"AP Fall Ball" Tour Journal - Part 2

Hello world!

I am writing to let you all know that I am still alive. I have been many places since I last wrote in this thing and hopefully I'll get around to posting the interesting stuff in here at some point because while I'm pretty sure no one cares enough to read about how we loaded in and soundchecked and ate food every day for like 2 months straight, there is some really cool stuff that happens on tour that I'd like to share with the rest of the world. The problem is that by the time I end up getting internet access or time to sit down and write on the road, a week or so has gone by and when I get home from tour it's usually months later and I get too overwhelmed to tackle such a tedious task. Plus I can barely remember what we did by then anyway. Soooo in order to prevent my blog from getting any more screwed up I think I'm going to get with the times and maybe turn this into a video blog. Now, keep in mind I've still got plenty of past tour diaries/pictures to post on here before I make the shift over to a completely video-based blog, so the metamorphosis will be a gradual one, but I figured why not go the way of the "now" and start putting my YouTube channel to use? I apologize for the random and scattered nature of my posting and I'm sure nobody knows or cares what I'm talking about and just skims through to the pictures anyway which is part of the reason switching to video seems like a such a splendid concept hahaha. I'm probably just rambling here but my point is that this should (fingers crossed), in time, improve the overall quality and timeliness of my entries in this blog. What are everyone's thoughts on this?? Let me know in the "Comments" section at the bottom, please!! Think it over while reading over my damaged memory's sorry attempt at recollecting the 2nd half of the "AP Fall Ball" Tour.

Sorry it took me so long, guys.

We returned to the Orlando House Of Blues the very next night to play there. I don't remember what we did after the show but I'm sure it involved food and probably wasn't too interesting.

The next day we played in Atlanta at the Masquerade and there was this crazy haunted house next door so a bunch of us headed over there with Luis from TSH and some friends. How do you know when a haunted house is good? When they card you at the door and make you sign a waiver releasing them of any responsibility in the event that you should incur any sort of bodily harm! This thing was definitely something out of a shock horror film and VERY realistic looking! It looked like a slaughterhouse and the actors/actresses, makeup, and special effects were superb. I won't get into the gruesome details but some of the rooms involved slicing off X-Rated body parts, the actors asking us to remove other body parts from theirs (at which point they'd spray blood everywhere), and they would even pee on us as we ran by screaming! We all agreed it was the best haunted house we'd ever been to.

The next day was Rocketown in Nashville. There were a ton of kids at this show. I want to say it was sold out but I don't know for sure. To our surprise this was the best show of the tour for us. During our set kids were going so crazy that they actually pushed the barrier forward about three feet... something I'd never seen before at any show!

In Charlotte we drove for what seemed like an hour out of the way to find this place Mikey found on urbanspoon.com called Crepe Cellar before the show. This place was incredibly good. I highly recommend checking it out if you're ever in the area. To read more about our experience at Crepe Cellar, check out Dan's entry in his tour food blog, roadnoms.com. The show itself wasn't bad for North Carolina but It felt like we were too far from the crowd because of the barrier. Our friend Fubu flew out to hang with us and some huge security guard kicked him out for moshing or something so that kind of put a damper on things as well. Oh well. The next night definitely picked our spirits back up.

Halloween '09 was spent in Norfolk, VA at the Norva. We got our costumes at Spencer Gifts and $300 later we were decked out in Juggalo gear and ready to perform as wicked clowns! We decorated the stage with jack-o-lanterns and put ICP banners over our cabs. We threw candy, silly string, and a ton of Faygo soda all over the crowd. Here are a couple costume pics:

I wish I had more pics of the madness that ensued but since I can't find any right now and will most certainly be too lazy to post them up later, you can check out the video Mikey made of our entire evening here. Enjoy! If my memory serves me correctly, YMAS all had random costumes, TSH didn't dress up, Mayday were The Village People, and TAI had skeleton faces. After the show we went to a party with YMAS and it was lame so we left fairly soon after arriving but not before waking up the entire neighborhood with an M-80 we threw into a jack-o-lantern. We placed the pumpkin in the middle of the street and began walking away. Just then a car drove up and stopped. The M-80 went off, vaporizing the jack-o-lantern right as the driver was about to get out of the car to move it... I don't think he was too stoked hahaha

November 1st we played the 9:30 Club in D.C. They made us these cute little cupcakes and put them in our dressing room:

The show was a lot of fun and the next day we had a day off so I stayed with my homie Anton Rough and hung out in Baltimore the next day.

Philly was cool but there's so much good food and so many cool shops that I always feel like there's not enough time to do everything I want to do when we play there. Got to see John Bowes and some other good friends and eat veggie cheesesteak though. Always a plus.

Albany was a good show for us and I immediately noticed this addition to the dressing room-I most certainly approve!

Boston was (and always is) a blast. Saw a lot of good friends and our set was killer.

The next night we played Toad's Place in CT and I ran into these two girls who'd asked Jordan and myself for our signatures last time we came through on Gig Life. To our surprise, these girls had gotten them tattooed on their legs! ...Don't believe me? I was so shocked I took a picture, check this out! Definitely a first for me:

The show was sold out so the promoter brought down champagne for all the bands. I guess he did this on Gig Life too but I didn't notice. Not that I had any reason to. Wooo, champagne. Big whoop. Now if he were to bring us all Shirley Temples or Martinelli's or something... THEN I'd be interested!

I don't remember anything too exciting happening at our show at the Starland Ballroom. The dressing room was super hot and I spent most of the night getting movies and TV shows from my friend Kurt's hard drive. A trip to Wawa was the highlight of the night for me.

The next day we played the Crazy Donkey in Long Island and went to the driving range next door. Ruled. The Crazy Donkey had changed a few things around since we'd last played there with I Am The Avalanche over a year ago. The merch was to be sold in a new area outside (regardless of potential rain and no lighting) and the dressing room had been relocated from the basement... to this.

...A huge step down considering the musty smell of the basement was just as present in this retired ice cream truck/trailor. There was even a bed in the back, complete with love stains. Gross.

We spent the day off in NYC and met up with our friend from home Zed and he took us to check out ground zero. Then we saw "This Is It," the Michael Jackson movie, with some of the other guys on the tour and our friend and fellow road dog, Anthony Amor. When Juan returned to the hotel he had a long phone convo with his girlfriend. It seemed to me like the entire tour, he was always in a bad mood after a conversation with her, but I didn't expect it to be this bad. He announced that he was going home and would not be doing the remaining six dates of the tour. We said OK because if our TM didn't want to be there we didn't really see it going too smoothly if he stayed. Things ended up working out because as I mentioned, Anthony was already in NYC so he met up with us and replaced Juan, who went to the airport.

Our friend Jon Gula came out to the show at Croc Rock the next night. For those who don't know, Jon used to sing in an incredible metallic hardcore band called Turmoil. Jon brought with him a super cool gift: a couple test presses of their record, "The Process Of," a favorite of everyone in the SYG camp and a definite classic.

NYC was a headache as always but the show was a lot of fun. Our dressing room was like a Nor Cal reunion. Noah, Ben, Duncan and Leo all came to hang out... all friends from back home who moved to New York!

Buffalo was kind of a weird show but ran into Andy from Every Time I Die and got some great food down the street with my buddy Dan so that was cool.

We were stopped at a random checkpoint in Arizona earlier in the tour and some of our dudes got in a little bit of trouble with John Law for having some illegal plants on them, so we were unsure as to whether or not we'd be able to cross into Canada. Somehow we made it though! We got some crappy hotel and got to chill with all our Toronto friends that night. But onto the really fun stuff...

The second to last day of the tour was in Cleveland, home of the Alternative Press Headquarters. Before the show I went to the crappy mall down the street and found this sign in the men's room, thought it was pretty funny. Only men would need to be reminded of this hahaha:

I also found this in front of a business in the same mall, maybe you recognize it from a certain Tooth & Nail band. Who is ripping off who here? That's what I wanna know!

The show was great. During Mayday's set a bunch of us ran out onstage with guitars and pretended to rock out as an end of tour prank. Afterwards everyone from the tour was invited to some secret party with an open bar upstairs where a bunch of rich people in nice clothes, the AP staff, and of course a bunch of random girls who somehow found their way in, were waiting. Everyone actually had a lot of fun as you can see by this picture i took of the tab at the end of the night (complete with boner doodle). Alt. Press sure does know how to party!

The pranks continued on last night of the tour in Pittsburgh, PA at the Altar Bar. During YMAS some of the Mayday guys got on the PA and heckled them from the front of house. During our set a bunch of guys from the other bands ran out and danced around onstage shirtless during our intro. I think "It's Raining Men" was supposed to be playing in place of our intro music but something went wrong. Still a good prank nonetheless. Other than that, I can't remember anything too eventful from the last show but I do remember the Cleveland show was the last big party night and felt more like the big farewell of the tour anyway.

In closing, I leave you with a picture of a mighty neard, as pictured on the portrait of this slave owner that we found on the wall of a Cracker Barrel. Enjoy!

XXX

"AP Fall Ball" Tour Journal - Part 1

Hello Internetz!

I've come to the realization that I'm probably not going to get around to making an entry for our Australian tour with All Time Low we did last May anytime soon... if ever.

SOOOO maybe those pics will surface some day in the distant future but for now if I am ever to have anything from this tour see the light of day, I figured I'd better get to writing, so here it goes...

We picked up on the "AP Fall Ball Tour" w/The Academy Is..., Mayday Parade, The Secret Handshake, and You Me At Six in Chico, CA on 10/10. The first show was a lot better of a turnout than our show there on the Saves The Day tour. Before the show we went to Pita Pit and walked around town and checked out some of the shops for a bit. There was some kind of breast cancer benefit going on in the park across the street and there were a variety of musical groups playing throughout the day. The comic book shop in town was awesome. I hung out with my brother's friend Kelsey at the show for a bit which was cool too. After the show we went home. Ruled.

I got to the San Francisco Regency Ballroom in the early afternoon before the SYG van arrived and the Blue Angels were doing their airshow that day so there'd randomly be piercingly loud bursts of sound from the jets flying overhead. Before the show some of us walked down to The Hundreds store down the street from the venue. Junior got a pretty sweet vintage looking baseball jacket. The store looks like a giant cave, it's weird. The show wasn't as good as the NFG tour we did there but it was still pretty good. After our set, Doug (the big cheese at the venue) told us an angry mother complained to him that the moshing during our set wasn't a fitting atmosphere for her Christian family, and requested they kick out our fans who were moshing. He said that he ended up kicking out about 9 kids, all of whom were promptly brought back in through the side door hehe. Excellent work, Doug. After the show I went to Taqueria Cancun with a bunch of friends but we all went to the one on 19th and the rest of SYG went to the one on Mission & Valencia (thanks for telling me everyone was going to 19th, Manuel). Got to go home again so it still felt like we weren't really on tour yet which is always a nice feeling.

The next morning we drove to Bakersfield and though we've played there before, this was our first show at The Dome. There was a stripper pole with black lights in the dressing room. Weird. Though it wasn't a huge crowd, a good chunk of it was comprised of moshers who just came to see us and they definitely got their money's worth; our set was awesome! Afterwards I realized my friend Spencer from Trash Talk came and had tried to get in but for some reason wasn't on the list even though I'd put him on it :( ...So Spencer, if you read this, sorry bud. I owe you one! After the show I caught up with my friend John who was working the box office for a bit then did 2 hrs. worth of Australian phone interviews for Soundwave before kicking off the drive to Junior's house.

We played The Avalon in Hollywood which is always a fun area because we have so many friends down there, not to mention we love going to Swinger's so that was a must before the show. As always, a trip to Cantaloop for frozen yogurt was definitely in order as well. After the show we had a Denny's "All-Nightr" which is basically where you hang out with fans and they give you a bunch of free food. A bunch of friends came with us, including an inebriated Brian Dale. He was wearing a kimono that our Japanese friend Yuka brought to the show and posing as our samurai security guard for the evening. He sat down, ordered a beer (what?! I didn't even know Denny's served beer!!) and began engaging in conversation with our fans... I cannot remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did during the meal that followed.

All the Southern California shows were great but I felt like the shows on the "Gig Life" tour were better and even bigger in some areas like Pomona. I get the feeling our fans didn't come out because they didn't want to pay higher ticket prices to see us play a shorter set with bands they don't listen to. On the upside, I know there are a large amount of kids who are seeing/hearing us for the first time every night on this tour plus everyone on the tour has been really cool. Big thanks to all our friends at Epitaph who came to the shows and brought us some new records and Converge merch. I was stoked to get my hands on a copy of the record by Ryan Gosling's band, Dead Man's Bones, as well as the new Converge record, before their release. If you haven't heard Dead Man's Bones, check out their songs here: Dead Man's Bones Myspace - very creative and unique stuff.

On our way to the San Diego show we stopped by Innes Clothing in Oceanside and our buddy Adam Shaw hooked us up with some sweet new gear. Thanks Adam! After that we headed down to Solana beach and went to Pizza Port for lunch then walked next door for dessert at my dad's new yogurt shop, Desserted Island. Delicious! After the show we said goodbye to Junior because he had planned on leaving the tour after the CA dates to make arrangements for his wedding in November. Our good friend Justin K. is playing in his place for the remainder of this tour as well as our European tour right after this while Junior and Susie are on their honeymoon. Congrats guys!

Arizona was way too hot (as usual) and so was Texas. We had a day off between the Phoenix and San Antonio shows so we stayed with Juan and went to this place called "Bob-O's" in El Paso and enjoyed batting cages, go-karts, bumper boats and mini golf for the day before continuing on our drive:

Before the San Antonio show I went to Hog Wild Records with Justin K. and Luis from TSH. I always make it a point to stop by this place because they have hundreds of sweet punk, metal and hardcore shirts. If you're in a touring band (or ever find yourself in San Antonio for any reason) and you like metal, definitely check this place out. The show was great, kids went nuts! Dallas was a lot of fun too and though "Gig Life" was better, a lot of our fans still came out and moved around for us. Plus we got to see Joel so in a way it was similar haha

Houston was a fun night, got to hang out with my friend Lucy. During the set we took four huge rolls of toilet paper and threw them into the crowd. Kids kept throwing them across the room and they were hanging over the rafters like streamers.

The next off day was an insane drive but we managed to stop at a mall somewhere near Tallahassee, where Justin and myself began discussing the gaping holes in our earlobes (the remnants of wearing plugs) and decided it would be funny if we started wearing diamond earrings, so we bought some and so did Mikey. We also stopped by another fun center and I fed some baby alligators and played arcade games while Juan, Mikey, Justin and Dan hit the batting cages.

When we got to Melbourne we discovered a baby gator pittin' around in the canal by the hotel, check him out:

It was in Melbourne that we experienced the best go-karts of the tour thus far: Andretti Thrill Park. This place has karts that go 46 MPH! The regular karts were great too. Mine was of course #43:

We played some mini golf, batting cages, and I even saw a guy wearing a Cold As Life shirt playing one of those "Extreme Hunting" games in the arcade with his wife & kid!! Here's a pic I took with my phone while racing:

We hit up the deli (which was excellent) that was connected to the arcade before heading to the show in Ft. Lauderdale, where we met up with the one and only Anthony Amor A.K.A. Tony Love, merch guy to the stars. The show was a lot of fun and went really well for us. The Glamour Kills tour was at The Revolution that night so we headed over there after our set and caught All Time Low's set, hung out with Vinny Vegas, our buddy Chris V, and our manager Keith, then partied with all the ATL guys after their show. I unfortunately had to miss out on some of the hanging out towards the end of the night because I was dealing with some drama (but I won't get into that haha), but all in all it was a fun night for the most part.

Anthony rolled with us to Jax and stayed at our hotel because we planned on going go-karting again in the morning but we ended up getting there at like 6 AM so we all slept until noon and didn't end up going.

In the morning we said bye to our little friend, went to Waffle House with Anthony then left for Jacksonville. The show was at Freebird, a venue one block from the beach. Pretty sweet. The show went really well.

The next day we headed down to Orlando to hang out with The Swellers & Hayley at their show at the House of Blues. Caught a couple songs of The Swellers' set and Paramore killed it as usual. Here's a picture of Hayley two-stepping onstage haha

After the show we went to BWW with The Swellers, Anthony, and Hayley. We definitely played the bear hunting arcade game, watched an awkward guy & girl make out in front of the whole restaurant, and drank rootbeer floats. Someone even discovered that Life of Agony was on the jukebox so naturally, we had to mosh.

...Part 2 coming soon (maybe)

XXX