The Story of Canadia

we hit the road early. real early. somehow, five musicians managed to get into a van for an amount of time impossibly prolonged and potentially plagued with possible perils WITHOUT BRINGING ANY MUSIC TO LISTEN TO!!!

the next thing i remember is the sensation of navigating the van (i was the navigator) through the clouds as the wild winds blew the snow accross the roads. there was the illusion that we were moving sideways. ben was brave. he bore down on the approaching headlights and won every single game of chicken we played!

once we called the club and discovered that we had gone the wrong way we left the desolate farmlands of Ontario to head into the town of London (can't we euro-descendents come up with some original names for places....."hmmmm....how about....'NEW york!'...'yes, yes, marvelous, i do say...").

playing loud music to sequestered music-lovers was sure to brighten our night....
as our white ford Chariot approached the club we were shocked to be informed that there was a severe weather advisory

DON'T LEAVE YOUR HOUSE UNLESS YOU MUST, eh?

fuck

when we pulled up to the club we saw that mute math was playing on friday at the same place.
awesome.
we love mute math.
would have been nice to see them play.
we want to open up for them on a future tour.

so yeah, people stayed home on a monday night. in a blizzard.
we played our little hearts out anyway and made a few new friends.

THE NExt day was tuesday.
the underground is a cool place.
VERY cold again (too cold for people to come listen to music) but the trees had blue and purple lights on them on one street.
i liked that color scheme (in lights anyway) and wonder why it doesn't happen more often. one usually sees more contrasting colors in decorative lights, but it's much more enchanting to see these more subtle shades. i think orange and yellow would work too.

the bartender played 'bad lieutenant' and 'microcosmos' on the television.

we filmed each other dancing.

WEDnesday was when we met chris mckee. very cool guy. we also dropped off our album to jac holtzman for sequencing.

the show at reverb was fun. we are sounding tight now and k is screaming some...i like it.

THURsday
by far our best show was in Kingston, Ontario.
a college town.
we rolled in to find young, hip people walking the streets. the club had advertised (even posters in the bathrooms) and the dj was playing funky music.

we rode around in the van, pulling up to people, then jumping out and surprising them with a FREE CD!!!! also, COME TO ELIXER TONIGHT at 11:30

dave became town crier and rode on the back of the van shouting the info for TONIGHT!!! while we handed out dozens and dozens of free cd's

i'm pretty sure that anyone worth anything (Lindsay) knows about J1 in Kingston.


Fuck Yeah

FRIday
was a super show. the place was packed and we met tons of awesome bands and people.
the place was called Rivoli and it was in toronto ("trono", they say).
trono has a million cool shops so we bought vests and ties.
and other things.
we all chipped in and bought k a novelty button with a humorous slogan imprinted on it, then laminated. we all enjoyed a hearty laugh as k finally discovered aforementioned button, as we had pinned it to his hoodie. k blushed. we are such pranksters.
we spent a while jamming like funcrazy in a vintage keyboard shop.

no one has heard of chromeo in toronto...

canadians are extremely nice. in new york when we try to hand out free cd's and tell folks about a show they are so turned off. canadians are turned ON!!! by this. i think it's because they are happier humans.

hot stuff

THEN we played in detroit on the way back
thanks to the folks who came downstairs to hear us after the ataris played.
detroit is a creepy wierd place downtown i think. the people, though, are pretty cool.

OH YEAH I FORGOT TO TELL YOU!
we got MUSIC for the trip home:
new bloc party
kraftwerk the man-machine
air pocket symphony
sigur ros the brown paper cover one
beatles rubber soul
robin thicke

that's it.
that was the whole trip.
you were there.
if you read this, you were there.


Love,
z