We had a show lined up at a House party venue called “The Echo Collective” in Milwaukee, but three days before we were scheduled to play they got raided by the cops and they found one kid with a can of beer in his bag, and then issued a whole bunch of fines totalling a couple of thousand dollars and got their landlord to kick them out, giving them only ONE days notice to vacate, all 7 people who lived their and their 3 dogs.

One of the guys at the house managed to find a venue that was free that night in town, booked us in, and we were stoked, ‘cause it would start a chain of events leading to some crazy goodtimes.

We got to Milwaukee and decided to get some Greek food for dinner. Greek food is massive around Illinois/Michigan. We’d only seen a few restaurants over the west coast, but it was everywhere here, Chicago even has a Greektown. There was a “Johnsonville Brat” on the menu at the place we went too, not believing they had a meal named after me, I bought it, it was disappointing…..just like me

The show tonight was a crazy lineup of genre madness, playing with us was a folk singer, a rockabilly folk band (played by crusty punks) and a post-rock band… but we all got on really well, especially with Christopher Bell the folk singer who after seeing the band and hearing we had a few days off coming up, he offered to put on some shows in his hometown of Jamestown (New York). The show had a reasonable little turnout and people really dug it, so we left feeling pretty awesome.

We decided to drive back to Chicago after the show (only 90mins away) since we had sweet accom there, and on the way I got pulled over by a cop for the 4th time!! This time was ridiculous. The cop had pulled somebody over and was on the side of the road, so I slowed down while passing him. Seconds later he switches on his lights and starts chasing us down. We pull over and he asks me why I didn’t change lanes, saying that slowing down wasn’t good enough. He noticed we had Canadian plates and thank goodness cause he didn’t actually know what the law was in Canada, as in most states in the US you have to change lanes to give at least a lane between you and a pulled over cop. I pleaded ignorance and then told the officer that in New Zealand where we come from that we don’t even have any two lane highways and there are only a few cops so we don’t have such a law. Love how ignorant some people are here.

He lets us off with our fourth warning.