of my own yet. Basically I had to bluff my way through making it appear I was staying in London for ages. Insurance here costs around $1800 a year for basic cover.

Basically, I couldn’t sort out the insurance over the phone first off, so had to go back to London empty handed…I won’t go into the WHOLE explanation of what a hellish nightmare picking up the car was as I’m bored of telling it already and I’m only ¼ of the way into the story…basically, I got a car, got it insured, got it legit and basically had a hernia doing so. If you go the route we did and decide to buy a car and insure it for a short term, email me first for some advice.

So yeah. Got a car. Now just have to pay $50NZD a day for parking.

The night after our show Die! Die! Die! Were playing at a free outdoor festival with Wire. We head down to watch it and really enjoyed Die Die Dies set, it was really awesome to see them playing to a couple of thousand people in another country. I really didn’t want to watch Wire as I am a big fan and I went to Auckland a few years ago to see them just after the reformed and they were so crap, it was only recently I finally started listening to them again, however, against my better judgement I watched them…and well, looks like the Wire records are going to the back of the closet for another couple of years. Stefan from Pumice was also staying with Fiona and us and lamented with me on the bitter disappointment of watching a great band play a shocking set.

Die! Die! Die! in NYC

Everything you hear about NYC is true. The drivers are impatient idiots who spend ALL day honking. Even when you know its coming, you cannot prepare for it. Driving around Manhattan is absolutely insane. A band we played with in Des Moine warned me about parking letting me know how they had received $600US in parking tickets while in NY. I hadn’t received one single parking ticket all over the US so far, so was pretty confident, but made sure I kept an eye on it anyway. Over the 4 days in NY I racked up $195 in fines. Basically, if you park in the city you WILL get tickets. Seriously…each time I got a ticket I was less then 10-15 minutes over the time on the meter, and unlike NZ where they give you fines on a sliding scale of time over, and it starts at only $12, in NYC they immediately issue you a $65 beast.

Sally saved my sanity in NYC, I was close to exploding so many times, there is nothing worse then stressing out, dealing with crap and then getting back to the car and having a massive ticket waiting for you, but having Sally there really helped me keep it level.

NYC is really going off all the time. It is ridiculously awesome and really, if you are going there on tour, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to party…there really are parties happening everywhere, at anytime, The OTA boys totallydid the NYC thing, went to several rooftop, flat, and apartment parties over the couple of days we were in NYC (photos below) as well as Fiona taking the on a classic NYC tour of times square, the John Lennon memorial, Letterman etc..

The boys with Fiona and BJ

Some Party

By the last day I had managed to sort most things out and it was a happy coincidence that we happened to be there at the same time as an absolutely awesome party at a place in Brooklyn called Goodbye Blue Monday. It was a free, day long festival with bands playing indoors and out. BJ whom we were staying with was playing a set with his band “Puttin on the Ritz”, who do like punk, offkilter, improv, spastic jams of showtunes and classic swing numbers. It was perhaps the freshest thing I’ve seen in a longtime. The band were hilarious, I was totally enthralled the entire set, and their set will remain one of my fondest memories of America… there is some youtube footage that goes a little way to captuiring the moments here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zE8xNnOJE54

There were two other fantastic bands at this festival as well, USA is a Monster and Big A Little A (Aa) I was standing ontop of a table to watch the Aa set…very fun band, kinda like Pig Out but totally crazy, with two drummers. At the end of their set I tried to step off, but made a total spectacle in what can only be described as the most incredible Hollywood fall.  I think Sally described it best in her bulk email here: “his chair tipped over and his legs flipped out over his head, nearly kicking a girl in the face and a dude in the crotch. He went crashing down in a really spectacular way, narrowly missing all the sharp metal objects sticking out everywhere. Chair went flying across the room. In typical Ian-style everyone was giving him high-fives and congratulating him on such a stylish maneuver.”

USA is a Monster at Goodbye Blue Monday

On the last day, Jordan from the band Polka Dot Dot met me in NYC to buy the car off me. It was Sunday and the DMV was closed so we couldn’t do the paperwork, he just gave me the money and I gave him the vehicle, we worked out that we would just do the paperwork whilst I was overseas as he didn’t need the car for a few weeks. Turned out to be one of the stupidest mistakes I have made in my life…more soon.

The guys had an awesome time in NYC, they wouldn’t stop going on about it. I pretty much spent 5 days on the internet, ate some Pizza with Sally and saw a few bands…kinda like my life in Wellington.

We had arrived late-ish into the city around 9pm, luckily Nik had pre-arranged through a friend of his and Ash’s, Erin, to crash at her place. We had hoped we could stay there for the whole 5 days or so we were in the city.

One lesson we just didn’t seem to learn all throughout the US was to ask people for their apartment number. Most of the people we stayed with lives in an apartment and most of them never tell you what apartment, just the number on the street. Tonight was no exception.

So. We arrive at an apartment in a dodgy part of Brooklyn, we just buzz a random number and then try to describe Erin to the bloke on the other end, he recognises her, buzzes us in and tells us to head to the third floor.

Nik had been showing me the emails between him and Erin so I was confident that it was all good, however, upon knocking on her flat door we learn 3 things. 1 – Erins flatmates have NO idea that we are staying there. 2 – Erin left for Berlin that morning. 3 – The entire apartment is being fumigated for Bedbugs that night and everybody in the building is currently vacating.

Such a ridiculous situation I burst out laughing. Even if we convinced Erin’s flatmates that we were kosher and could stay the night, we would all die of a gasing anyway.

I decide the best idea is to drop our gear off at the venue we are playing the next night so we can empty the car out and to sleep in the car again. First night in NYC and we are sleeping in the car, though I made sure I parked outside a sweet spot just off Central Park, not Harlem.

Me and Nik had also sent off a couple of desperate emails to anyone we knew in NYC to see if we could wrangle some last minute accom over the next few days.

Sally had flown in from Canada where she had just been to the Sasquatch festival with Heather. Next day, me and Sal had a little classic tourist tour of NYC checking out Wall Street and the oldest part of the city, Ground Zero, taking heaps of rides on the subway and eating some decent Pizza…ya know, what you do when you check out NYC. Was classic timing, I had pretty much the most stressful days of my life ahead of me, trying to sell the car, sell all our backline, organise 4 days of accom in NYC, organise our alibis to enter the UK, send merch to Europe, keep booking some more UK/Europe shows, book our ferry sailings for UK-Europe, organise getting a car in the UK…all the while trying to spend some time with Sally as I wouldn’t be seeing her for another 6 months! AND trying to experience some of NYC.

I spent most of my days in NYC on the internet, basically the only thing that kept me sane was the fact that internet at The Cakeshop was free and The Cakeshop is AWESOME! It’s like the best possible cuba street café, playing amazing music, I heard more kiwi flying nun sounds over those couple of days then I’ve heard in my life, the venue is below and that is where Over the Atlantic played that night.

The show was sweet. We were kinda freaking out cause it was organised last minute only like 2 weeks out and a support was only booked a couple of days before, there ended up being a really decent amount of people at the show and it went well, not a highlight of the tour, but def better then we thought it would be.

Nik had heard back from his friend Martin, who I would later find out was actually a friend of mine and Sally’s also, but from a completely different context to Nik’s. Crazy small World. The boys went and stayed at his place while me and Sally went and slept in the Car. Martin has an absolutely amazing studio apartment and we all ended up staying there the next night. To get to his house you have to go up a few flights of stairs and then walk across the roofs of three different houses. His studio is on top of the roof and is as classic a New York artists loft studio apartment as you can imagine.

The path to Martins House

We had arranged this house party through Your Black Star who we met in Pittsburgh. They organised for us to jump on the line-up. We were staying with Todd in DC who put out the first OTA record and he had made us some awesome vegetarian burgers and an amazing looking dessert…so we left kinda late, after we managed to stumble upon the house – Middle of NOWHERE, we were really confused… It was totally conservative squaresville, rural properties, big white houses and very quiet.

We were meant to kick off the party at 9pm…but had arrived quite late at around 9:10pm, genuinely late…not just ya know, playing for time so we could start later. We expected the party to be in full swing, but I drove up the empty driveway and parked in the yard of the house which appeared totally dead. I looked through a few windows but couldn’t see anything happening, I knocked on the door and walked inside…the band Your Black Star were sitting on a couch with two other people watching TV.

Sweet Party.

We get directed to the garage which another 2-3 people are hanging out in and we start setting up. Casting each other those glances, you know…the “what the hell are we doing here”, we set up the backline. By the time we finish setting up the gear a little group of a dozen jocks had gathered in back of the garage and the band started.

What happened next can ONLY happen when you have the following ingredients.
A) A garage in a family homestead in a rural area of a very conservative area of the US
B) A dozen jocks and their girlfriends
C) A house party organised by somebody who looks like Marky Mark of the funky bunch
D) A College town
E) You book a show knowing nothing about it or the people putting it on.
F) A keg of beer, Paper Cups, Ping Pong Ball and a trestle table.

OK. Now try if you can to picture this:

OTA play at one end of a garage. A clear space of around 3 metres infront of them reaches a Trestle Table, on that trestle table are a whole bunch of plastic cups and behind the table are a bunch of jocks playing “Beer Pong”. Two people play, one at each end of the table, one player tries to bounce the ball and then have it land in the other players cup…if he does, the other player has to skull.

The Beer Pong table with the stage in the background

Played a stranger show? Doubt it? Imagine if you can, the constant cheer of jocks as they have to drink and hearing the bouncing of ping pong balls in the gaps between songs. Maybe two or three people watching the band (maybe)

I am pretty damn confident that this will remain one of the weirdest gigs I’ve booked a band to play for a very long time. After the show we hung out with the locals for a while and had some fun with the jocks..and marky mark

Rhys meets the locals

On the way to Philly we took a little detour and cruised through Lancaster in Pennsylvania to take a cheeky look at some Amish folk. We had been driving around with no luck for a wee while, just seeing lots of poor attempts at people cashing in on Amish tourism, basically a bunch of kids dressed up like Amish cruising around in very un-genuine looking carts. We were about to give up, but I decided to press on and took a random road out to the country, and after about 10 minutes, it was like we rounded a corner into the very heart of Amish country, carts everywhere, dozens and dozens, little Amish kids running all over the fields, we all fantasized briefly about growing up Amish, briefly.

On the way to Lancaster we found Toms petrol station. Easily my favourite of all the US petrol stations. The US is very unlike NZ, instead of the half dozen nationwide chains, the US has heaps of State only chains. Toms easily has the best logo of all of them though.

We were meant to play a house party in Philly, but since the landlord of the house had been getting grumpy about all the drunk kids it was moved to a proper venue. We were looking forward to the Philadelphia show because it was one of the few shows in the US that we actually ended up playing with choice bands. We were playing with Video Hippo’s, a really awesome (VERY “Flying Nun” ala Gordons/3Ds sounding…well live anyway) band from Baltimore and also DD/MM/YYYY, a band from Vancouver on their way to meet up Crystal Castles with whom they were doing a big tour with soon. The show was really great and we enjoyed the whole night. It was freaking me out how much the singer of Video Hippos looks like Mark or Marineville…but that’s just me.

No Idea what this guy called himself, but he did a choice spoken word thing before Video Hippos set

Perhaps the best thing about Philadelphia is we discovered how cheap and awesome Chinese food is in the US. Bummed we hadn’t discovered it until now, picking up $3-4 Chinese meals was a great way to get some rice and vegetable intake. We almost exclusively on Chinese for dinner from here on for the rest of the tour.

At one of the Chinese restaurants we went to this night (yes…we were on a Chinese food bender) we ran into a band from Australia who were also on tour! We got talking and knew all the same people. One of the guys had even seen Disasteradio when he was there a few months ago. It was nice to hear some good ol’ aussie accents.

Both OTA and DD/MM/YYYY crashed back at the house of the organisers, so it was very cramped. I spent another night in the car, though was actually slightly scared for the first time ever. Being on some random street in the east coast…only a few blocks from one of the dodgiest areas of West Philly…I was kinda nervous, but it’s the good thing about working myself ragged, is I don’t have enough energy to analyse about how sketchy a situation I’m actually in and soon go to sleep.

The folk we stayed with in Philly