BRING THE ILLINOISE

We rolled into town around 2 am. Although we were disappointed that we missed Robot Chicken, we managed to find plenty of entertainment through the ridiculous accent provided by Kate Beckinsale in "Van Helsing." After an hour of that we passed out and drove another 3 hours to Davenport, Iowa the next morning.

We recorded some of Mocha's keyboards into a sampler (she's in Japan for a couple days) and then left to play RIBCO in Rock Island. A good place for music and a great place to get drunk (giving the band a case). My family came out from MN to hang with us and Minus 6 closed down the place. Apparently they have a sax player in the band, Matt, who could be my body double. (He's 6'2" so he's actually more of a head double). K and Ben both mistook him for me about 6 times that night.


I met a local who taught me about the "Angry Pirate" after I educated him on the process of a "Tony Danza." We also got to hang with the infamous Jimmy Vaughn.....

The next night was in Bloomington, Normal, IL. Downtown baby! NV Ultra Lounge had a great bartender (thanks Dan!) and Harry was on point. Not many townies around, but Audrey and Sam were in it for the long haul...when that placed closed down we ran up to "Levi's" for some spontaneous music making, also known as "pickin'" by the Auburn natives. These guys have an apartment across the street filled with instruments and beer that is ALWAYS open. Apparently anyone can just walk in and start playing.....so we did.

Today we drove through Indianna, picked up the latest Shins, VHS or BETA, and Otis Redding for the van, and now we're gonna play Howard's Club in Ohio......