europeans REALLY love their Nutella

Best show yet...

So we just finished at Verona, (home of romeo and juliet) and they totally brought it. best show of the tour besides last night. Josh even played for the first time ever without a shirt. i wish i had a photo for you....

the light at the end of the tunnel or God's great highway

"In fair Verona..."

the arena

Neil Young is playing here at the end of June. It is also more famous for it's operas in the summer.

The great poet Dante thinkin' of stuff

ping pong action

Dinner in Ravenna

Homemade penne with crab meat, and the best mussels i have ever had in my life.

Italy is like Spain in that you finish playing your show and instead of everybody leaving they hang around and dance to Madonna for another 4 hours and shower you with praise so that you gain a false feeling of pride and wonder why the Hell you never permanently forsook N.America after high school to begin with.....

Paradise...

If the other day was Hell, then today is Heaven. After Rome last night (which looks nothing like the awesome tv show), we have arrived in Ravenna on the Adriatic coast for an outdoor show in what appears to be margaritaville... Beautiful ladies and Mohitos surround me. No time for computer nerdery,  I think i'll have another Mohito....xo

Our beloved Highway Tiger

ass

Ravenna Italy (Mohito in hand)

Wall flower

Laundry day in France

Chris and a dead bird

The Endless Highways of Intellectual Starvation

Today i am Hell..We started driving at 10am on what was to be a 12hr trip form Tours, France to some point in Italy 3 hours from Rome. Well, it's 8pm now and I have been told that the drive will not be ending in 2hrs, but instead will actually take a total of 18hrs to complete getting us there at 4am. Is there anything worse than that feeling i am experiencing this moment? I can liken it to watching Steve Mcqueen in "Papillion" escaping from his jungle prison after being in solitary confinement for 4 years only to be caught again 6 months later and thrown back into solitary for another 6 years. Feeling kinda like that right now.

On the bright side, we just drove past a castle on top of a mountain overlooking a quaint little French town....

Bright side lasts 6 seconds, the rest of it lasts 18 hours....

from "Titus Groan"...

This passage from Doctor Prunesquallor pleases me.....

"...What sort of thing, Irma, my dear? What sort of thing are you referring to? I have done all sorts of things. I have removed a gallstone the size of a potato. I have played delicately on my violin while a rainbow shone through the dispensary window; I have plunged so deeply into the poets of grief that save for my foresight in attaching fish-hooks to my clothes i might never again have been drawn earthwards...."

Battlements

France is full of old shit.

La Rouchelle

We have 2 days off in France so Remco drove us to the coast. I am gonna relax the hell out of that beach tomorrow...

Jerry and Jesse Sykes In Paris

We were fortunate enough to play with Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter from Seattle while we were in Paris. Everyone got drunk.

London Zoo, Jaqui and the honest sausage, Paris TV set...

Remco tuning

Howlin' rain dance

josh, remco dancin' queens

Rave on Manish

Matt gets a new guitar!!!!

In bristol yesterday we found this INSANE vintage guitar store. it was so full of stuff you couldnt fit more than 3 people in the store and if someone wanted to leave, everyone had to leave to let them out. I found this beauty discarded in a back corner after climbing over a mountain of amps. The guy that runs the place took us upstairs to his private guitar horde and showed us i would say about 250 of the most beautiful vintage guitars and amps i have ever seen. And they arent for sale, he just hordes them. There was guitars owned by the who up there! The promoter of the show said he must have liked us, cause she said he never shows anyone upstairs and he wont even sell you a guitar unless he likes you. crazy crazy man. thanks for the guitar!

Sea France

Reading the Children of Hurin. Tolkien is killin it.

ok. so i've been across the pond for nigh on two weeks now, and here's the rub. Me, Jer, and chris (roadie also extraordinaire, besides chad ross-tafarian) flew into amsterdam land of the free 2 days before the rest of 'em cause flights were cheaper that way and checked into the rock and roll hotel right down in the dirt of the red light district. This place had beds that looked like road cases and light fixtures that were snare drums. A musicians nightmare really, (whats the last thing you wanna see after the show when you wake up in the morning?). And also totally corny a la' west edmonton mall's fantasyland theme rooms. However the fellow that runs the joint is so damn cool we're gonna let it go. While there we ran into jesse sykes and her man, Our bros Witch and a couple other fellow north american bands that were staying there as well over the 5 days we had there. 5 days in amsterdam! Not bad at all. Took some long walks in the park, and tried to buy a beauty of a telecaster but the guy wanted 7,000 euros for it, and i am just not there yet. Or my bank account isnt.... Maybe on the way home. Nice Canals though....So after the jet lag we play our first show at the Vera project in Gronigan (holland) which is a great place to start a tour cause the it is the most artist friendly venue on the planet Earth. Peter and his helpers there treat every band like Egyptian kings by feeding and housing them on site as well as just plain acting like professionals throughout the show. I've said it before and i'll say it many more times, North American venues and promoters could take a University degree in lessons from the Vera. Thanks Peter and Vera! Anyways, played a festival in Brussels where we stayed in a very strange "boutique " hotel where every room was painted by a different artist. I know it sounds great, and it was very comfortable, if a little precious and arty. All i care to remember is the lady checking into the hotel in front of us was wearing a thong under her mesh skirt.....thanks lady! Movin on...... Sea France was kind enough to ferry us across the channel to great britain where we joined an assload of bands for our 4th All Tomorrow's Parties Festival in Rye, England. The venue is an English holiday camp that looks like it hasn't been patronized since 1950. Kinda like a concentration camp of rock and roll festivals, without the death, and lots more booze. There is a beach there, and it is so beach-like you can hardly believe you are in England. Lest i be thought a hater, the festival is run by this guy Barry, who is cool as shit and treats bands like gold as well as promoting some of the coolest parties we've ever had the joy to attend. He also does it without any corporate sponsorship, so everyone there is free to mingle and enjoy the music and sun without having to resort to drinking any free red bull. Highlights included meeting new peeps, getting no sleep, Howlin Rain, Bon Iver, Girls vs Boys, the Meat Puppets and just plain mixin it up with the fans and the bands on the beach and at the chalet in the unexpected English sun. Plus i thought we played a pretty good set.... AND THEN DARKNESS FELL, And the good times have ceased to roll. As always, you have to be ready for the unexpected on any tour and this time it was a doozy... Our beloved singer Steve has since fallen ill with some foreign born strain of ear nose and throat infection rendering him in-operable and unable to sing let alone eat or fix himself a snack. And since then we've had to cancel our last two shows in Dublin and tonight in Glasgow. The good news is, I have clean laundry and I am totally in love with Scotland, and plan to retire here in the near future! As Bobby D once said, "My heart's in the highlands..."

great scot! (The votes are in)

After the last 4 years of touring Europe and the Uk, I have finally decided that Glasgow, Scotland is my favorite city. The architecture is stunning, the people are friendly, their accents are cool, and their women are beautiful. (However, it is strange how many dudes here have ladies haircuts.). There was tough competition from amsterdam, and Prague but congratulations scots! you rule.

tour videos... Amsterdam sunday bike ballet

coachella tesla coil!

peace & quiet in the desert

9mm anger management

a couple more coachella pics from steven fairweather. our gracious host.

Just tried to watch "I'm Not There". Garbage. Gimme Iron Man w/ R. Downey jr. any day.

Let it begin.

Arrived in  Amsterdam yesterday. It's the first time i've ever had 4 days off before the start of a trip to relax and check stuff out. Remco booked us into the "backstage hotel". It's tailor made for rockas complete with snare drum lighting fixtures and beds that look like roadcases. Super corny but its only 2 blocks from all the fun stuff. Jeremy Chris and i went for a walk today in the big park here (Vogel?) and had the "pleasure" of seeing this... A truckload of english ner'do well hooligans drunk on a bar that they pedal around on the streets whilst singing "Tubthumper" by Chumbawumba, except they only know the one line from the song, "i get knocked down, but i get up again, but i'm never gonna mumble mumble...". And they just sing it over and over and over. Incredible and sad really.