BIG COOL'S CORNER

Shows n shit

2010-12-21T02:38:00.003-06:00

My life is busy the next few months.

Bent Life Tour:

12.28 Cedar Falls, IA @ 1108
12.29 Springfield, IL @ Black Sheep Cafe
12.30 Anderson, IN @ House Show
01.01 Moline, IL @ Showzin
01.02 Milwaukee, WI @ Borg Ward
01.03 Minneapolis, MN @ Gnarwhal House *Early All Ages*
01.03 Minneapolis, MN @ Memory Lanes *Late 21+*
01.04 Lincoln, NE @ Knickerbockers

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01.06 - 01.09 Chicago trip for Weezer's "Blinkerton" Tour

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01.10 Armada, Bent Life, Trench Digger & Gag Reflex @ The Manor in Omaha, NE

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01.16 Lord Green, Feral Hands & Gag Reflex @ The Manor in Omaha, NE

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01.21 Sick Of It All, Alpha and Omega, Outbreak & Bent Life @ Knickerbockers in Lincoln, NE

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Bent Life tour:

02.18 Omaha, NE Gravemaker, Bent Life & TBA @ TBA
02.19 Waterloo, IA Gravemaker, Expire, Bent Life & TBA @ Amvets Post 19
02.20 Louisville, KY
02.21 St Louis, MO
02.22 Wichita, KS

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Bent Life & Feeding Lies Midwest / Southern Tour 3.11 - 3.18

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Somehow going to write songs for a new band Cody, Vic and I are in and record a Koizumi 10" in between all of this. What?

This Is Killing You

2010-11-23T19:29:00.003-06:00

Started demoing tracks for an upcoming Koizumi release on Sunday night. It's going to be anywhere between a 10 and 12 song 7" or 10" titled "This Is Killing You." Plans right now are to release it in February or March on Pretzel City Records. Recording is going to begin sometime in December or January. I'll be recording all of the songs in Omaha, Nebraska with Chris Atkins (Akita Ken, Your Face, Chris The Whale, Parachutes) who will also be producing and playing some instruments on the record. It will be recorded @ Zach Short Studios.

It's going to be an acoustic record. If you've seen Koizumi then you've probably heard half of the songs live. The other half are songs we were working on and newer songs I've wrote. Here is the tentative track listing (most of the song titles will change...I'm real bad at naming songs)....

01. It's Personal
02. Bear Creek
03. Handcuffed
04. Christine
05. Happy
06. The Wonder Years
07. Golden Sower
08. Party Plex
09. Jubilee
10. Half Way To Mid Life
11. Disconnect
12. Dig My Grave

Keep your eyes and ears open! Check the corner for updates!

End of everything

2010-11-13T02:50:00.003-06:00

This week has been an interesting one for sure. First after 5 and a half years Hercules broke up. Then right after our 3 week tour I started jamming with Prob With Doom, a cover band myself, Vic and Cody started to play the last Ghost House. We jammed everyday this week and it never really hit me what exactly we were doing it for. I didn't really understand until after all of the music was over tonight that it was the last Ghost House show ever.

Ever since I stuck a bottle in my ass as I stood naked in a pool of my own sweat with my guitar over my shoulder on August 10th, 2007 Ghost House has been a huge part of my life. I know I never lived there, but I booked and attended dozens of shows there since I was 19 years old. I can't believe how fast the last 6 years of my life have gone. It's almost too hard and too depressing to even think about.

Tonight was special. I didn't realize it until after. Metal Kin Kins said it best when he told me "We didn't milk this enough, we need to milk more." I agreed with him completely. Sadly I also agreed with him when he said it was the start of the slow decline. I think we all feel that way. A lot of monumental things have stopped in the last week. I know that sounds conceded of me to say since I was in the group known as Hercules. But I feel we contributed a good amount to Nebraska Hardcore over the last 6 years and really bridged the gap between Omaha and Lincoln.

Ghost House has done the same over the last 3 years. Where are we going to go now? is the question that has been on my mind for the last few hours as I sit here in my bed reflecting on the night and my pissy life. Luckily things aren't dead yet, far from it actually. It's dumb to say with every door that closes another one opens (and it's dumb to say "it's dumb to say") but it's absolutely true. Hercules is over but I have Bent Life to focus on, then when Aaron moves back I have Powerslop and Bent Life to focus on. And with Ghost House gone we can really get Mad Ave up and running. Things will be different, but things wont be over.

I think this winter is going to be a really strange transition period for all of us. We won't have Ghost House to go to anymore which will be really weird. With that being gone I see Omaha and Lincoln seeing each other a little less for a few months. But Mad Ave is in the process of setting up some benefit shows. Our goal is to be up and running by early January 2011. I don't see why we can't get this done. Thank you to everyone who has contributed time or money to Mad Ave so far, you don't even know how much we appreciate it.

I left Ghost House tonight with a grim outlook on the future. But after a few cups of coffee and some Famous Monsters / American Psycho I think I see that this was bound to happened. The fact that even with these things ending we still have so much to look forward to actually has me really excited about Nebraska DIY/ Punk / Hardcore. After we all adjust I see things becoming awesome again. We'll never re-live the times we've had at Ghost House. I thought after I moved out of Party Plex my life was over. And it really did feel that way for a while. Then new opportunity's arrived and things have been great. I see the same for the future of Nebraska. Down, not out. Life is good. Fuck the winter. Let's keep this going.

I'm glad we still have the drive to keep it going. I've seen things like this ruin people involved in music. I don't see that happening with any of us. I'm ready and ok with being a 35 year old loser still booking and playing shows. Mad Ave 2011. Bent Life 2011. Powerslop 2011. It's going to be a good year.

RIP Ghost House 08.10.2007 - 11.12.2010

Lincoln, Nebraska - home from tour

2010-11-10T01:19:00.002-06:00

I decided to wait a few days before doing my tour / Hercules wrap up. I wanted to adjust to real life back in Lincoln before I sat down to try and convey what this tour and this band has meant to me. I want to keep it brief, there's no need for a long explanation. This tour was one of the greatest experiences of my life and I wouldn't have changed a single thing about it except possibly making it 10 times as long. I think we all felt that this was the last one as Hercules so we really enjoyed every possible second.

The last show in Omaha was an insane experience. In 5 and a half years of being in Hercules I've never once just stood still at a show. But Saturday I was motionless the entire time. I spent the show looking at the crowd of friends and strangers in anger, awe and amusement. It was a wild mix of emotions. I couldn't believe the energy in the room, it was something I've never experienced in my life. I could tell people actually cared about what was going on and that really meant a lot to me. Half of the time I had no idea where Tyler was as he was being eaten alive by the sea of people.

It really didn't hit me until our last song that Hercules was over. And it hit me again today while I was at work. I still don't buy it but apparently it's true. I co-founded Hercules a month after I turned 17 years old in 2005. It was a joke. It still was a joke up until Saturday. But if 4 losers from the middle of the country can take a joke as far as we took Hercules I think any kid into punk / hardcore / DIY can do whatever they want in life. I don't want to make it seem like we were more than we were. We were a punk band who had so much help from our friends here at home and around the country.

I really felt Hercules bridged the gap between Omaha and Lincoln and gave us something all we could enjoy together. If it wasn't for this band I wouldn't know most of the people I know today. Things ended rocky like things tend to do but I wouldn't change a thing about the last 5 and a half years of my life. I've seen a lot of places and had a lot of experiences with this band and it's been amazing. I don't plan on stopping any time soon. We're already working on the first Powerslop demo. I realize it will never be the same to people. I figure they'll just want Hercules. But I know we're all fine with that because though we love the people who help us and come to our shows, we've always done Hercules because we love punk rock and touring. Powerslop will be no different. I hope you all enjoy it.

Thanks to everyone for the best time of my life. You all know who you are. I really think the line "Stay like this forever and hold onto your youth" is something that will stick with me all of my years.

Omaha, Nebraska

2010-11-06T08:19:00.002-05:00

Last couple of days of tour couldn't have been more fun. I think we all felt that this was the last time we were going out as a group for a while. We're all extra bummed to be home this time. After Chattanooga we drove back up north and played a show in Louisville, Kentucky. We were super late. Early in the day Kurt kept his word and bought us all KFC Buffet. Tyler was up in the driving rotation but ate so much he puked when we were done eating so we had to make some changes to the driving order.

The show is Louisville was really cool. Not many people showed up but it was our last show with Agress & Full Of Hell so we had a good time watching those guys one last time. The promoter was a really cool dude and still helped all of the bands out. Post show we headed to this pizza place where they give bands a free za and soda. It was incredible. I got a random text asking where we were. When I told the mystery texter our friends from California showed up to the joint. They were also playing a show down the street from us. What a small world. It was good seeing those dudes.

Tyler was itching all day to skate the huge 24 hour Loovul' skatepark so he hoped on that quick after pizza. Yesterday we drove up to Chicago to play Summer Camp. The show was AWESOME. We got there and the dudes were all playing the Sims on the wii. The guys at that house rule, they're all way too nice. The show was really awesome too. Saw a lot of Chicago and Omaha friends who now live in Chicago. A ton of people showed up and a lot of really cool local bands played. Kids were getting wild for all of the bands, it was awesome. I really enjoyd Poor Choice & Socially Retarded. Check those bands out!

After a wild show we headed up stairs for some good 80's / 90's jams and some pasta. Sadly we couldn't hang out at the post show party too long because we made the choice to make the long trek back to Omaha. We hoped in the Winnie for our last drive ever in her as Hercules. It was a bitter sweet symphony. We just pulled into town about an hour ago. Aaron and Tyler are sleeping like babies at their place. Mitch and Kurt went to chomp to crash and I'm at my parents house enjoying a cup of coffee with my dad while I do some laundry and some heavy internet surfing.

This tour couldn't have been better. I will do my tour wrap up post tonight or tomorrow after our final show. Please come out and say goodbye friends!

Saturday, November 6th, 2010
@ The Manor (1710 S 29th St Omaha, Nebraska)
All Ages 8:00pm $5

- Hercules
- Lord Green
- Feral Hands
- The Boot Heel
- The Yuppies

We have a 13 song set list we're gonna jam out. Old ones included, don't worry.

Chattanooga, Tennessee

2010-11-04T03:44:00.002-05:00

What to say about the last couple of days here. Let me try to remember. My mind is all over the place. Mitch recently got me hooked and addicted to coffee so I've been staying up really late and not thinking too clearly. After our show in Milwaukee we woke up the next day and made a pretty boring / shitty drive to Indianapolis. I spent the entire time watching Season 5 of Dexter and listening to the new and terrible Weezer record "Hurley." Majorly disappointing. We had to deal with dumb fucking traffic about 20 minutes outside of Indianapolis but we finally figured it out and made it to The Dojo.

Our show in Indianapolis was a lot of fun but not many people showed up. We booked it about a week and a half before we played there and apparently the Colts were on Monday night football so I wasn't too broken up about it. We got to play with In The Face of War who after 10 years is breaking up on May 7th, 2011. Pretty wild stuff. We also played with Full Rainbow (formerly The Sorely Trying Days) which is always awesome. After the show we had some incredible diner breakfast then I stayed up late as hell watching The Office.

The next day in Indianapolis we had to get up to make the long trek down to Nashville, Tennessee. After another boring and uneventful drive we finally made it to Nashville and ended up playing a really sweet show at a venue called Little Hamilton. It was a pretty big show and we had a blast. Post show we ate some Waffle House (maybe the 15th time on this tour) and stayed with this really nice dude named Jessie. His roommate busted in the door around 2:30am drunk, stumbling and screaming. Tyler was in the line of fire when this girl yelled "MOVE ASSHOLE" and kicked him in the head. Poor T. Also earlier in this day he was climbing a tree to get a picture taken in front of this huge dinosaur at Dinosaur World and a thorn fell from the tree and cut his eye. He had a terrible night.

Today we had a really short drive to Chattanooga to a show that wasn't slated to start until 10:30pm. A 7 band show. It was at this really sweet house called Anarchitca (get it?) that has been doing shows for 8 years. Blew my mind. The show was AWESOME. A ton of people showed up and the kids were really supportive and got wild for all of the bands. Everyone was wasted. A girl was showing her breasts and making out with other girls so people would donate money to the bands. Thomas hit on a babe for a while, got her number then struck out hard. Some dudes stole another guys keys and chucked them into the forest then kicked his moped over. A lot of sloppy drunkeness. Hard drunk moshing. Jacob Justice had to throw a few people by their hair off of the Agress merch. People had their dogs at the show, it sucked.

We left the show and had the best Waffle House experience ever. Our waitress was wild. She told us she had 8 assault charges, just got back to Chattanooga from running from the law, and was now working 10pm - 3:00pm everyday. Yeah you read that right, 10:00pm at night to 3:00pm the next day. Shit life. Now we're at this house finally where I don't think anyone actually seems to live at. It's now 5:00am eastern standard time and I plan on waking up in 5 hours to go to the gym. Today is our last show with Agress then those boys will continue on to the west coast. We only have 3 more shows left ever. Hope to see the Midwest show up on Saturday!

11.04 Louisville, KY @ Keswick Democratic Club
11.05 Chicago, IL @ Summer Camp
11.06 Omaha, NE @ The Manor

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

2010-11-01T00:23:00.002-05:00

Last night in Iowa City was insane. We played at this sweet venue called the White Lightning Warehouse. It was a huge Halloween show. The venue was huge and hundreds of people showed up, mostly all in costumes and ready to party. We played 2nd. In between each band these burlesque dancers performed, it was nuts. Our set went really well. We played Live, Laugh, Love which we haven't done in well over a year. It was pretty fun.

A Minor Threat cover band ended the night and they couldn't have been more perfect. The guitar and bass tone were both perfect, Joe Ross did the drumming perfect and they played 14 songs with minimal breaks. It really couldn't have been done better. After the show we were all dead tired. We watched a guy freak out about his car being hit for a while, then we got some pizza, went to the house we were staying at and went to sleep.

We were awoken today at 11:00am to a dude telling us we had to vacate our house because a cable repair man had to do some work. We hoped in the Winnie and made a pretty uneventful drive to Milwaukee. We went to Pizza Shuttle and the dude behind the counter recognized us and decided to hook us up with free pizza, soda and bread sticks. Then while eating he brought us even more free pizza. Such a good experience.

The show in Milwaukee was at the Borg Ward, a really sweet spot. Armada opened up the show and they were really good. They did a few Misfits covers which was real sweet. Agress rocked it out. Our set was fun but really weird. Then Harms Way closed out the show playing a few of their rockers. The show was fun and went by really fast, I think it was over by 9:30. After that we headed back to Pizza Shuttle for more great food. We're now hanging out at the Armada dudes house, watching Zombieland and using the internetz.

Tomorrow we play in Indianapolis, Indiana @ The Dojo w/ In The Face of War & Full Rainbow. I'm real excited to see ITFOW play. Tour is coming to a close and I'm pretty bummed. I hope to see some friends at our last show this Saturday @ The Manor. Come out and buy up our merch, we need money to release a full 63 song Hercules discography on cd. Will hopefully be out early 2011 on Nihilism and Pretzel City Records. We'll also have final tour posters at the last show. Come pick one up!

11.01 Indianapolis, IN @ The Dojo
11.02 Nashville, TN @ Little Hamilton
11.03 Chattanooga, TN @ Anarchtica
11.04 Louisville, KY @ Keswick Democratic Club
11.05 Chicago, IL @ Summer Camp
11.06 Omaha, NE @ The Manor

Cedar Falls, Iowa

2010-10-30T01:40:00.002-05:00

Springfield ended up being a fantastic time as always. During the day we went to The Pony Gentleman's Club, a club we're very familiar with. We walked into the club at around 4:00pm. The lights were low, there was no music playing and there was only one dancer in the entire place. When we walked in she seemed to be practicing some moves on a wall. When she stopped, an old man rose from a seat we could not see. It was hilarious. We spent the rest of the time there watching this girl dance in complete silence. Tyler got up on a stage and did a dance himself and I took a shot at announcing behind the booth. It was a pretty interesting time.

The show in Springfield ended up being pretty cool especially considering we booked it really last minute. Post show we got some pizza and soda and enjoyed more zombie movies at our best buddy Warren's house. Today was an absolutely awful drive to Cedar Falls. It ended up being a 9 hour drive, all highway, no food anywhere. I also stayed up until 7:00am and was awoken at 9:00am so that didn't help at all.

The show in Cedar Falls tonight was awesome. It was at 1108 and a lot of kids came out which was really cool. That Build No System band gets better every time I see them. The show went so fast I couldn't even believe it was over. I think we finished up just before 9:30pm which was sweet after a shitty day of driving. We hung out at 1108 for a while then came to Doyle & Addison's house where Addison made us an incredible stir fry and pot stickers meal. We washed it down with a 12 pack of coca cola our main man Jeff Chord bought for us. I'm still full from the meal.

We finally discovered the new Tourette's Guy videos. They. Are. In.Cred.Ible. Do yourself a big favor and check them out if you haven't yet. Now we're lying low enjoying Ace Ventura When Nature Calls. Tomorrow Hercules is practicing at 1108 and teaching Mitch some of our old songs so we can play them for all of you lovely people at our last show Saturday, November 6th @ The Manor. After practice we're going to go see Jackass 3d and I'm hoping to stay in the theater to catch Paranormal Activity 2. Our show is only an hour and a half away and doesn't even start until 10:00pm. It's gonna be a late night. Then on Halloween we're playing @ the Borg Ward in Milwaukee w/ Agress, Armada & Harms Way. Come out!

Tour is coming to a close. Such a good time. I'm typing this with the smallest kitty I've ever seen on my lap.

Downloading season 5 of Dexter. Tour life is better than real life.

Springfield, Missouri

2010-10-28T13:27:00.002-05:00

A lot has happened in the last few days. We had a show in San Antonio, TX that looked like it was going to suck. Then out of the blue a good amount of people showed up and the show ended up being a pretty good time. We woke up early as hell the next morning for the first drive in a series of long ass drives. This drive was an 8 hour trek from San Antonio, TX to Baton Rouge, LA. We ended up making really good time and made it to Baton Rouge by 5:00pm. We hung out for a while, ate some food, cruised the LSU campus then finally went back to the Spanish Moon, the venue where the show was at. I was really excited for this show because the line up was Agress, Hercules, Ghastly City Sleep & Thou. The Spanish Moon is a really cool venue near downtown Baton Rouge.

The show started really late, like most shows of this tour have. Agress opened the show up a little after 10:30pm. The crowd was a little weird. Some punkers, some bros, most people choosing to sit at the bar while all of the bands played. People also didn't seem to want to clap between songs for any of the bands. It was really strange. I somehow got sick within a 2 hour period so after we played I took an hour nap while Ghastly City Sleep played. Thou was incredible as always and did a really cool Nirvana cover. Tyler and Mitch stayed at the bar and took advantage of the $1.75 whiskey and cokes offered to the bands.

Post show everyone but Aaron and myself were pretty wasted. Tyler was the drunkest I've ever seen him. He attempted to skateboard so many times, finally stopping when his legs went one way and the board went the other way as he flew in the air and crashed into the Baton Rouge streets. We hung out with the Ghastly City Sleep dudes who told us a lot of crazy Pg. 99 / City Of Caterpillar for a while. Then it was time to go eat. Tyler was too drunk to even walk. He came to the diner for a bit but decided to go back to the van as we gorged ourselves. When we came back to the van all we saw was the van doors open, Tyler's feet dangling out and a huge pile of puke outside the van. We took some great pictures of it.

We got the the apartment we were staying at with a few other bands. We all went inside as Tyler lied in the street, puking on his own hands. We got him into the van to go to sleep. The next morning we woke up and Tyler told us about his crazy night. He ended up getting out of the van and shirtless, he lied in the dirt next to some trash cans. Early in the morning a cop drove by, looked at him and drove away. When Tyler finally awoke, a lady pulled up to an apartment next to the one we were staying at. Tyler was too drunk to realize where we all went. The lady said hi to him "in a way that made it seem like the rest of you guys were staying with her" according to Tyler. So a shirtless, sweaty, dirty, vomit soaked Tyler followed this lady up the stairs to her apartment only to realize...none of us were in there. He finally figured it out and made his way to us.

We finally got on the road at noon and had the most boring, non straight road, hot, longest drive ever from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Springfield, Missouri. After 12 hours we finally showed up to our friend Warren's house, put on Night Of The Living Dead and hit the hay. Tonight we're playing here in Springfield @ The Lemon Drop. We got the Winnie an oil change today and she's riding great. Not too many shows left of tour, come out to the ones you can!

10.28 Springfield, MO @ Lemon Drop
10.29 Cedar Falls, IA @ 1108
10.30 Iowa City, IA @ White Lightning
10.31 Milwaukee, WI @ Borg Ward
11.01 Indianapolis, IN @ The Dojo
11.02 Nashville, TN @ Little Hamilton
11.03 Chattanooga, TN @ Anarchtica
11.04 Louisville, KY @ Keswick Democratic Club
11.05 Chicago, IL @ Summer Camp
11.06 Omaha, NE @ The Manor

Hope to see the Midwest show up to The Manor on Saturday, November 6th. Let's party!

Fort Worth, Texas

2010-10-25T02:14:00.002-05:00

Too-ah. Tur. Tar. Tour.

2 nights ago we played a show in Tulsa, Oklahoma @ The Reverb. I know my buddies in Oklahoma are going to read this and get bummed but I really don't like the state of Oklahoma. I like my friends who live there but Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah all bum the shit out of me when I'm there. I don't know why. The vibe of all of those states just weird me out. Desolate places.

The show there was fun. Not many people showed up but I still had a good time. Played at a really cool venue called The Reverb. We got to Tulsa about 3 hours before the show started so we hung out at the venue for a while then decided to hit the town. Nothing seemed to be going on so we did some online research about different strip clubs in town. After some scientific diagnosis we decided on "Night Trips." A few of the dudes didn't have money to weren't 21 so a few of us went in while others hung out in the parking lot.

Being under 21 didn't stop Johnny from Agress. He took Eric's ID and walked into the club like he owned the place and he got in no problem, it was wild. He even ordered a Budweiser. A true American hero. So we looked at some strippers for a while. Mainly watched them all come right over to Chino. I don't know if it was his long locks or his leather vest but every stripped gravitated right to his glorious mustache. When a woman wants a true man, they can find one in Chino.

After an hour or so at Night Trips we decided it was about time to get back to The Reverb. As we were leaving Agress backed out right as we were backing out causing us to stop in the middle of the parking lot. As they continued backwards I noticed they were heading towards a car so I just kept saying "you're gonna hit that car...You're gonna hit that car, watch out there's a car...YOU'RE GONNA HIT THAT CAR" BOOM! Eric backed right into a really nice car that obviously belonged to someone who worked at Night Trips. We started losing it as Agress just sped off right into a dead end. We decided to then get out of there before anyone suspected us.

After the show in Tulsa we stayed with our buddy Josiah. Most of us passed out really quick . Apparently sometime in the night Josiah's dad came up to me as I was sleeping, spread eagle outside of my sleeping bag and asked me "How was the gig tonight?" The only thing I can think of is I was mouth quivering and he may have assumed I was awake? I also slept sitting up with my eyes open in my bed at home a few weeks ago so who knows, my eyes could have been open. Luckily Tyler woke up as this happened and answered "good" for me.

Today we got up early and headed down to Fort Worth, Texas for our show at 1919 Hemphill, one of my favorite venues of all time. We got to Fort Worth and dropped Chino off at his parents. We headed to the Cain resident's and met their 3 cats, exotic fish, turtle who lives in the pool and Colonel, the chicken in the backyard. As Tyler and Kurt enjoyed some clam chowder and bread, Mitch and I headed to Pizza Garden, the supreme $3.99 pizza buffet here in Fort Worth. It. Was. Great. After that we came back to Tyler's and I dumped around on the computer for 2 and half hours, watching south park and cataloging the entire Hercules recording and tour history.

The show at 1919 was sweet. We sadly missed the first band because we were told to get to a show at 9 that started at 8:30. I'm sorry LIKEWISE. Hopefully I'll see your band next time. Next up was Innards, a really sweet screamo type band featuring dudes who used to be in Jubilee. Real nice guys, really good band. Agress was next and they got the crowd mashin' hard. We played after that and slopped around for a few minutes then a really sweet band called Prognosis Negative closed the night out.

I got a nice shower in tonight and we all filled up on some Whattaburger for our midnight snack. Try the BOB (breakfast on a bun). Tomorrow we are playing in San Antonio, TX. Hopefully we have some wild adventures. Tour has been great so far!

Full Hercules discogrpahy / tour history

2010-10-24T18:55:00.005-05:00

It's been a wild ride. Here is a full list of everything Hercules has ever recorded and released, plus every tour big or small that we've ever done. Thought about burning some CDRS of our full discography until I realized it would have to be 2 discs. I still might do it.

Tracks 1 -6 THE BISON EP
released 05.29.2005 - self released

Tracks 7 -16 THE DAWN OF THE DILOPHOSAURAS & THE RISE & FALL OF ZORDON
released 03.17.2006 - self released

Tracks 17 - 28 THOSE OF THE DAMNED RUN IN CIRCLES FOR GLORY (CD & LP)
CD released 09.09.2006 - Pretzel City Records
LP released 11.18.2007 - Nihilism Records

Tracks 29 - 34 DRUNK HOMELESS LOSER RIDES AGAIN (I & II)
I released 10.26.2007 - self released
II released 11.28.2008 - self released (this version includes FROM THE MOLD demo)

Tracks 35 - 47 MOON RIDERS
released 06.11.2009 - Nihilism Records

Tracks 48 - 51 BRING ME POWER
released 03.05.2010 - Nihilism / Pretzel City Records

Tracks 52 - 63 SKIN TIGHT
released 03.24.2010 - 5nsakefork Records

01. I’ve Got Your Back

02. Let’s Make It Happen
03. Make Up Your Mind
04. My Names Marshall, I’m From Cleveland
05. The Troubled
06. You Make Me Sick

07. I’ve Got Your Back (re recorded)

08. Remain On Top
09. Deal With It, Sucka
10. My Names Marshall, I’m From Cleveland (re recorded)
11. You Can’t Talk If You Don’t Camp (demo)
12. Stay Like This Forever (demo)

13. Let’s Make It Happen (re recorded)
14. Waiting For The Summer (demo)
15. Piss On You (Vitamin X cover)
16. Live, Laugh, Love (demo)

17. Cast Out
18. Waiting For The Summer

19. Haggard Pits
20. YTTYKSBYDSFY
21. Stay Like This Forever
22. Juggano
23. You Can’t Talk If You Don’t Camp
24. Hang Loose / Head Bang
25. Concrete Wave
26. Keep It Rad
27. Live, Laugh, Love
28. Heart A Tact (Kid Dynamite cover)

29. More Than A Game (demo)
30. Time Wasted (demo)
31. Out Of Luck (demo)
32. Suburban Home (Descendants cover)
33. From The Mold (demo)
34. 420 lb Bong Session

35. Ancient Scrolls of the Moon Riders
36. From The Mold
37. Time Wasted
38. More Than A Game
39. Out Of Luck
40. Limited Time Only
41. Robin Hoodlums
42. Sewer Scum
43. He’s Here
44. The Extraordinary Journey of the Moon Riders
45. Left Behind
46. 5950
47. If You Got The Stash, We Got The Cash

48. Forest Fryer
49. Wicked Witch
50. Island Of The Eyes
51. Lord Of This World (Black Sabbath cover)

52. Goofball Soup
53. Haggard Pits (live)
54. Moon Riders (live)
55. From The Mold (live)
56. Time Wasted (live)
57. You Can’t Talk If You Don’t Camp (live)
58. Robin Hoodlums (live)
59. Sewer Scum (live)
60. He’s Here (live)
61. Left Behind (live)
62. Concrete Wave (live)
63. If You Got The Stash, We Got The Cash (live)

June 2007 - 2 week Midwest tour
October - November 2007 - 1 month East Coast tour
January 2008 - Midwest weekend tour w/ Thrash Wave
May 2008 - 1 month West Coast / Hawaii tour
November - December 2008 - 1 week Midwest tour
February - March 2009 - 1 month East Coast tour w/ The JV All Stars
April 2009 - 1 week Midwest tour
June - July 2009 - 1 month West Coast tour w/ In The Face of War

August - September 2009 - 1 month East Coast tour w/ Battle!
December 2009 - Midwest weekend tour
March 2010 - 1 month West Coast / Canada tour w/ Battle!
June 2010 - 1 week Midwest tour w/ Agress & Lord Green
October - November 2010 - 3 week Midwest tour w/ Agress

05.29.2005 - 11.06.2010
5 and a half years. 9 releases. 63 recorded songs. 35 total songs. 13 tours. Too much fun.

This band has been the biggest thing in my life since I was 16 years old. I will miss it dearly.

Be on the lookout for our new band POWERSLOP that should be starting up Summer 2011.

Kansas City, Missouri

2010-10-23T11:33:00.002-05:00

This Hercules / Agress tour kicked off right in Kansas City last night. We played at a really cool DIY venue called the Studded Bird. Pretty much reminded me of a small version of 1919 Hemphill in Fort Worth, TX, one of my favorite venues of all time. The first two bands that played were really awesome local bands, Attention Seeker, featuring the most famous person in Midwest Hardcore, Brett Ray and hard hitters Harsh Reality featuring THRASHER, one of the wildest dudes I've seen.

Attention Seeker was fast and unrelenting hardcore with Brett Ray freaking out on vocals. I'm pretty sure he had tears in his eyes at the end of the set. These dudes were wild. While they played 2 bums walked in. I know, big fucking surprise, bums at a Hercules show. One of the bums really just looked like Father Time and the other one was your standard loser bum. Father Time lied in the middle of the floor for Attention Seekers entire set. They kept getting moshed but they didn't care one bit. At one point while Attention Seeker was playing, Father Time was just screaming in agony while on the floor. Shortly after he lit a cigarette the people running Studded Bird threw him out.

Next up was Harsh Reality, local hard hitters from KCMO featuring Meatball, the legit dude who booked this show for us. They weren't what I was expecting at all. Real heavy hardcore but not in the vein of most bands today, it was pretty cool. Kids got real wild when they played, even the bums were getting in the pit. During their set Father Time started yelling at some girls telling them that they were ugly and they should look in a mirror for 20 years. When he got in the face of one of the girls she pushed him SO.HARD. right back into the crowd where he immediately got moshed to the floor. Post show the bum still wasn't leaving these girls alone so Meatball (a calm, real nice dude) started screaming at this bum that he was going to kick his ass. I was so excited to see this happen. But sadly the bum apologized and sat there saying "I think I did something wrong...I'm engaged you know." I'm, sure you are, bum.

After that Agress took the stage. They knocked out some heavy jammers from their newest self titled 7". Pick one up if you haven't yet. During their punishing set the bum (not father time) was getting real into them. He even stopped after one of the songs and quieted the crowd to say "THESE GUYS CAN PLAY. YOU CAN DO IT. PLAY THAT SHIT!" Jacob Justice was getting pissed at this old dude and said into the mic right at him "I'm not afraid to beat the fuck out of an old dude." The bum got so mad and started yelling "COME ON BOY! COME ON NOW!" But then forgot what he was doing and started laughing and moshing to Agress.

Next, the bum community's all star band Hercules set up to play. Our set was a lot of fun. We've only played Kansas City one other time and that was about 2 years ago w/ Cruel Hand & Dagger Mouth. Kids were getting pretty into it. Our trusty roadie Kurt even moshed so hard that he FLATTENED Father Time ON.HIS.FACE. I was getting really dissapointed that the bum wasn't heckling us at all so I called him out and told him to get up here and yell at me. He still didn't. I broke a string at one point so Tyler decided to give the bum the mic. He wouldn't hold it to his mouth so all I heard out of his speech was "PEOPLE, PEOPLE PLEASE, LISTEN TO ME." I'm sure his advice was breath taking. Towards the end of our set a new bum emerged from the back, clearly flying high on crack cocaine. During our last song he was taking his lighter trying to set himself on fire. The only thing he accomplished was burning off all of his arm hair.

The night ended right at Waffle House where a drunk ass dude was just yelling at his girlfriend thinking she stole his $100 bill. After that we came back to our good friend Amy's house to get a heavy slumber on. On the way here we saw the DRUNKEST.PERSON.EVER. This guy couldn't walk but he was still walking. I stopped and asked him if he was ok and he just threw his arms in the air, waved, and gave me the biggest drunk eyes ever. We went around the block again to take a look at this piece of work and Tyler was begging someone to go push him over. We declined and headed to the house to snooze hard.

Tonight we're playing in Tulsa, Oklahoma @ The Reverb. Keep checking the corner.

Goin South

2010-07-13T02:30:00.004-05:00

I was pondering what I was going to write about today and I knew I wanted to do something on a "first" I had in life. Going through all of the possibilities I knew one of them had to stand out as a true dynamite first. First time seeing a naked girl at summer camp when I was 12, first time making out with a girl (Sears dressing room, Oakview Mall, 13 years old) both came to mind but I wanted to write about something that was more universal. A first that every dude in the world has at some point in his life. Then it hit me. I could see the room in my head, I could see what was in each of my hands, I could remember the panic, confusion and fear when I was done. I'm of course talking about the first time I jerked off.

Thinking back to my years as a young dude my big brother was always there to show me the ropes as they say. He was always there to give me brotherly advice on girls, being a dude, whatever I wanted. He wasn't feeding me genius shit or anything but when you're 10 and your big brother tells you something you tend to take it as gospel. Around 1999 / 2000 I was an up and coming goth / nu metal kid idolizing bands such as Korn and Powerman 5000 while at the same time being the pop punk kid I've always been listening to Blink 182 and MXPX religiously. I was a boy turning into a young man and with that comes some wild shit.

When I was 11 or so I started becoming curious about this dick in between my legs. I had heard kids at school talking about jerking off, getting pubes and all of that great stuff but I hadn't experienced anything like that yet. So one day I went home and went downstairs into my brothers room. Anytime I went in there I could guarantee a few things. First, Metallica was on the stereo, second he was in a bad mood and third he was flying high on whatever drug he got his hands on that day. Entering his lair was truly like a box of chocolates. I knew his temper and time were limited so I cut to the chase and asked him "Brett, what is jerking off and how do I do it." Back then my brother was always pretty good at snap back advice that was straight and to the point. He looked up from his bed, The Crow poster huge in the background and said "you pull on your dick until white shit comes out." Easy enough. I went into the bathroom and pulled on my little limp dick for the better part of 10 minutes before I gave up. After that I forgot about jerking off for a while.

Then middle school hit and like all of you boys know, so did the boners. Anywhere, anytime, any reason, no reason. I think I had a boner more than I didn't that first year of middle school. I didn't need anything to set my little dick into a frenzy. A glance at a girl, just the right amount of friction from my blue jeans and I was ready to go. Before you find out you can tug this thing and get it to go down you go through a solid amount of time where you're in pure pain every time you get a boner. Essentially the first few months of boners is just a series of blue balls day in and day out. Your dick is hard, you balls are sore and your hormones are all out of whack. There has to be a way to take care of this thing. I thought back to jerking off and knew it was time to go. I knew I needed some sort of visual stimulation but I'm 12 years old, my internet is slow as shit (aol dial up) and I have no money for magazines.

I had seen porn before. The first time ever was in 2nd grade when my neighbor from across the street Jason stayed over. I vividly remember a passionate CineMax style love scene on a tennis court. I knew to jerk off I needed to see a girl. Naked? In her bra? Fully clothed? So many questions. One night while I had the house to myself I was on the hunt. JC Penny catalog, Summer Sanders on Figure It Out, do I stay up and wait for Real Sex to come on? What to do? Then I see it...I see the thing that gets my little heart pumpin. A compilation of Southern rocks greatest hits... Goin South. The skin was tan, the hair was blonde, the lipstick was red and the boobs were big. What else could I look for on a Tuesday night?

As I'm sure happens to all young men after a good 30 seconds of working at it a pearly white mess came out of me and nearly hit my ceiling. What the fuck just happend? I started freaking out. I did the only thing I could think of. I grabbed my Austin 3:16 shirt next to my bed, cleaned myself up and stuffed the tshirt into the bottom of the laundry basket. After that it was time for some Leno, some Conan and then some sleep. In my mind I had finally become a man. Thank you Goin South girl. I owe a lot to you.

Summer // Fall 2010

2010-07-03T21:20:00.002-05:00

Haven't done the corner in a while. Bums me out. Been busy as busy raising a 3 year old, working, touring, playing in 3 bands, going to the pool every night, hanging in Omaha and Lincoln, moving, practicing, writing, working out, living. Not complaining one bit. Life has been good. There's only 6 more months of this year and Hercules, Koizumi and Bent Life all have pretty big plans. I hope we can accomplish it all!

HERCULES:
Hercules has 3 shows booked for the summer. We went out for the first week of June to play Midwest Fest in Milwaukee, WI which was a great time. Saturday, July 10th we're playing @ The Bourboun Theatre in Lincoln, NE w. Bastard Noise // Wasteoid & Violator X. This is technically the first performance of our future band Electrical Group //aka EG4//. Then I'll be gone from July 19th - 29th driving to Sound and Fury and back. The morning after I get back Hercules will hop in the Winnie and drive down to Wichita, Kansas to play ICT FEST 2010 July 30th and 31st. Our last show of the summer will be August 31st @ The Hole in Omaha, NE w. Coliseum // Burning Love & Feral Hands.

On top of these shows we'll be working on songs for a split 7" we'll be doing with LOW ORIOLE from Wichita, Kansas. It will be released by 5nakefork and Pretzel City Records. Most likely with help from our good buddies at Nihilism Records. We're hoping to have that for our fall tour down to Florida for The Fest. We put in our application to play earlier this week. Even if we don't get on the actual bill we'll be playing after shows with our great buddies BATTLE! and hanging out at The Fest. The early route for this is as follows . . .

10.21 Omaha, NE
10.22 Wichita, KS
10.23 Oklahoma City, OK
10.24 Fort Worth, TX
10.25 Houston, TX
10.26 New Orleans, LA
10.27 Pensacola, FL
10.28 Tallahassee, FL
10.29 Gainesville, FL *THE FEST*
10.30 Gainesville, FL *THE FEST*
10.31 Gainesville, FL *THE FEST*
11.01 Jacksonville, FL
11.02 Birmingham, AL
11.03 Johnson City, TN
11.04 Louisville, KY
11.05 Chicago, IL
11.06 Cedar Falls, IA

Booking for this tour will start middle of this summer. After this tour Aaron is doing some awesome stuff with one of his other projects BACK WHEN and doing great things personally as well! Because of these things Hercules will be taking a 6 month break and will resume our never ending quest of writing, recording and touring Summer 2011.

KOIZUMI:
I've been working hard this summer trying to write and finish up song ideas to cut up and put together with the boys for a Koizumi full length we're trying to record before the years end. This will be our first "official" release as a band...and we formed in 2006. I wish this wasn't the case but what can you do? We've recorded 4 demos and finally compiled all of those together this year and self released "DEMOS" which we gave out at the few shows we played this year. If you want a copy feel free to pick one up at a show or go to www.mediafire.com/koizumi

BENT LIFE:
Bent Life is a band I've been jamming in with some Lincolnites you may have heard of such as Andy Vorhees, The Miller twins and Justin Rodriguez. Think New York Hardcore played by Midwestern kids. Right now we're working on songs for a demo and after we have that we're going to play our first show this fall then hit the road for a week in support of that demo. More info on this soon.

I know no one really cares about any of this. I'm more just capturing a moment in my life so I can look back and remember it when I'm old and dumb. Really looking forward to the rest of this year. I think a lot of awesome things are going to happen and I'm confident in all of these plans coming together this year. I'm also throwing around the idea of getting a hold of my good buddy Jeff Sedreal (performs as Geophph Seadrill) and trying to hit the midwest with a car and our sad acoustics to finally do the tour we had planned on doing in May 2009 until it fell through. Big plans and no time. That's the way Big Cool lives.

Come out to hardcore // punk // rock // metal // indie // hip hop // whatever shows
MIDWEST IS THE BEST!

www.crucialchanges.blogspot.com
nebraskadiy.aceboard.com
www.myspace.com/nebraskahardcore
www.myspace.com/herculesne
www.myspace.com/koizumine

As always follow my dump ass on twitter - www.twitter.com/bigcoolscorner - the corner on speed.

Celebrating 10 years

2010-04-29T21:00:00.000-05:00

Embarrassed

2010-04-28T15:18:00.002-05:00

Last night I was in Omaha and I told the story of the first time I remember being embarrassed. I was born in Kearney, Nebraska, a small town 3 hours west of Omaha some of you may or may not have heard of. I lived there until I was 5 years old then the Stephens family packed up and hit the road to Omaha. While in Kearney I really got into the power rangers. I attended a Catholic Pre School and I only went a few times a week. I remember my mom picking me up every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and taking me to McDonald's so I could get a happy meal. Then we'd go home and I'd eat said happy meal while watching my favorite show in the world...The Power Rangers. The ORIGINAL Power Rangers. Not this Power Rangers Nitro Force or whatever bullshit.

I of course like most young kids took Karate lessons. Mostly because I wanted to be able to fight like the Power Rangers. So one summer day I woke up early, threw on my uniform and went out into the backyard to fight imaginary people who were most likely working for the evil Rita Reuplsa . I LOVED Tommy who was the infamous and most bad ass Green Ranger / White Ranger. He was obviously the coolest when he became the White Ranger, ftw. For my 5th birthday my mom purchased me a cheap plastic version of the White Rangers incredible Saber Sword. I absolutely loved it and I'm pretty sure I carried it around with me and even wanted to take it to Karate class.

So naturally when I was in the backyard to fight Rita Repulsa's goons I was not only armed with my ninja outfit but also with my Saber Sword. Our duplex sat right behind an alley that lead you to a gas station called the C-Store where all of the local riff raff would hang out. I was in my backyard slaying imaginary monsters when this jeep full of teenagers pulls up. I remember it was a super windy day and I was standing on top of my moms car. I had just defeated Bulk and Skull and in a triumphant gesture I held the sword up with both hands and screamed into the air, wind blowing back my over sized karate outfit and bowl cut. The teenagers in the jeep stopped, laughed uncontrollably and the girl in the passengers seat yelled "LOSER!" as they drove off. I ran inside and hid in my room. For the first time in my life I was embarrassed.

Birthday Weekend

2010-04-09T03:05:00.004-05:00

Hanging out in my bed at 3:00am after taking a 2 hour nap from 10:45-12:45. I turned 22 years old today. It really wasn't a big deal at all. I feel like I did less today than on my usual Thursdays off. Today made me realize that after your 21st birthday it's all down hill from there. Birthday wise. I realize that from now until I die my birthdays will only matter every decade. Still have two more birthday celebrations to hit up before I can hang up my bday cap n gowned.

Kailey's birthday is Sunday then I'm going to slam down some Valentino's Grand Italian Buffet on Monday with my family. After that mess of a dinner I'm gonna have to sober up (from the pizza) and try to play some Koizumi songs acoustic at Ghost House. I think I may throw in a Blink 182 and a Weezer cover. How original and fresh of me, right? If you haven't heard there is a last minute show Monday night at Ghost House...

Monday, April 12th @ Ghost House
2430 P ST Lincoln, NE

- CRIME IN STEREO (Long Island heart breakers)
- ROBBERS (Jessie Lacey's little brother hahaha)
- HOLLOW BOMB (Aurora boys bein stoked)
- BROCK (me crying my eyes out)

8:00pm. $5. You know the drill.

I'm pumped because after work tomorrow I'm gonna hop in the Pontiac and hit I-80 West to go stay at The Butt in Omaha. Real excited to be hanging with the Omaha boys and girls Friday and Saturday. If any of you are reading this then hit me up and let's get wild. I'm really interested in crashing a lame hipster party and going to Alvarados after.

That's all I got for now. I'm going to try and update the corner while I'm home as well. Maybe day to day bullshit, show reviews, random weird things, whatever. Join the life of Big Cool. Can anyone else believe that nickname stuck? Mind you I gave it to myself 3 years ago.

Time to throw on an episode of Degrassi and crank those VOLS a little to block out the sound of the loud snoring girl next to me. OMAHA, see you soon. LINCOLN, better be seeing you Monday night.

22 years old

2010-04-07T17:25:00.004-05:00

My old ass in turning 22 tomorrow, April 8th, 2010 @ 8:32am

Home From Tour

2010-03-29T10:07:00.003-05:00

We had our last show 2 days ago in Minneapolis, Minnesota @ The Rathole. We left Cedar Falls pretty late after some hard hanging out and eating a great Chinese buffet with our buddy Thomas. We rolled into Minneapolis around 7:30pm and hung out until the show finally got poppin around 10:30pm. In that time we had to make a stop at Tyler's favorite restaurant, White Castle for his 22nd birthday. He slammed down a # 1 plus 2 more sliders (one fish, one classic). After that we loaded into the Winnie and headed back to The Rathole.

While eating at White Castle we sadly missed Bring That Shit's set which really bummed me out. There were a ton of punks out at the show and that was really sweet. I guessed around 100 but I was told probably only 60 or so. With people going in and out and all wearing the same clothes it was hard to tell for real. Never the less there were a lot of people there. It was a 6 band show that got started at 10:30 and we were scheduled to play last. We planned on driving home that night so we knew it was going to be a late one.

Some really awesome bands played. Bring That Shit, Much Worse, Lord Green, Animals and Beasts and Dios Mio. During Much Worse I was standing at the top of the stairs when the door to the show room suddenly swings open and a man flies out at hits the stairs. Apparently (according to the dude who threw him out) the dude was a "new york asshole hate mosher." It was pretty nuts. The crowd was a wild mix of Minneapolis punks and I loved it. Saw a dude there who I straight up thought was the lead singer of The Casualties. Walked by another punk who was sobbing like a child saying "I love my dad, why doesn't he love me? I wish he would just kill me." People got problems n shit.

By the time Dios Mio took the room people were real wasted and looking for a fight. Saw two dudes completely fucked up go from hating each other and almost fighting to hugging to eventually pushing each other and yelling "FUCK YOU MAN! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" Finally at around 1:45am it was our turn to play. It was an alright time. I jumped up and smashed my head into the ceiling, leaving a nice dent. When my head collided with the ceiling I heard a loud CRUNCH on the inside of my neck and it's hurt pretty bad ever since. These dudes kept grabbing Danny's cymbals so I kicked one of them square in the chest. He was so fucked up he didn't care though. At the end of the show Chino got revenge by throwing his bass right into the two dudes, it was great.

After that we loaded up the Winnie for one last time and finally got on the road back to Omaha at 4:00am. I passed out in the back in a lot of pain and finally after 5 and a half hours we pulled back home at 9:30am. I wasn't into going to bed so I headed to my parents house for a day filled with laundry, internet, television and a nice shower. I met up with my girls later in the day, ate Valentinos Grand Italian Buffet then hit the road to Lincoln. Not much sleep here at the Farm, I was woken up at 8:00am and I realized I really am back at home. I'm spending today with my favorite girl Dani watching Monsters Inc, going to the park, getting ice cream then hopefully taking a nap.

Tour fucking ruled. I can't wait to hit the road once again. Thanks so much to our pals in Battle for making tour such a great time, we'll see you dick bags in October. Thanks to everyone we met (even the bums...especially the bums) and everyone who helped us out with a show, a place to stay or anything. Thanks to Bailey for getting us into Canada and booking us some cool ass shows. Check out Voices from Calgary, Alberta. We'll be back to Canada as soon as we can.

Hercules isn't slowing down too much. We're playing a show in April and a show or 2 in may then a short tour in June up to Midwest Fest and home. Playing with Bastard Noise in July then I'm sure we'll be booking up the rest of the summer soon. Another big tour in October. Possible split being worked out soon. Whammy.

Upcoming shows:

April 25th Lincoln, NE @ Ghost House w. Former Thieves, Bone Dance, Agress & Discourse

May 23rd Omaha, NE @ The Commons w. Foundation, Rotting Out, Backtrack, Harms Way & Feral Hands

June 2nd Sioux City, IA @ Legion Hall w. Life Won't Wait, Crooked Ways & more

June 3rd Minneapolis, MN @ The Beat w. Life Won't Wait, Crooked Ways, Nothing To Nothing, Everything Went Black & Arms Aloft

June 3rd Minneapolis, MN @ TBA *LATE SHOW* w. TBA

June 4th Minneapolis, MN @ MIDWEST FEST

June 5th Minneapolis, MN @ MIDWEST FEST

June 6th - 8th TBA w. AGRESS

June 9th Omaha, NE @ The Hole w. In Defence, Agress & High Dive

July 10th Lincoln, NE @ The Bourbon w. Bastard Noise & more!

www.myspace.com/herculesne for all dat info n shit

Waterloo, IA

2010-03-27T01:59:00.003-05:00

We had a day off yesterday so we went to Lawrence, Kansas and checked out a really sweet show @ The Replay Lounge w/ Former Thieves, Everything Went Black, Canyons & Battlefields. We met an awesome bum named PM who taught us a lot about picking up girls. He suggested licking them and telling them "girlllllllllll you taste like vanilla." He was probably the smoothest bum on a three wheel bike that I've ever met. The show was really awesome. Former Thieves is such a tight band. Not tight like slang, they legitly play their music great and they are TIGHT in that sense. Get it? Good. I don't know if I mentioned Matt left tour in Wichita. Give him shit about it 605-759-6235

After the show us, Former Thieves and Battlefields all crashed at our new buddies Will and Sam's house. Their in a band called Jabber Josh, check em out. Da Big Man and I crashed in the van due our cat allergies going fucking crazy after mere minutes of being in that house. I was having a real hard time breathing and went to sleep honestly wondering if I was going to wake up. We slept hard and woke up way too late so we had to get the boys goin and hit the road to Waterloo, Iowa. I don't have much to say about the drive because I slept the entire god damn time. Only things I remember is almost getting into a car wreck with a cop who slammed on his breaks to make a u turn and passing World's Of Fun.

The show in Waterloo tonight was so fucking sweet. Our good buddy Thomas from the incredible band Agress put it on for us at Amvets Post 19. We played with such a good band full of 16 year old kids called Build No System. They played heavy, fast hardcore and it made me bummed I was in White Collar Mercy when I was 16 and not in a good band. Our friends Lord Green played and they were fucking killer as always. Found out they're playing with us in Minneapolis tomorrow and I can't wait. We're actually all hanging out right now jamming Sabbath as some partake in the dope plant. A lot of good Iowa friends came out to the show tonight and it was so great seeing everyone. Midwest is the fest, fuck the world.

Tomorrow we play our last show of tour in Minneapolis. This tour has been so fucking awesome and it took us great places where we met the coolest people. We have a lot of shows coming up still. We're playing MIDWEST FEST this June and plan on playing some shows up to it and back home. Plus a ton of local shows and a big big tour in the fall that we'll know more about as the time get's closer. I'll do a nice tour wrap up when I get home on Sunday night. I'm excited to get back and see my girls. Not excited to go back to work but it's whatever. My 22nd birthday is on April 8th so throw me a party or something.

Speaking of birthday's...Tyler turned 22 about 2 hours ago. Everyone wish him happy birthday. 402-515-3847

Upcoming Hercules shows:

March 27th MINNEAPOLIS, MN @ The Rathole w. Lord Green, Dios Mio, Bring That Shit, and more!

April 25th LINCOLN, NE @ Ghost House w. Former Thieves, Agress, Bone Dance & Discourse

May 23rd OMAHA, NE @ The Commons w. Foundation, Rotting Out, Backtrack, Harms Way & Feral Hands

June 4th - 5th MILWAUKEE, WI *MIDWEST FEST*

June 9th OMAHA, NE @ The Hole w. In Defence, High Dive & more

July 10th LINCOLN, NE @ The Bourbon w. Bastard Noise

adding more shows up to Midwest Fest and back home to that In Defence show. Keep checking www.myspace.com/herculesne for all of that info. See you punks at home next week!

Wichita, KS

2010-03-25T03:57:00.002-05:00

After Reno we headed to play a gig in Ogden, UT. We were a little nervous because we've never had a good show in Utah and before this show had only actually played 1 out of the 3 times we'd gone. We rolled up to the venue The Basement and the show ended up being really cool. We played with One Clean Life, A Better Hope Foundation and Battle! It was a really fun time. After the show the owner took us to the basement and told us some creepy suicide shit that went down there years ago. He freaked me the fuck out. He told the stories like it was his god damn job or like he was a scary old timer in a horror movie. Was not into it.

After the show we were told we'd be staying with a pregnant lady. We got here number and shit got wild. Tyler couldn't understand a word she was saying and said it sounded like she was talking with her face in a pillow. After 15 minutes I decided to take over the phone and see what the fuck was up. I was on the phone with this girl and she was giving me North / South / East / West directions like I knew where the fuck I was. She finally says hold on and yells at someone in the background "CAN YOU GET OFF THE FUCKING PHONE AND TALK TO ME!?! TELL THESE GUYS HOW TO FUCKING GET HERE!" Cue the new guy. "SHUT THE FUCK UP AND TAKE CARE OF MOM! Hello? Hey dude it's probably not a good idea if you guys stay here." I replied "Alright man." He then started giving me directions . . .

I pulled up to a street I had to be on. I asked him what way to turn and he told me "just follow it." Then he started yelling at his sister or girlfriend or wife or whatever the fuck again. "So just follow that until you hit a 5 way stop and there will be a wal mart so just hit that up..." There was then a 15 second pause . . . "Yeah just hit up that Walmart. Well you can go straight there or not. Actually those directions suck. Just like follow that street until you see a Mexican restaurant then turn left on 85 or 89 or some shit, I donno. Hey you guys can stay here, people are trying to fucking sleep (after SCREAMING just seconds before?) alright? So yeah, just like left on 85 or 89 or some shit then like there will be train tracks maybe? Then just call me."

All of those directions took him around 10 minutes to explain to me. There were good pauses between all of those sentences. It was one of the hardest conversations I've ever had to deal with. We told the girl thanks but no thanks and we'd stay somewhere else. She told us her place was calm now and she was just pregnant. It was weird ass time. We ended up getting a single bed hotel room and crashing out. We had to wake up the next morning at 8:00am so we could get on the road to make the 9 hour trek to Denver, Colorado.

We had heard reports of some snow in Denver but were told by the promoter that things were looking good there. About 3 hours into the drive Battle told us (who had left the night before) that I-70 was closed and they were stuck at a gas station somewhere. Luckily we were taking a southern route and thought we'd be alright. At 5:30 I took over the wheel and we had 100 miles left to Denver. I'll tell you why we didn't make it to Denver until 11:00pm. We hit the mountains and the snow started getting hectic. There were points where I couldn't even see the road. To top it off it was windy as hell and icy as hell. There were 2 points where I actually thought we were sliding off of the mountain. After a hellish hour up there the real shit started.

After going into a tunnel we saw a dead stop traffic jam ahead of us. We ended up sitting in essentially one spot for 45 minutes and that wasn't the bad part. At this point we had only 30 miles left to go. By this point it was already 8:00pm and the show had already been called off due to the blizzard and unexpected foot of snow that hit Denver a day after it was 60 and sunny there. It took us 3 more hours to get to Denver. 2 and a half of those hours were us going between 8 and 12 mph down US-6. It took 2 and a half hours to drive 15 miles and that's without stopping. We were just driving that slow. Finally the traffic broke and we drove the last 15 miles to Denver. We stopped at saved the night by eating the best vegan buffalo wings in the world at City O City, then met up with our buddy Dave and fell asleep in preparation for another 8 hour drive.

Today we had an easy time getting to Wichita, Kansas where we played an awesome fucking show. So pumped to be back in Wichita and back in the Midwest. Our bud Phil @ 5nakeFork Records gave us a ton of copies of our new live tape "Skin Tight" and they look fucking great. Pick one up! After the show was some good burritos and good hanging at a party. Matt bid us farewell today and headed back up to Sioux Falls. Today is also our last day with Battle and we couldn't be more fucking bummed out. So we will finish the last 3 days of tour alone.

3.25 Lawrence, KS @ Replay Lounge *tba*

w. Everything Went Black, Former Thieves & Canyons

3.26 Cedar Falls, IA @ Amvets Post 19

w. Lord Green & Build No System

3.27 Minneapolis, MN @ The Rathole

w. Dios Mio, Bring That Shit & Animals and Beasts

The final day of tour is Tyler's birthday so we will be partying hard. Already making our plans for summer and fall tours. Hopefully leaving the country again on both of them. I found out I am going to Colombia with my girlfriend and her family for a week in August for free. I'm real excited to be leaving the country possibly 4 times this year. Tour life rules. Change your life and start a band, get a van and hit the road. There's nothing better. Hopefully there will be more updates before I'm home to do the tour wrap up post.

We'll be playing shows every month for probably the rest of the year so come out to them. Check the myspace for updates www.myspace.com/herculesne and be looking out for news on our new full length BOOK OF SPELLS that we hope to have released by years end.

Thanks for reading.

Reno, NV

2010-03-20T21:42:00.007-05:00

Why would we have a normal time? Other crazy shit has happened since my last update. We spent our day after our hell at the border in Seattle, Washington. Played a nice game of wiffle ball at Washington University right in the quad. It was a killer time. We had a show booked for a while at The Viaduct in Tacoma, Washington. With our great luck, all of the local bands dropped off the day before the show. We hung out for a while and ate some grub with some good buddies who came out from different cities in Washington to hang out and watch us play. There weren't a lot of people at the show but it was still a great time. I love that venue. I think going to Rain Fest there would be a really awesome time.

After the show the Hercules crew went to this really sweet gay bar right next to the Viaduct. We were hanging out having and a great time. We ended up meeting this lady named Jumapili (joo ma pee lee) and she invited us back to her house. Jumapili is a 43 year old women with long dreadlocks in her hair and she was really into Danny. We stop at 7 Eleven so she can buy some booze for the dudes to drink. We show up at her tiny house and at the same time her boyfriend shows up with his other girlfriend? It was a confusing situation. We all pile into a room that's probably 7x7 feet long to hang out. This other girl then starts to tell me her fucking life story and all of the crazy drugs she's addicted to. I have 10 minutes of video of this lady telling me about her ups and downs with coke, rehab and her therapist. It was the crazy shit ever and I cannot wait to tell you all.

Everyone got really drunk and high. Our buddy Jeff from HHTSHOTE drove 5 hours from some town in Washington just to hang out with us and it was awesome. Tyler got so drunk he spent most of the night puking in and sleep on the bathroom floor. As this is happening we're watching the new episode of South Park and Jumapili is telling us about her crazy life. Apparently she is the inventor of the image uploader that is used on myspace, facebook and countless other websites. She is a gulf war veteran and has been married 4 times. Now she lives with her boyfriend and I think his other girlfriend. It was a nutty time. We finally scooped Tyler off the bathroom floor and hit the road.

The next day we had a show in Portland, Oregon...or so we thought. We rolled early into Portland and hit up the incredible local spot Voodoo donuts. Me, Gabe and Matt got a Voodoo Dozen and it was truly fucking amazing. Probably the best donuts I've ever had. Crazy varieties, pretty much anything and everything you could imagine. Vegan donuts that Vic would have came for. We also hit up a Thai cart that had insanely good pad Thai. We cruised around downtown for a long time and finally stopped at one of the best record shops I've been to 2nd Ave Records. I had to get out of there because I could have easily spent over $1,000 on records right then. Here's where our day get's real interesting.

The promoter for the show wanted to meet up so we met her at 2nd Ave. After 5 minutes of a car ride with her it's already apparent that she's a little off. She keeps telling us she can't get a hold of the dude with a PA and can't get a hold of anyone with a key to the venue we're playing at. But she assures us that the show is still on. She also tells us after the show she is getting us food and a hotel room. We cruise around the city more and she just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Finally it's about 6:00pm and she tells us the show is definitely off and that she has to babysit her brother at 7:30...

We stop at the Satyricon to try and hop on a show but it wasn't looking good. She then tells us 20 minutes away in Vancouver, Washington there's a bands tour kickoff show that we can play. She also said it's perfect because it's close to her house so we can come over for food after. We load up and make the drive to this venue Pop Culture. It's like an old time soda shoppe and a venue as well. We're playing a show for Grab The Cameras cd release show. We're told we're going on last so we can just set up merch and hang out. We then sit through 3 hours of the worst metalcore I've heard since 2005. Every band has a weird light show and sounds pretty awful.

Finally the last band is done and it's time for us and Battle to set up. At this point the promoter girl is still not back at the show. We were wondering how she was planning on originally doing our show if she had to babysit her brother all night. To save time us and Battle decide to share equipment. We get all set up then the promoter for the metalcore show approaches us to tell us the show is over and we can't play. Apparently we were never supposed to play, we were just allowed to come there and sell merch...

We're all pissed as shit. I'm so mad I start smashing my head into signs until I get a nice cut up there. Riley is punching shit, we're honking horns, we're yelling, we're wondering where the fuck this girl is. Some friends of Matt's in Portland give him a call and ask him why we weren't at our original show. Apparently they showed up to the 1st venue and a lady was there saying there was supposed to be a show at 9 but the promoter didn't show up. I then get on our myspace and a band we got to play the Portland show messaged us pissed asking us why we didn't show up to the show tonight. So after 3 hours of metalcore and setting up our shit only to be told we couldn't play...our original show was on all along. We had a lot of Portland friends who were pumped to come to the show then were told at the door it was off.

We need some fucking answers so we decide to head to the promoters house (she still never showed up to the show...?). She told us to come on over because she made us fajitas. We show up there and tell her how we didn't get to play the metalcore show and that our original show was a go all along. She didn't understand ANY of that but at this point I was done with this girl. She also informed us that she was "really sorry" but she had eaten the fajitas she made for us. We had it so we took some food and hit the road. By the way...not hotel room.

On our way to Taco Bell we get pulled over for "suspicious activity" and our burnt out headlight. In seconds we are surrounded by 5 cop cars. After our experience at the border you could say we weren't too excited about the situation. One cop is taking all of the our info then another rolls up to the window. Matt is carrying what's left of our Voodoo donuts and the cop tells us they were all there because they smelled the donuts. We then start talking music and he's telling us how he's seen Rush 5 times and the first time was in Germany in 1986. The first cop is trying to be professional while this guy tells him "hold on I'm telling these guys a story." Basically this Rush cop saved us and we didn't get busted and were free to go.

During all of this that girl is texting Aaron, pissed that we didn't say goodbye. Apparently her parents saw that we were pulled over and she told us she was coming to find us. Terrified we hid out in a Fred Meyer's parking lot and saw her drive by in hot pursuit of us. It was scary shit and we all screamed as she drove by. Luckily an old friend who tried to go to our show got a hold of us to see what was up then said we could crash at his apartment. After 3 of the craziest days of our lives we finally got to hang out, eat pizza and just sleep.

Yesterday we played a decent show in Redding. We drove overnight to Reno where we're playing tomorrow. We had today off since the Set It Straight reunion canceled our show in Sacramento. We've spent today cruising Reno and are getting all dolled up to hit the streets and the Casinos hard in about an hour here. The trashiest place I've ever been in was a Mcdonalds we stopped at today. Crack head lady singing Incubus, a man with terrible burns and no eyes, bums as far as the eye could see and a 17 year old security guard reading the bible.

Time for me the shave up and get ready to party! I'll be home in a week. Until next time . . .

Born In The, USA

2010-03-17T12:37:00.000-05:00

ATTN: This will be a long read, but hopefully worth it!

So much has went down since my last post. Where do I begin? I'll start in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. We drove overnight from our show in Edmonton and got to Calgary real early in the morning. We stayed at a house with this band called Voices from Calgary who is AWESOME. Do yourself a favor and check them out right now. The next day we awoke and grubbed hard at Safeway. Matt and I spent a long time looking for Screamers. It's these incredible Canadian slurpees where you "drop the puck" and put a puck of vanilla ice cream in the slurpee. After that Matt and I hit the gym then headed back to Voices house, loaded up and went to the show.

>The drive into downtown Calgary was awesome. Such a rad city to be in. We played at this venue called The New Black Centre and it was probably one of the coolest venues I've been in. It was on these train tracks overlooking the city and it had huge perfect stairs to load up in. Calgary was easily the best show we've played so far and probably one of my favorite shows I've ever played on tour. A lot of kids came out and both us and Battle had really fun sets. After the show we ate at an amazing place called Tubby Dogs. They had vegan and regular hot dogs to eat plus any topping imaginable. Even peanut butter, jelly and cereal hot dogs. I got mine with a side of yam fires which were hands down the best fries I've ever had. Their onion rings looked like gigantic donuts. Out of this world late night food.

After Tubby Dogs we had to make a hellish 13 and a half hour drive from Calgary, Alberta to Langley, British Columbia. We left Calgary at 1:00am and drove through the Canadian rockies. All I can say is the drive was pretty awful. Hard to sleep and it seemed to never end. We finally rolled into Langley at 2:30pm and spaced off the entire day until it was time to play. The show was really weird and didn't even have a PA until 15 minutes before we played. The show ended up being a good time and we had fun screaming so loud after that a lady thought Matt and I were in a real fight.

>We left after the show and made the short drive into Vancouver to stay at the next venue we were playing at The Alf House. Everyone there was awesome and they led us to an amazing pizza place called Pizza Garden that used sesame seeds on their crust to make for amazing treat. After that we crashed out in anticipation to check out the great city of Vancouver. We awoke the next morning and got a great $2.95 breakfast at Bon's Off Broadway. Then it was time to explore the city. We split up to take a buddy to the airport and to legally purchase the dope plant. While some of us explored the city others enjoyed many of Vancouver's fine coffee shops. Matt and I walked down bum alley where Matt was approached and touched by a passing bum. Real scary shit.

On our away around the city in the Battle van we got to close to a Ford F1-50 and smashed their mirror with ours and completely ripped theirs off. Seconds later we saw a bum writhing in pain, grab his heart and fall on the ground. It was a lot to process in such a short amount of time. We checked out a lot of Olympic shit that was all around and it was really awesome. We finally met up with the boys at Crab Beach in the beautiful downtown. We cruised the city a little more together and yelled at some locals. Our buddies from The Alf House wanted to take us to another pizza joint called Fire Pizza. They also used sesame seeds on their crust and 2 slices and a soda was $1.25 cheaper than at Pizza Garden.

While eating pizza with friends a group of 15-20 cops formed across the street. It seemed strange but we didn't think anything of it. Suddenly we heard a huge group of people screaming at the top of their lungs. We look outside only to find a protest had formed right outside of the pizza shop we were at. It was a bunch of young punkers dressed in black. The sign they held read "COPS=PIGS=MURDERERS." As they chanted up the street Matt and Jim decided to join the protest and scream at the PIGS. We then listened as the protesters and local citizens clashed. We took the opportunity to take funny pictures in front of the protest and make a mockery of something these people actually cared about. I got great pictures and video I can show you all when I get home.

After that it was time for the show! We played at that sweet house we stayed at called The Alf House. The show was a really good time. Reminded me of going to shows at Ghost House pretty much. Got started real late and it was in a dusty old basement with some young punk rock hooligans. After the show we crashed out and awaited our last day in Canada. We woke up and hit up Bon's $2.95 breakfast again. Matt ran outside to grab something from the van and me, Gabe and Danny sat waiting for him to get back so we could pay for our bill. We finally just covered his portion when he didn't show up. We walked out to see what was going on only to see everyone else standing in front a 4 vehicle car wreck. Apparently an old lady thought the Battle van was leaving so she slammed on her breaks which caused 3 other people to slam on their breaks which caused everyone to crash. The last car was filled with 3 nuns who were screaming and crying while exiting the car. It was really intense. I think one of the nuns was injured pretty bad. Everyone kept telling the lady there's no way that the van was leaving and that she was nuts. A few people gave a statement to the cops then we were on our way.

Before we crossed the border we had to stop and exchange all of our money which took a lot longer than expected because we had to go to two different banks. After that it was USA bound. We got to the border around 3:00pm. I pulled up and handed the gentlemen our passports and our papers showing the shows we played in Canada. He threw the papers back at me and said he didn't need them. Then he told me to pull the van in a designated parking spot. Before I could even get the van into gear he told me "GO!" We pulled up to two more officers who seemed to think I didn't know how to follow a pointing finger or park a car. They kept yelling "THIS SPOT ON THIS SIDE! PULL UP TO THE WHITE LINE!" We exited the Winnie and they told us to leave our phones inside. I could tell at this point we were going to have an interesting experience trying to get back into our own country.

We went into the main building and stood in line for probably 30 - 45 minutes until it was finally our turn. I gave the cop a orange slip of paper that we received at the first stop. We were then told to take a seat and waited another long ass time before finally being called up. I filled out a single piece of paper for the band and the cop told me our merch wasn't a big deal and after he did some paper work we were free to go. After another long wait that cop told us he had other business to attend to and that we were getting assigned a new officer. After yet another long wait this new cop told us everything that guy told us and had us do was wrong so we had to re do it all. We all had to fill out new paper work and she told us we would be charged $11.00 to bring in our merch even though we originally got it in the states...it was a confusing ordeal. At this point Battle had already came in, gone through the line and left and they got there way after us. We knew at that point that something was wrong.

An officer with the K-9 unit told us he needed to have a word with us. He said he knew we were a band so knew that we were smoking in the van. He asked us if we had the day before and we said of course. He said that was fine and he understood we were in Canada. He then asked if his dog would find anything in the van and we honestly did not think he would so we said no. So he told us to wait while they searched the van. We could see them pulling everything out of the Winnie and toss all of our shit on the ground. It was raining outside and we figured that most of our shit was either wet or completely ruined. We figured we would be ok though because we cleaned out the van and thought any traces of the plant was long gone. After a while the K-9 officer came in holding a little bag and had a stern ass look on his face. He told us "didn't think he'd find it huh?" We looked in the bag that he was holding and it had probably 1 or 2 stems in there. We asked him what it was and where he found it. He took that as us being smart asses and got fucking furious. He told us we were "Americas finest" and that he couldn't wait to pat us down.

They finally started to take us into the back one by one. When you would go back there they'd take you into a holding cell and have you stand against the wall. Two officers then came in and one held your hands behind your back while the other officer handcuffed you. We were then deeply searched for probably 5 - 10 minutes. They even went through my hair for the better part of a minute. I felt like Saddam Hussein after the US caught him. They asked me why I had so much money on me and I told them it was the money we've made on tour and they didn't buy that. We all sat in there for a while then we were released on told to go back into the main hall and wait. Early word was that since I was driving they were going to give me a big fine. They took our ID's and then finally called us up to the front for our fate. The officer told us "We're not going to charge you with the stems, you guys are free to go." He then gave us comment cards, our passports and ID's and we were on our way outside. 3 fucking hours of being treated like shit then released just like that. The officer who gave me our passports told me "sorry about the wait."

We then walked outside only to find everything in our van all over the fucking ground. Aarons head was knobs down on the cement, my cab was sitting on it's side in a puddle of water, Danny's shit was all wet and our bags had all been gone through and fucked up beyond belief. The dudes outside didn't seem to interested in the fact that they had probably ruined all of our shit. We loaded up the Winnie then tried to leave the station. We got stopped again trying to leave because we didn't have this orange slip. Pissed off, we pulled over only to have someone finally wave us through and we were finally back in the USA. Welcome home, right? It was a pretty bummer ordeal and it put a damper on our spirits for the next few hours. Couldn't believe that we were waved into Canada and treated like complete shit trying to get back into the states. Played a cool show in Bellingham, Washington then drove an hour and a half to Seattle where I am right now typing this. Watching Saved By The Bell, waiting for Battle to pick up a friend then we're going to hit the city. Tonight we're playing @ The Viaduct in Tacoma. More updates soon.

*I guess in an earlier post I said WE dropped the N bomb and things got weird in Lethbridge, Alberta. It was the kids we were staying with who dropped it and we told them we don't say that and then things got weird. Sorry for the mix up*

Edmonton, AB

2010-03-12T21:31:00.002-06:00

Saskatoon had a wild turn of events. Riley from Battle and I played an open mic night. It's kind of hard for me to describe what I did. Basically I pretended I was this overly shy dude and I would mess up songs and get really mad at myself, tell uncomfortable stories, do really strange moves and was just an all around weirdo. You'll have to ask other people to get a better story. It was a hilarious time and I bummed out the girl who did open mic night REALLY hard. I ruined the one thing she has in her life I think.

Yesterday we played in Lethbridge, Alberta at this huge hall called the German Canadian Club. As we walked in a funeral was JUST getting over. It was so weird. There was just this grieving family getting drunk as kids set up their stuff and started playing. A lot of kids came out which was awesome. Played with 3 metalcore type bands. The mosh was hard. Us and Battle had a killer time hanging out in this huge hall and had an even better time playing. After the show we stayed at this kids apartment. We dropped the N bomb and things got really weird. Some of us ate at Dennys. Build your own grand slam - unlimited pancakes all night.

Today we are in Edmonton, AB. This place is HUGE! I had no idea. It looks like Los Angeles or something. There was a massage parlor (obviously a rub n tug center) that said "licensed by therapist" on the window but it was separated by some wood so it just read "LICENSED BY THE RAPIST." It was hilarious. We got a nice snap shot. We're playing at this community center. Tonight is probably the smallest show we've played in Canada so far but there's still like 20-30 kids here which is awesome since we've never been here before and we're from a different country. I know I'm forgetting a ton of funny stories but I suppose you'll just have to wait until we get home to hear them all. I'm getting some really good pictures. We're meeting a lot of bums of course but non have yet to wonder into our show and tell me they once played with Eric Clapton or something. There's a really good screamo band playing right now. Eat your heart out Matt Vicars.

Last night Matt and I cut ourselves and people were not into it. I touched a light that was 12 feet in the air. Tomorrow we're going to the home of one of my heroes Brett The Hitman Heart, Calgary Alberta. So excited. I hear he hangs out at malls so I'm gonna try and find him. If I do I'll lose my mind. I met him once when I was little but I didn't talk to him because I was terrified. If I do meet him do I tell him I watched his brother die? Hard to tell. Until next time . . .

Saskatoon, SK

2010-03-10T16:04:00.002-06:00

Absofuckinglutely nothing to do today in ol Saskatoon, SK. Played a sweet show last night at this venue called The Club in Regina, SK but every kid there was under 18, most likely lived with their parents and therefor could not give us a place to stay. We got drunk off pizza and cruised Regina looking for a place to stay. We finally found nothing so we made some calls and got a girl in another town to put us up for the night. We drove 4 hours overnight to Saskatoon, SK and showed up at this girls house at 6:00am only be to kicked out at 9:30am.

We left her house in search of the mall. Finally found it and cruised around there for the better part of 3 hours. After that we realized it was only 1 in the afternoon and we still had nothing to do. We went to Pita Pit where the girl we stayed with worked where she did not hook up free or cheap food sadly. Bummed, we decided to head to the Saskatoon Public Library where I have now been for the last 2 hours trying not to blow my brains out. Matt is reading a book and Satan and all of the pictures have been taken out of it. Gabe is reading a book about Scientology and Tyler has a 3 x 3ft book about outer space.

Canada is pretty awesome so far (besides today). Their slushies are way different than ours. They're a lot thicker and has a wild intense sugar taste to them. I can't stop drinking them down. Cherry Dr Pepper slushie = best thing ever. Metal Kin Kins, get up here on your blackened wings and pick one up, it will change you. I've also been eating Lays Ketchup flavored chips and they are the best thing in the world. They straight up taste like french fries dipped in ketchup.

We're having a blast (once again...besides today). Tomorrow we play in Lethbridge, AB and will be in Alberta for 3 days. Canada is just America with better treats, accents and Canadian flags everywhere. They of course have the craziest bums I've ever met. Here's a few quotes from one we met in Winnipeg...

1. I have to wipe my ass with this white shirt! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

2. I don't need a babe...baby...sit...sitt....AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

3. (referring to his 2 friends)....who are those gay boys over there?

4. Yeah I used to play in a band. What was it called? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

*quick update : right now in the library there is a bum passed out on a table and a security guard on the phone calling the real cops to come take care of him......more quotes...

5. You know Henry Armstrong? You know, he went to the fucking moon. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

6. CANNN YOUUUU DIGGGG ITTT MOTHA FUCKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7. I'm a street survivor. You guys got home, you got wives, you can kiss your own ass whenever you want. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

8. If Cheech comes back, tell him I went that way (then he walked into the venue)

Those are some of the wild quotes. After talking to us for a LONG time he finally walked away. Minutes later he approached Matt and I asking for a cigarette. He had completely forgotten that he had just been talking to us. Matt and I both got great video of him and a classic picture.

*that bum who is passed out is now trying to get woken up by his friend. I think he might be dead. He finally got up and walked away like he hadn't stood up for 30 years.

No idea where we're staying tonight. A roommate at the house we stayed at last night was pissed we were there so I don't think we'll be invited back. Dump life. Dead life. Shit life. Tour life. Ketchup Chips Life.

Winnipeg, MB

2010-03-09T02:28:00.002-06:00

Holy shit. Started our day off early around 9:00am. Gabe, Matt and I woke up to clean out the Winnefaygo. We knew if we didn't drug dogs were gonna swarm the van and we were going to jail in Canada. After 2 hours of hard cleaning we finally got the van looking the way we wanted it to. We loaded up, ate some Pita Pit then hit I-94 to get to Canada. The drive was wet, foggy and cold as hell.

We finally got to the border and had problems right off the gun. Due to Matt's past run ins with the law it was looking like he wasn't going to get into Canada. We were sitting there trying to figure out what we were going to do with Matt if he couldn't get in. He honestly shouldn't be here with us right now. The dude at the immigration building told Matt he was cutting him some slack and that he probably wouldn't be able to get into Canada next time.

We rolled into Winnipeg and met up with Battle. We still had 2 hours until we had to be at the show so we decided to hit the streets and check out Winnipeg. Stopped at a Subway to get this "sub sauce" that is only available in Canada. It. Was. AWESOME! Then we went to this underground shopping mall that spanned a couple of city blocks. It ended in a 4 story library that was one of the biggest buildings I've ever been in. Stayed there for a bit then hit the road back to the show.

We played at this sweet record store / venue below a coffee shop called War On Music. A ton of kids showed up which was really awesome. I don't think anyone enjoyed us or Battle but it's whatever. Played with a sweet straight edge band called Ill Faded. We of course talked to thee CRAZIEST bum ever in the history of bums. I took some video of him and will for sure show all of you when we get home. This guy could not talk at all and had been stabbed multiple times. Even in his mouth . . .

We're now at this house waiting to hit up Salisbury House which is basically just IHOP. I've been told by multiple Canadians that I have to try Lays Ketchup flavored chips and their slushies. I'm bummed that I won't get a quality burrito until I'm back in America. I was told Taco Bell here SUCKS and their Mountain Dew doesn't have caffeine! What a wild place. Tomorrow we have a long ass drive to Regina, Saskatchewan. Having a great fucking time.

Read this article about Hercules from Naked City Magazine out of Wichita, KS

http://www.nakedcitywichita.com/2010/03/05/hercules-omahardcore/

Moorhead, MN

2010-03-08T00:11:00.004-06:00

What an interesting first day of tour. The drive started out great with a lot of laughs and I slept most of the time so it went by relatively quick. I was smart and brought my mini dvd player along with some great movies to get through these long van drives. Today I passed the time watching Grandmas Boy and it was a delectable treat. First drive of tour had some problems for each band. Battle blew a tire and had to patch it up at a Flying J and we were seconds away from running out of gas as we putted into Fargo.

The show tonight was at The House of Wang and it was a great time. We missed the first band due to us trying to find gas for the ol Winnefaygo. Battle was incredible and Life Won't Wait was fucking awesome, I picked up their new EP "Drifter" and it's really goood. Check it out.

After the show a huge snowball fight ensued between everyone at the show. Things got wild and Matt jumped off of the van into a snow drift so I decided to give him a big elbow drop from the top into that same drift. A lot of snow and ice balls were thrown and now my clothes and shoes are soaking wet. Matt and I hit up the grocery store for some food then went over to Fargo to fax some paperwork to get into Canada tomorrow. The store we stopped at was "White Drug Pharmacy"......blew my mind.

Tomorrow we get into Canada (hopefully). Gotta clean out the Winnefaygo in the early morning then head up to the border. If all goes smoothly we'll be playing in Winnipeg tomorrow night and be in Canada for the next week. AT & T is going to charge me $0.29 a minute to make a phone call and $0.50 a text message so I will be turning my phone off Monday the 8th - Tuesday the 16th. You can get a hold of me at www.myspace.com/treefort or herculesnebraska@hotmail.com. Send me cool pictures and keep me updated on life. I'll be lurking the Nebraska DIY board so make it good.

I'll keep the corner updated in Canada. Keep checking back for updates.

Omaha, NE

2010-03-06T11:27:00.003-06:00

Tour kicked off last night and in an amazing way. The show absolutely ruled. A ton of young kids came out and that got me really excited about the future of punk rock in Nebraska. Borealis kicked off the night and they shredded hard. They played some new songs that sounded great so I will be real excited for a future release from them. After 45 minutes Worst Of Times finally took the stage and opened up with a creepy sample from The Exorcist 2. Spooky P claimed his throne as the scariest dude in hardcore. He looked like he wanted to kill absolutely everybody. They were heavy and I fell on my head after a botched stage dive. Worth it.

Next was the boys from Gator land, Battle. Their new guitarist Dave shreds hard as fuck! He's a cool dude and I'm glad he's not creepy or a possible axe murderer. They played new songs off of their 7" Closer/Further that were punishing, riffy and fast as hell. I am really excited to spend the next 3 weeks with these dudes. They told me of a concoction in Canada of fries, cheese and gravy that I have to try. I'm bummed on the lack of burritos available in Ye Ole Canada but I'll just have to find a new food love.

Finally it was our turn to play and it was a nutty time. The sound at The Hole is really awesome (on stage at least) and I could feel the vibration of the speakers rattling my insides and I loved every second of it. I saw multiple people get crushed by the swarm of push moshing, stage dives and all out mania. We played hard and had a great time. I was pleased.

Next to seasoned vets Cordial Spew took the stage. I was pissed that a ton of people left but in their defense the show started around 8:30 and it took 5 bands until nearly 1:00am to play. A real late night but those who stuck around for the Spew got a front row seat to a great performance. I'm 100% positive that the villain from The 5th Element was at the show in 2 studded belts dancing like a nut job. Scared the living hell out of me but I told people to bring the freaks and they did.

The night ended right at Alvarados. Now today we're sticking around Nebraska to catch JVA, Fireworks, Saves The Day and New Found Glory @ The Bourbon in Lincoln. Then tomorrow we load up in our trusty lady The Winnefaygo to head out for 3 weeks of bliss. We'll be in Canada Monday, I hope to bring you great stories.

For up to the minute updates follow me at www.twitter.com/bigcoolscorner then come back here to get the full story.

Ta ta,

Big Cool.

tour in 2 weeks

2010-02-21T19:17:00.003-06:00

The midwest warriors of wizardry, Hercules are hitting the road two weeks from today. Our tour kickoff show is . . .

Friday, March 5th @ The Hole
712 S 16th ST Omaha, Nebraska
All Ages 7:30pm $5 admission

- HERCULES
- BATTLE!
- BOREALIS
- WORST OF TIMES
- CORDIAL SPEW

Still have a lot to get done but we're making progress. The company pressing Bring Me Power told me we'd get our test presses on the 12th and we still don't have them. So now tomorrow I have to get on the phone and be stern but fair in order to get our records on or before March 5th.

The covers fro Bring Me Power are looking really awesome. Mitch drew them and Aaron is coloring them, real physchadelic. I just finished up the inserts yesterday and our main man Arman is going to put some finishing touches on the amazing picture we took for it. Thanks to Jake Baby J for picture assistance, Lucas and Mitch for the cover help and Keith from Nebraska's own www.crucialchanges.blogspot.com for agreeing to print the inserts for us.

Read often for great stories. I will have up to the minute posts on my twitter @ www.twitter.com/bigcoolscorner then you can come here later for the full story.

cold car doors

2010-02-08T09:19:00.001-06:00

Got woken up @ 7:30am today to Kailey asking me to take her to school because her latch on her car door was frozen. Get the baby up, go out to the car, pry open my freezing door...it also won't latch. Currently at Kailey's Dad's house warming my car up in the garage and hoping the WD-40 I sprayed on there will do the trick. Starving, work in 40 minutes. Still not dressed and the baby still not at daycare..shit.

Tour in a month. Follow Hercules on twitter www.twitter.com/herculesne / also check out all of our shit we have coming up on myspace - www.myspace.com/herculesne

7" Cassette Comp Tour

2010-01-28T00:09:00.003-06:00

Cool new stuff going on in the Hercules universe:

BRING ME POWER
New 7" being released on Nihilism Records on 3.05.10
www.myspace.com/nihilismrecordsne
4 songs about trippin, witches, spooky islands and a Black Sabbath cover
200 on purple/green split colored vinyl

Side A)
01. Forest Fryer (1:37)
02. Wicked Witch (1:18)
03. Island Of The Eyes (3:03)

Side B)
04. Lord Of This World (5:50)

SKIN TIGHT
Live cassette tape being released on 5nakefork Records on 3.05.10 www.myspace.com/leavenworthks
13 tracks from our first two releases and plenty of jokes

01. The Birth Of Cain
02. Haggard Pits
03. Moon Riders
04. From The Mold
05. Time Wasted
06. You Can' Talk If You Don't Camp
07. Time Wasted
08. Robin Hoodlums
09. Sewer Scum
10. He's Here
11. Left Behind
12. Concrete Wave
13. If You Got The Stash, We Got The Cash

Also our song "If You Got The Stash, We Got The Cash" from MOON RIDERS is available online through THE GHOST IS CLEAR RECORDS "The Mary Janet In Music : Vol 1"

Bring Me Power 7" / Skin Tight live tape / Online Comp

We will have two new releases for our tour in March with Battle from Gainesville, FL. Both will be available at our tour kickoff show Friday, Marc 5th @ The Hole in Omaha, NE w. Battle, Borealis, Cordial Spew and Worst of Times.

BRING ME POWER
7" vinyl record
3.05.10 on Nihilism Records (www.myspace.com/nihilismrecordsne)
Songs about trippin, witches and spooky islands

A SIDE)
01. Forest Fryer
02. Wicked Witch
03. Island Of The Eyes

B SIDE)
04. Lord Of This World (originally by Black Sabbath - 1971)

200 on green / purple split color vinyl

SKIN TIGHT
Live tape
3.05.10 on 5nakefork Records (www.myspace.com/leavenworthks)
Assorted songs from our first two releases and plenty of jokes

01. The Birth Of Cain
02. Haggard Pits
03. Moon Riders
04. From The Mold
05. Time Wasted
06. You Can' Talk If You Don't Camp
07. Time Wasted
08. Robin Hoodlums
09. Sewer Scum
10. He's Here
11. Left Behind
12. Concrete Wave
13. If You Got The Stash, We Got The Cash

Also our song "If You Got The Stash, We Got The Cash" from MOON RIDERS is available online through THE GHOST IS CLEAR RECORDS "The Mary Janet In Music : Vol 1"

http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnRoZWdob3N0aXNjbGVhcnJlY29yZHMuYmFuZGNhbXAuY29t

1. Bleeding Kansas - Lucky 03:57
2. Canyons - Nate Jameson 04:00
3. Doubt - Quick Mouth 02:01
4. Hammers - Snow 03:14
5. Foreign Theaters - Cycles 01:54
6. The Pick Up - The Amazing Hoax 03:01
7. Recession - Manifest Destiny 02:08
8. Illustrations - Violence 03:36
9. Lord Green - Higher Than God 04:45
10. Prize Country - I Could Be A Knife 03:52
11. Ghost Town Electric - Atomic Temple 03:25
12. Across Tundras - Weary Travellers Rest (Exclusive Demo Version) 05:01
13. Hercules - If you've got the Stash we've got the Ca$h 02:22
14. Isolation - Brazen Bull 04:26
15. Creeper - Brannigan 02:04
16. Cower - Here Comes the Sunn 02:39
17. Jument - Branches Above 03:10
18. Cloud Mouth - Flex Yr Head (Live @ WHPK) 02:59
19. The Farley Overdose - Buzzard Gut 03:06
20. Bone Dance - Nom De Guerre 02:15
21. Benoit - Alone I Dream 02:07
22. Fight Pretty - Nightwalkers 03:23
23. Altered State - Guillotine Proof 06:10
24. Badmouth - Nostrildamus 01:16
25. The Burden - Swastika 02:33
26. Dead Heroes - Heartache 03:57
27. CTL - Forever 02:08
28. Burn Idols - Mindfuck 01:25
29. Girls of Porn - Bong Rips / Big Tits 06:44
30. Casting Curses - Hey Disbeliever 03:08
31. Anxiety Attack - Planet Piss 02:16
32. The Love Below - Serious Delerium 01:07
33. Tragic Ends - Broken Fingers 01:10
34. Capsize - Nothing Changes 04:30
35. No Discretion - Cold World 01:43

Our Midwest / Canada / West Coast tour with BATTLE starts Friday, March 5th @ THE HOLE in Omaha, NE w. Borealis, Cordial Spew & Worst Of Times

TOUR DATES POSTED ON OUR MYSPACE PAGE:
www.myspace.com/herculesne

Recording Day 2

2010-01-10T17:27:00.002-06:00

We had a wild enough time getting over to Suitcase Recordings today. Had a guy come straight for us on a one way street, got stuck turning onto 43rd and slid backwards down a hill when we were literally 30 feet from our turn. After the winnefaygo finally made the trek to Suitcase it was time to start some vocals. Tyler was up first and laid then down 1-2-3-4 without any big mishaps. Next we did our individual backups, then made some scary noises then group vocals were last. Things are going really good so far. A sample we were going to use from Stranger Than Fiction ended up not working out due to too much background noise. Right now we're watching some extreme sports on tv waiting for a hockey game to come on while Marc mixes everything we recorded. Hoping to get everything done tonight so we can send out the final mix tomorrow to start the process of getting it pressed. Hopefully we can have it out by March 5th for our tour kickoff show...

Friday, March 5th, 2010
@ The Hole (16th and Leavenworth Omaha, NE under convicted skate shop)
All Ages 7pm $5
- Hercules
- Battle
- Borealis
- Worst Of Times
- Cordial Spew

come out.

Recording Day 1

2010-01-09T18:32:00.002-06:00

Today Hercules is recording our 7" that still does not have a name. We got to Suitcase Recordings here in Omaha around 12:30 today. We all ate some lunch and Danny set up his drums. There were some technical difficulties with a microphone cord that delayed us by a few hours. Finally started tracking drums at around 4:30pm. After drums got going they went pretty smooth. It's now 6:30pm and Aaron is in the isolation room getting ready to lay down his bass tracks. Then I'll go last and put down my two guitar tracks and we'll call it a night probably around 10-11 I'm sure. I'm hoping we can catch a late showing of Youth In Revolt at that new theater at Midtown Crossing. Tomorrow we're doing vocals and mixing all day and will wrap up late tomorrow night.

Today has been spent on the internet, drinking Cherry Dr. Pepper, reading assorted copies of Maxim and Rolling Stone, eating too many spicy sweet chili doritos dipped in salsa con queso, dancing, partaking in the herb for some of us, watching true life and jamming tunes. I've been taking a fair amount of pictures and I will post those up for the 7 people who read this sometime tomorrow if I can find the proper cord to do so.

A SIDE)

01. Forest Fryer
02. Wicked Witch

03. Island Of The Eyes

B SIDE)
01. Lord Of This World (Black Sabbath cover)

Aaron is now tracking Lord Of This World. Time to give it a listen.

fear the new year

2009-12-31T13:10:00.004-06:00

My last post of 2009 isn't a positive one. All I've seen through out this year is the slow decay of everything I've been working for since I started playing in bands when I was 10 years old. Ever since then music has been a builder of friendships and community. It's opened my eyes to so many amazing ideas and better yet, amazing people. It taught me how to be a good person and not to follow all of the things we get force fed growing up. It gave me my own mind and better yet taught me to stand on my own even when everyone around me was telling me I was wrong.

Now nearly 12 years later all I am seeing is all of that fading away. People growing up and falling off because they never really cared about this anyways. I thought most of the people I knew were different than that. I thought we were all in this together until someone came and ripped it from our dead hands. But now we're getting less and less interested in working to keep this together. Some people are still doing what they can but lately it seems like nothing will work. Omaha stays in Omaha and Lincoln stays in Lincoln.

I could be making mountains out of molehills and maybe over exaggerating one little event, but it's a series of little events that have made this hole in what we cared about so much. Friendships are dying and no one seems to notice. It hurts a lot because when this is dead what are we going to have left? Just empty, destroyed houses with faint reminders of what was once accomplished by a group of poor kids that the world didn't give a fuck about. What are they searching for as they all fall out? A career? Security? In these times I think that we should be more concerned about our happiness and less concerned about our wallets. Just because the world around us is falling apart doesn't mean that we have to.

2010 is looking bleak to me.

Shows - Downloads - Weekends

2009-11-24T16:52:00.006-06:00

Hercules is playing 3 shows in December around the midwest! If you live near any of these towns, come out to the show!

Friday, December 18th Omaha, NE @ Sokol Underground

with : The Heat Machine (CD RELEASE) Artillery Funk & The Bishops

Saturday, December 19th Cedar Falls, IA @ The 1108 House
with : Agress, Caulfield & Dead Heroes

Sunday, December 20th Sioux Falls, SD @ Middy Mansion

with : Worst Of Times, Caulfield & Dead Heroes

Also you (meaning the 6 people who look at this blog) can download the newest Hercules full length "Moon Riders" (released 06.11.09 on Nihilism Records - www.myspace.com/nihilismrecordsne) for free by going to www.mediafire.com/hercules

tell all of your friends to download it. pass it around if you feel like it!

On a personal note, things are going awesome right now! I am in Omaha today using the internet, eating at my parents then going to the dudes house to soundproof our practice space and have Hercules and Koizumi practice. I am currently on a 3 day weekend from work which is really awesome. This whole Thanksgiving weekend is going to rule. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving 1 in York with my dads family, Thursday is Thanksgiving 2 in York with my moms family (Lyndsi, Kailey and Dani will also be attending!) Friday at midnight is the bar then the casino for Gabes 21st birthday, Saturday is Punxgiving and Touche Amore @ Ghost House and Sunday is Phobia @ Ghost House! What a weekend I have coming up!

Pumped on life. Still have no money but I never do so fuck it!

LincOmaha

2009-11-17T13:25:00.005-06:00

I haven't made a post in over a month. Things have drastically changed since I got home from tour at the end of September. I quit my jobs at Coco Key Water Resort and Godfather's Pizza. I first quit Coco Key but still stuck around at Godfather's for a few weeks. We decided to move out of the Float Crib at the end of October so I quit one job to search for a new place to live and a new place to work. I ended up moving in with Kailey in Lincoln and got a job pretty fast at Jimmy Johns. I moved here October 19th, right after I got over my mono and have been hanging out and working ever since.

I am also the most broke I have been since before I started working when I was 14. I have had $1 in my bank account for the last week and a half and that is the only money that I have. Touring 3 and a half months this year plus moving plus bills has put me in a terrible money situation. But I'm working and I will bounce back, I always seem to. But things have been really rough the last month money wise. Haven't had money to get back to Omaha much which sucks because I really miss it there.

Thought I wanted a break from booking tours, but after almost two months of being home I'm already itching to get started on the next one. And luckily for me, that's exactly what I am doing! Hercules and Battle are going to road dog together again in March! This time hitting up the Midwest, Canada and the West Coast! I am really excited to hang out with those dudes again and am really excited to tour in Canada. Hercules is working on getting either a 7" or at least a CDR of some new songs and a Black Sabbath cover released by this tour. Really excited to be writing, recording and touring again. It's what I love to do!

Been in a real good mood lately, things are looking up. Want to start making money and get back to Omaha more often then things will be perfect!

Mono

2009-10-13T14:01:00.002-05:00

I can't believe this shit. So I'm still dealing with what originally was thought to be an abscess on my tonsils, that is not the case at all. I was prescribed an antibiotic by the hospital to help my swelling go down. The next day I went to an ENT (ears, nose, throat) doctor to get my abscess drained. He stuck a needle in my neck but nothing would come out and he was saying he was not convinced that this was an abscess. He told me he thought it was some sort of virus that my body was going to have to get over itself. He told me to keep an eye on it and call him in the morning. During all of this I also developed a cold and was having high fevers everynight before I went to bed.

The next day all of my swelling was the same and I didn't feel better so I went back into the ENT and he told me he was sure it was mono. We didn't do a mono test because he said it takes a week to get back and it would cost me too much money to find out for sure. He told me to keep taking my antibiotics and just let the mono do it's thing. The day I got done taking my antibiotics I broke out in the most ridiculous rash I have ever seen. This rash goes from my feet all the way up to my skull. It itches, burns and hurts. I am honestly more rash than skin right now, I look like a ginger freak. I woke up with this and decided to go into the hospital to see what the hell was going on. The doctor did a mono test and confirmed that I do have mono. He told me this rash was caused by my antibiotics I was taking. He also told me taking those antibiotics was completely pointless since I did not have a tonsil abscess.

So here I sit, dealing with this for the last week and a half, now with a rash I got because I took medicine I didn't need to be taking. Here's the real kicker...I will have this rash for 7-10 days. And if I have it longer than that I have to go back into the doctor. The doctor at the hospital in Lincoln told me he got mono when he was in his 20's and he had it for 2 months. Symptoms can come and go at anytime so basically I could feel better then just get all of these symptoms again a week later. The only light at the end of this dark, dark tunnel is that after I'm over it I just have the mono virus forever and can never get this again. Again, I can't believe this shit.

Abscess

2009-10-05T00:53:00.002-05:00

This all started with me finding a huge lump on my neck Sunday night. I thought it was weird but I didn't think much of it. After talking to a few people who had similar things I wasn't worried and just figured it was no big deal. Thursday I woke up with a little bit of a sore throat but I usually get those when it gets a little colder out so once again didnt think anything of it. Friday brought some swelling and a weird pus filled sore in my throat. I q-tipped some of the pus out of the sore and it literally smelled like human shit was in my mouth. It was awful.

Saturday I woke up in extreme pain and my neck was now swollen in a few different places. I decided that Monday I should go into the doctor because this was looking pretty bad. I went itno work Saturday night and noticed my pain was getting worse and my throat swelled even more. At the very end of my shift I started getting shooting pains in my ear and I knew I had to get something done. After work I decided I couldn't let this slide and went into the emergencey room.

When I arrived I should a nurse my huge swollen neck and my pus filled sores and she was horrified. In fact, everyone I showed was horrified. I was told multiple times that you're not supposed to see swelling outside of the neck with things like this. They said they needed to do a cat scan. During the scan I had iodine pumped into me to see if I had an abscess in my throat or not. I was luckily warned of this before it happend but when they pumped it into me my body got super hot and it felt like I was just pissing in my pants the entire time, it was a really strange feeling.

After my cat scan Kailey came up from Lincoln to hang out with me at the hospital and it ruled, made me feel a lot better. She called my mom and my parents decided to come up to hang out as well. After waiting for about an hour after my cat scan the doctor finally came in and told me that I have an infected abscess in my throat. The only way to really get rid of this is to cut open and drain the abscess. Unfortunately for me the pocket of infection hasn't fully formed so I have to wait until tomorrow (Monday) to get it cut open. I have to get up at 7:00am tomorrow to call a Ear, Nose and Throat doctor to try to get in. If I can't get into there I have to go back to the emergency room to cut sliced and drained.

Luckily I went in when I did though. The swelling was so huge that is was putting pressure on my windpipe and if I didn't go in it could have swollen my windpipe shut which would obviously kill me. That was wild news to get. I got some medicine to take for the swelling and it has gone down a bit today and the pain isn't nearly as bad. It's 1:05am right now and I can't really sleep because I have absolutely no idea what to expect tomorrow. I was told they would cut it open and drain it but I have no clue what that process is like. I hope everything goes well. This is all a huge bummer.

Home For A While

2009-09-30T15:39:00.002-05:00

Moving out of The Float Crib this month. Not sure where I am moving to. Not sure where I am going to work. Not sure what I am going to do. Things will work out as they should.

Go Big Red

2009-09-27T02:30:00.002-05:00

What can I say on my 70th post about tonight? I guess I can be cliche and start from the beginning. Gabe picked me up and we rolled over to the manor where Jay's younger sister hosted her birthday party. Imagine any college movie party you've seen and set it in the manor with our friends strategically placed throughout the party like hobo streamers. Bumping' beats provided by a DJ, green lights to set the mood and more booty dancing and break dancing than you can handle. No one knew who any of these people were or where they came from. But we knew they were there to get drunk, smoke weed and grind their dicks on ass or ass on dicks.

The night rolled on and it fucking sucked the whole time. I even heard a go big red chant, and not in the funny way like when we chant "USA!" at ghost house. Real, heartfelt chants to the gods of the grid iron more commonly referred to as the black shirts. Gabe, myself and a handful of others decided to seek sanctuary in his room and spend our Saturday wrecking Liberty City on Grand Theft Auto 4. It was a great fucking time, eons better than the lame ass party that raged beneath our feet.

Just as I blew a cops head off (on grand theft auto) Joey walked up to tell us that the cops were here. They were let in by two histerical girls who were not ok with the idea of not allowing the police to come into your house. You don't have to let them in. They busted in and honestly said "OH NO IT'S THE COPS!" just like in Super Bad, or was it Super Troopers? Either way, Cody looked outside only to tell us that there were 3 cop cars, oh wait here comes a 4th, never mind here comes a 5th! Five goddamn cop cars lined up outside of the manor ready to crack some fucking minors domes. Two cops entered Gabe's room and asked us who lived there. Gabe looked around for a bit as if to think that one of us may decide to lie and fess up to cover him. He finally approached the cop and told him that he lived there. The cop asked 3 or 4 times if this was a frat house which blew my mind (do we look like we live in a fucking frat?) .

Time passed as weed and pipes were confiscated from unsuspecting teenagers trying to let out some steam after this weeks grueling school week. Some left in tears, one left in the back of a cop car. As we sat and watched the scatter out on the street another cop entered Gabe's room with the same old questions. He asked us if we were smoking weed then pointed directly at Marc and said "you've been in the weed room." We all laughed and asked him what the fuck that meant to which the cop replied "come on guys, he's obviously been in the weed room." A total mind fuck of ungodly proportions. We laughed, talked about all of the wild shit assorted people saw then decided to head to Rados then call it a night.

Home From Tour Again

2009-09-26T02:34:00.002-05:00

Didn't really do a home from tour post. Pretty much got home and was thrown back in to working a lot and having a ton of shit going on when I'm not working. I put my two weeks in at Coco Key on Monday and my last day is a week from today. That will be awesome not working that job anymore because it literally took my soul away, that's the only way to describe it. I don't know what my deal is, I once was content with working but the older I get the more I hate it. It's one of the reason I am usually in a bad mood. I've had a lot of bad shit happen to me this year and being at work reminds me of standing there in one place for 8 hours thinking about all of my problems and having nothing to keep me occupied from them. It's a real mentally draining job.

Now I have other bad shit going on right now. I am ruining good things around me being in a shit mood but I literally can't stop. My problems are just going to wear me down and put me in an even shittier place. I've tried having a positive outlook and I can't, even when I have things going great in my life. Always focusing on the negative. Feeling so unmotivated lately. Feeling alone when I'm clearly not. This has simultaneously been the best and worst year of my life.

Man Vs. Food

2009-09-17T11:15:00.002-05:00

So tour is dwindling down to the last couple of days here and I can't lie, I'm pretty bummed out. We've had a killer time. I wish I could have had more internet access because I didn't get to post very much and because of that I couldn't share so many great stories with the people who actually read this when I'm gone. But I do miss my friends, kailey, dani and my family a whole lot so coming home won't be bad at all. If I didn't have to head back to work two jobs then it would be great but if life was that easy I wouldn't know what to do.

We had our show in St Louis get canceled yesterday...kind of. Pretty much just got stood up which sucks but that's the only time a show got canceled on this tour which is great luck for us who are use to having like a week off straight on tour. I really miss hanging out with the Battle dudes but we discussed a midwest / canada tour in the springtime so I really hope that happens because I need to see those dudes again. I don't think driving down to play an after party around the fest with them is going to happen because a few of us have some "other" halloween plans. Muahahahahaha!

Today we're playing a show I've been looking forward to for a while in Normal, Illinois. Our buddy Randle's band "Dripping Slits" is playing and with a name like that they've got to be wild. It's at a venue I've heard about for a while called The Kitchen so I am excited to play there and hang out. I always love getting back into the midwest where people are nice and normal because every show you play is just with a ton of friends so it rules. Tomorrow is Iowa City then Saturday is Des Moines where some friends from Nebraska are going to come out to. I am really excited to see everyone and hang out. I'm always weird the first little bit seeing everyone because for a month a I walk into a room, know no one and get looked at weird then suddenly I walk into a room and all of my best friends are there, it's a wild, fast transition.

So right now I'm sitting in a gigantic house in St. Louis with a gigantic dog named Miss Jenkins, just did some laundry, gonna shower, shave, clip my toenails, maybe exfoliate? Things are looking up in the world of hygene for me. Didn't have much to say in today's blog, just kind of a pre-recap for I do my final one of tour. Excited to get home and see all of your poor freaks. We will hang out real hard.

Warren! We're Going Streaking! Let's Go!

2009-09-16T06:04:00.002-05:00

Tour ended with Battle on Sunday morning and we were all really fucking bummed to leave those dudes. We had great times. Stayed at a parents house for a few days and were destroyed with unlimited free food and soda. Played a church in Ft Myers that gave us unlimited free food and soda as well. Florida was an incredible time and I will miss it dearly. If you haven't checked out Battle do it now @ www.myspace.com/battle they're one of the most legit bands around right now, hands down.

Over the past two days we've had two hellish 8 hour drives. The first to Birmingham, AL and the second to Mountain Home, AR. Last night in Mountain Home we slept in the back of a dog grooming shop called Dog Gone Pretty. It was fucking wild. Woke up to 4 different older women grooming dogs and asking us a ton of questions about why we were there. We decided to get out of there as early as we could, hit Taco Bell and then get on the windy road to Springfield for our show @ The Outland with Suzi Trash.

Rolled into Springfield around 3:45 and met up with our best buddy Warren who was ready as shit to party. He took us to a strip club called The Pony where the dudes got bombed ass wasted while Matt and I saw who could hold different body parts over candles longer. I witnessed a stripper fall down and hurt her wrist so bad that she had to stop. Another stripper had vampire teeth. The guys ended up hanging out with the strippers and getting their numbers to hang out later. We hit the road so Warren could open up The Outland for us. The show was really rad and we saw a ton of old friends which was fucking awesome!

After the show things got really wild. Everyone kept drinking and finally Tyler decided to get naked and streak around downtown Springfield. There was a good 5 minutes Tyler was gone and no one could see him. He said he ran around, gave a point to every car he saw and high fived a guy. Later on a taxi cab driver drove by, stopped, backed up and told Tyler "I remember you!" We hung out with a few more local crazies and The Machete Archive who happend to be playing about a block away from us which was absolutely nuts! The bar closed and we hung out in back while the guys waited for our new friends from The Pony.

The strippers arrived and we came back to Warrens. They all went swimming at Warrens parents house. I stayed here to play guitar and have nothing to do with that hahahahaha but I know everyone is having a great and wild time. It's currently 6:15am and they are still gone. I'm sure they will have some insane stories to tell me when they get back, I think I am going to wait up for them so I can hear the tales while they're fresh in their heads.

We're supposed to play in St.Louis today but no one in Suburban Smash will return any of my emails to tell me if we have a show or not so I think we're just going to hang out with our friend Christie. I'm hoping to do some laundry and take a shower. Also I'm really hoping to eat Chipolte today at some point. I hope all of that could happen! 3 more shows of tour...

09.17 Normal, IL @ The Kitchen
09.18 Iowa City, IA @ PS1
09.19 Des Moines, IA @ The Haunted Basement w/ Thunderbolts!

Then we're playing at Ghost House Friday September 25th w/ Rotting Out, Expire and many more awesome bands. Home on Sunday. This tour has fucking ruled!

Dooze Or Looze

2009-09-07T09:30:00.002-05:00

We can't come to Jacksonville without having a wild time. We drove 7 and a half hours overnight from North Carolina to Flordia. It wasn't too bad because I just mouth quivered the entire time. Rolled in Jax at around 7:45am and instantly went to sleep. Had a really nice chill day just doing laundry, showering and watching How It's Made and Man Vs. Food. The show was at Doozers Pub, a place we played in February with The JV All*Stars. Before the show we went to Hip Hop Chicken and ABC Liquour to get the night going. The show seemed like no one was going to come to it then all of a sudden later in the evening people started pouring in.

All of the bands were really sweet. Played with a surf punk band called Gnarly By Nature who was awesome. When we played things got really wild and the push mosh was set to extreme. I saw a girl get knocked right to the floor and Tyler attempted to help her and then moved on before she actually got up. Battle's set was of course incredible, they have become one of my favorite bands in hardcore right now, check them out! Robbie (LHLL) played a sweet set for arguably the biggest crowd. Another sweet sludgy band who kept quoting East Bound and Down called "Legacies" played and they were awesome even through the barage of drunk slander.

After the show the boys got tanked and things got wild. When everyone had cleared out of the bar for the night all that were left was the Hercules crew, Robbie, the bartender of Doozers and the old guy who sand "Zombie" by The Cranberries last time we were here in February. We were jamming and doing Karoke to songs by the greats like Slayer, Pantera, Fear and some band who covered "Baby Got Back" nu metal style. We were circle pitting, moshing around, screaming, air guitaring and head banging all with two 40 year old men. Dooze or Looze was the slogan on the door, and we followed it's war cry. Then it was finally time to hit the road and see what the night had to offer.

We drove 30 minutes across Jacksonville and went to one of the local beaches. The water was surprisingly warm which was really nuts to me. Everyone got in the water except for me, I decided to stay back and watch everyones clothes who decided to skinny dip in the ocean. Some girl was taking pictures of everyone and other people would just laugh uncontrollably when everyone would walk by. At about 3:00am we finally left the beach and hit up McDonald's to get large fries and coke's that tasted like a chemical bath. We're in Florida for the next week, we jumped on some shows on a Thick As Blood / Endwell / Lionheart tour which should be really interesting.

Tonight we play @ The Engine Room in Tallahassee, Flordia. We have to leave Jacksonville at 11:00am because the promoter of the show tonight called yesterday and asked what time we were going to be there to eat lunch. Free food, tour, warm weather, beaches, punk rock, this is a great time. Be home in 2 weeks!

Risking My Life For Your Limbs

2009-09-04T00:47:00.002-05:00

Played murder city Baltimore, MD tonight and had a great time. Played at Charm City Art Space. No one was at the show but I heard that was because Cro Mags and Hatebreed were playing a show in Washington DC, a mere one hour away from here. What are you gonna do, right? Can't compete with that show at all. Still had a really good time, hung out with some good friends from Baltimore and chilled in the city.

There was of course an insane man there. Never caught this nut jobs name but I do know that he didn't stop talking the ENTIRE night. He was the dad of one of the kids in the first band who played. They were all a bunch of younger high school kids. Every word that came out of this dudes month was quoutable. Every time he would talk I would tell myself "remember that." But it just kept happening! He was telling us he wanted to go to the woods, get high, get drunk and fuck his wife before she got fat. He sang "Breakin The Law" while Danny, Tyler and I air guitared and headbanged.

He kept telling us how we were living our lives the right way. Told us that we were driving down the road of rock while he went home to his wife, kids and4 dogs. But he assured us that he rocked for a living and worked for a hobby. He told us that we had to be self employed and that he makes $50 an hour with his tree removal company who's slogan is "risking my life for your limbs." This guy was a fucking genuis. Aaron has two different videos of this guy on his phone. He talked non stop the entire night mainly about metal bands he's seen (megadeth ACOUSTIC, metallica, van halen, black sabbath, and many more), weed, booze, his company, fucking his wife and his sons band.

Every time he would mention his sons band he would say "we" like he was apart of the band. This guy was straight up insane and talked to EVERYONE alone at the venue tonight for at least 10-15 minutes. His mouth wouldn't stop and the only way to get out of a conversation with this guy was to literally walk away. Even if you told him you had to go he would keep talking. We were at the venue for at least 30 minutes after everyone else left just waiting for this guy to stop talking. I wish I could remember all of the gems that this guy had. Every word from his mouth was poetic and memorable.

Tomorrow we're going to Washington D.C. to see some sights for a bit then we're playing a show in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I think we have 16 more shows to play on this tour. Be home September 20th.

I'll Gobble You Up Old Man

2009-09-02T10:34:00.003-05:00

What a fucking time we had in the city that never sleeps the past few days. We drove to Queens overnight after our show on Monday in Waterbury, Connecticut which was a great time. We played at Home For Lost Boys and it was a blast, Battle played an amazing set. Got to Queens around 1:00am and hung out with the biggest asshole/our best friend Tym. Sat in his apartment for a while, heard some awful songs and some good songs from the new Brand New record then hit the hay.

Woke up early the next day and hit the streets of New York. Met up with Tym and had some killer pizza by his work. His yuppie ass works in Manhattan by the Empire State Building, holy fuck. After that we cruised around Times Sqaure and went into the dopest Toys R Us I had ever been in. Right when you walk in they take your picture then try to get you to pay $10 to buy it. Right when we left Toys R Us we witnessed a car wreck 10ft in front of us. The two vehicles involved were an ambulance and a taxi cab. Everyone in the street laughed, it was nuts.

We got back to Tym's and Matt and I went back to Manhattan to find a gym to no avail. But while getting on the on ramp to head back to Queens someone was flying down it backwards and almost crashed into us and about 3 other cars. I fucking hate New York City drivers. We headed to the show in Brooklyn but of course had to stop and eat the best vegan buffalo wings in the world at Food Swings. The food was incredible. Expensive as fuck but toally worth it.

The show was at a bar called The Charleston and it was a pretty sweet show. Played with a band called Spectators who were kind of in the vein of Botch, it was killer. Outside of the show while chilling on a stoop the guitarist of Sick Of It All strolled by so everyone yelled "Yeah! Sick Of It All!" and he simply put his fist in the air and kept on walking. Not many people went to the show. The show was in the basement of the bar and upstairs was trivia night so most of the hipsters stayed up there to eat their free pizza w/ every alcohol purchase.

After the show we were all hanging out getting ready to head back to Tyms when an old man walked by with a bag. Our wild friend from here, Vic, decided to say "what's in the bag old man?" The old man took major offense to this and told him "mind your own fucking business MAN." The dispute ended there until Aaron informed Vic that the old man had said the above statement for Vic did not hear it. To add fuel to the fire Vic yelled at the old man "I'm gonna make it my business."

Then the gloves were off and this old man was fucking pissed. He screamed "YOU WANNA MAKE SOMETHING OF IT BUDDY?! COME HERE! I'M RIGHT HERE!" This was litereally a 65 + year old man wanting to fight a 25 year old guy. Vic told him to go and eat his food which made the old man grab his junk and yell "EAT THIS!" Vic hit him with "I'll gobble you up old man!" The verbal argument continued on until we asked the old man what he was going to do to Vic to which he replied "I'M GOING TO KICK HIS FUCKING ASS!" To my amazement Vic then said "OK" and started walking towards the little old man with his bag of food.

I was in fucking shock because I thought either A) Vic was going to walk up and deck this old man or B) This old man who was reaching in his back pocket was going to knife Vic in his throat. A couple passing by stepped in and tried to mediate the argument. Vic told the old man it was a joke and to keep on walking and even offered to help the man pick up his food. The geezer was absolutely not interested in Vics help, picked up his food and headed home. It was a crazy fucking time.

Today we're playing in Philadelphia, PA. I'm hoping to get this box of 20 pretzels or whatever that everyone from Ghost Towns keep telling me about. Still have 18 more shows to play on this tour. It's been a great time so far.

Finger A Guys Butt

2009-09-01T01:23:00.002-05:00

So much shit to catch up on. Don't know where to begin. Haven't had much computer access on this tour but we're in Queens with our boy Tym right now and Aaron picked up a laptop while we're here so hopefully I can do more posts. Tour has been fucking incredible. All of the shows have been amazing. Last night we stayed in a gigantic house in New Hampshire. A girls parents were out of town and her brother told us to eat whatever we wanted. We literally ate ALL of their food, I'm not joking around.

Upstairs in this house was a pool room that was filled with sports shit. They had something signed by the biggest star in every major sport there is in the world. It was so insane. They had 4 dogs and 4 cats all running around fighting each other. We had a great time. These dudes in Battle are fucking rad as hell and their band is amazing. If you haven't heard them go to www.myspace.com/battle and check out all of their shit. Also check out Robbie from Little High, Little Low www.myspace.com/lhll. I have so many stories to tell but I don't have time to type them all so I'll give one good story:

On a train back from Boston 4 of the most methed out people I have ever seen were sitting directly acorss from us. A fat guy, a fat girl and two skinny girls. The fat guy and one skinny girl were fucking passed out not knowing what was going on. The other two were staring at each other with zombie expressions on trying to communicate. In mid conversation the huge girl passed out and was GONE! Her friend then started yelling "Sarah, I LOVE YOU! WAKE UP! I LOVE YOU!" She finally came to and her friend told her that they had to get off at the next stop and that she wasn't able to carry all of them around. Those meth heads somehow stumbled out of the train.

Seconds after another man stepped onto the train equally methed out. As he entered the train he stradled the platform and the train until he finally threw his body in right as the doors closed. He stood up the entire train ride, even with many seats open up around him. He was literally falling asleep standing up. Bending at the waste until his face almost touched the ground. Swaying back and forth every which way nearly falling over at every bump. The train stopped and he slowly exited the train not to be seen again.

Shit has been so much fun. Every show has ruled. Been playing with some good fucking bands. Check out The Bonus Army from MASS, they are heavy hitters. Hopefully I can start keeping this more updated. We're having a killer time. I have a lot of wild stories to tell. I miss you all back in Nebraska.

-BC

Wheel Chair Mosh

2009-08-26T00:43:00.002-05:00

Tour is fucking awesome so far. Sunday we played in Iowa City with Cross Examination and they were so incredible live. It was the first time that I ever saw them. You know the last song they played was Reign In Blood by Slayer and it slayed so fucking hard. Outside of the show there were bums all over Iowa City looking for a handout. Always blows my mind. Had a really chill night at our friend Joe's house, hanging out, eating and talking late into the night.

Had our show Monday in Illinois get canceled but luckily our good buddy Jeff Chord got us on a show in Cedar Falls at a bar called The Hub. It was like a back to school bash and we played with a ton of high school bands. A few of the bands were really really good and they were like 15 year old kids which got me really pumped on punk rock music. The show was a killer time, but a long night because 9 bands played and we went on last. I was really excited to see some Iowa friends for two days. Matt and I tried to break into a snap fitness at 2:30am and that didn't go over well. Saw a janitor at a rec center on the walk back to Jeff's and asked if we could come in to lift. He told us "I shouldn't even be talking to you, you'll come in here and get wild." All in a voice that sounded like the farmer dude from Waterboy.

Today we had a long drive from Cedar Falls to Indianapolis so we left Jeff's at 9:00am and started our Journey. A nice chill day of driving and it didn't go by too slow. Pulled up next to a truck full of turkey's that were mere feet from me and I was absolutely terrified. Had a lot of laughs in the van and at the show today. We have a really good group of people with us on this tour. The show tonight was awesome. It was in this huge building that an artist has called The Murphy Building. We played with Sometimes, Axis and Allies & Crime In Stereo. Axis and Allies was fucking amazing, check them out, they're from Indianapolis. Crime In Stereo gave a shout out to The Party Plex and we all hooped and hollard and everyone else in the place had no clue what was going on.

Just drove an hour and a half north to stay with our best buddies in Kokomo, Indiana. We had to stop at a White Castle first. The fries were great but I had my first White Castle burger and it was fucking terrible. Now we're hanging out at our friends with an awesome dog named Cody. Matt and I are going to try and lift at a gym a few miles away. It's like 2:00am but what else do we have to do when everyone else is at the bar? We have our first day off tomorrow but that is luckily one of two we'll have on this tour (if all goes well that is). I'm kind of bummed because we had a show but it's whatever. Driving to Cleveland, OH tomorrow and Danny is gonna buy us a hotel room. HBO, swimming pools and vending machines. Playing in Buffalo, New York on Thursday at a sweet house called The Argyle. This tour is looking to be an awesome time. So many jokes and movie quotes. Time to go lift.

Licensed To Chill

2009-08-23T14:07:00.001-05:00

Tour starts today. Check back for updates. Be home in a month.

punching bag

2009-08-10T02:01:00.002-05:00

Food Poisoning

2009-08-09T02:55:00.002-05:00

I leave in two weeks. I can't really believe that. I still don't feel like I am leaving. I absolutely don't have the money to do it but I'm going anyways. I am letting Kailey borrow my car since hers broke down. I am now without a car for two weeks but it's no big deal, she needs it more than I do. Things have been pretty cool lately, just hanging out, working kind of and getting ready to leave. I'm not really stressed at all which is cool. I just want to get on the road already. We don't have anyone going with us which bums me out because I think that will make me miss home a whole lot. I start my second job on Tuesday. Saw the new Harry Potter movie today and it was great.

Kailey and I got food poisoning at Fazolis on Thursday night so don't eat there. Threw up 7 times. Had diarrhea about 15 times. Felt awful the next day. Feel alright today. Slept in today and am staying up late tonight, two things I haven't done in a while and it feels awesome. Tomorrow I work. Monday I don't. Nothing much to say. Show tomorrow in Omaha. Should be a fun time if I make it there after work.

Ralph

2009-08-02T00:43:00.002-05:00

It has been a busy week. My days have been spent at work from 9-4 then doing whatever I can before I leave for Lincoln. I helped Kailey move everyday except Wednesday this week. I was there until 1:00-2:00am every night, most nights driving home to Omaha just to wake up at 8am for work. Plus I got a second job at godfathers and have been doing all of these things for our tour and our record. Things have been pretty fucking nuts. But it's all whatever and it's all worth it. Tour is 3 weeks from today. Real excited but real bummed to leave the people I love for another month.

A sweet band called Dawn Treader is staying at the float tonight, they're super nice. They're playing a show today at Ghost House w/ Treeline, Lord Green & Hold High The Severed Head of Thine Enemy. I am excited to see all of those bands! Then Monday Hercules is playing @ Sokol Underground w/ Terror, Death Before Dishonor, Trapped Under Ice & Fight Like Hell. I am hoping that this upcoming week is not as nuts as this one has been. I still have a lot of stuff to get done for tour. New tshirts, new records, new buttons, van tune up, new merch tubs, get all of our show info, much more. Plus Koizumi is trying to record before we leave and I'm trying to record some acoustic stuff with Chris Atkins. Hopefully I can get it all done before we leave, that would rule. Time to go to bed and go to work tomorrow. Looking forward to having Tuesday and Wednesday off. Hope to get some work done and hang with my friends and Kailey. Things are good. Life is cool.

I got puked on this weekend.

I eat

2009-07-30T13:27:00.000-05:00

and am hungry right after.

Godfather'sPizza

2009-07-27T12:06:00.002-05:00

Tour in 26 days. I've been home 24 days. Time has been flying. No money for tour and no money for bills. It's no big deal. Haven't felt like writing much lately. Waiting for Gabe to call me so we can eat Godfather's Buffet for the low low price of $3. I have a laundry list of things to get done before tour. Always last minute stuff.

chipotle 3 times in 2 days

2009-07-20T01:13:00.002-05:00

May have a 2nd job at Godfather's which would help me a lot before tour.
Trying to figure some things out right now.
A lot to do and it's real stressful.
Tour in 5 weeks and I can't believe it's already time to leave again.
The fuck.
The fuck.

I am a...

2009-07-18T04:05:00.001-05:00

professional fuck up.

Eh

2009-07-15T23:47:00.001-05:00

Today wasn't all bad. I finally got to sleep in a little which was nice. I woke up and had a lot on my mind so I took a nice walk around my neighborhood. Then Gabe called me up and we went to eat free Hong Kong Cafe. Then plan was to then go swim at a public pool but I remembered my 4 free passes to Coco Key Water Resort so I took those babies and hit the water slides hard. After that I lounged around at home for a few hours, worked on tour, made a flier, played guitar, all of that jazz. Finally came to the manor for some grand theft auto 4, treats from QT and now endless internet surfing. Things aren't really bad today but they're not great. Have to wake up at 8:00am for work and I am not looking forward to that. All I can do at work is sit and think about things bothering me in life.

Staying at my parents this weekend to watch my dog while they're out of town. Punch show Friday in Lincoln. Linoma Saturday with my family, my love and my loves little girl. Things aren't bad, I just have to stop getting down. Don't have ANY money to go on tour next month but it's whatever. May just have to move in with my parents for a few months when I get home. Don't want to but I'm gonna do what I have to. Not looking forward to starting my work week.

Home

2009-07-15T01:58:00.002-05:00

Adjusting back to life not on tour is always really weird for me. The first week or two I am back home just feels really foreign and I never feel like I belong. Then I get re adjusted and leave a few months later. But, when I got home this time I was thrown into the countdown to leave again. Everything feels surreal I guess would be the best way to describe it. All of this time at home feels like a dream or something. That's not really a positive or negative statement. It's just weird to get thrown back into the life I had before I left and it seems like I was never gone. Maybe tour feels like a dream and not my life here in Omaha? It's hard to tell anymore.

I've been going on tour regularly for the past 3 years and it's been great but I feel more and more disconnected from my friends and family every time I leave. It seems like the more I leave the more I turn into less of a friend or less of a son, brother, cousin, etc. It's probably my fault. I'm sure people see it as me leaving them. Maybe I'm just being selfish and I just expect a bigger welcome when I get home? The first few times I left and came back it was always a big deal now it's just what I do so no one really makes a fuss anymore? Maybe I just need to grow up and get over myself. I can't tell. I always have really wild thought patterns late at night.

I feel so far away from everyone I know. I'm becoming less and less social and I don't know why. I can feel it happening and it seems like I can't stop it. I feel like when I leave and come back I'm just toying with people and it seems like they're starting to feel the same way. I haven't gotten much sleep since I've been home. Going to bed late and waking up around 8:00am everyday, it's really starting to grind me down. I've felt so unproductive lately. Basically I need a vacation after my "vacation."

Tour is great, don't get me wrong. But it's no vacation. It's actual work. Waking up early, driving ridiculous distances everyday, loading and unloading, playing shows. It's a tiring thing to put yourself through everyday for a month. Then you get home and are tossed back into work and other responsibilities and people don't understand how you can be worn down. "You were just on vacation" they tell me, not knowing the amount of work I put into tour. It all starts months before I leave. Then I get home and just start booking another one. I can't stop, I love tour, I love punk rock music. I'll be doing this for years to come.

Post # 50

2009-07-07T23:31:00.002-05:00

Home from the get high or die tour. It was a great fucking time! Sold out of the first pressing of Moon Riders. Getting a 2nd press made soon. Went back to work Monday and got sick as fuck, but my beautiful girlfriend Kailey nursed me back to health yesterday and I'm feeling almost back to normal for the first time since I left. Just added another tour for Hercules this year. 2 or 3 weeks total. Hitting the west coast then 5 shows on 3 different islands in Hawaii then tour home. A total of 3 and a half months of touring this year, it's awesome! Also we're working on new songs right now for a future 7" and a song for a compilation our friends in Old Habits Die Hard who run Puna Punk Records in Puna, Hawaii are putting out this year.

Really busy right now. Writing, recording, tour, home, release a 7" then tour again. Aaron and Danny may be staying in Hawaii when we go in November until April or so. That will give us a long break which may be nice after a busy year, but I'll miss touring so much for that 6 months they're gone. We'll pick it right back up when they get home, if they do stay in Hawaii that is. If not I'm sure we'll go on tour early next year again.

I hope to keep this better updated on tour in August but no promises. It's hard when you have no computer to keep a blog updated. I am considering getting a twitter as well for those quick updates then can elaborate on them all when I can get to a computer. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea!

Time for bed. It's only 11:40 but I'm sure I have about an hour on the phone with Kailey then an hour and a half watching a movie then I have to wake up at 8:00am for work. Time to get into my bed, sleep will come in 2 and a half to 3 hours. I used a lot of numbers in this post. 50th post, by the way (if the title didn't already give that away)

I'd rather not...

2009-06-30T03:49:00.003-05:00

Interesting day in my life and in the collective lives of my comrads in the Hercules crew. We woke up in Spokane, Washington after staying with a very nice mom and her two daughters. They had Rollins band pictures and records everywhere so I was really pumped on that. I spent most of my morning looking through it all. We left for the first half of our 16 hour trek from Spokane to Salt Lake City. The plan was to drive to Boise, Idaho and try to find a place to stay or get a hotel room.

We stopped at some restaurants in downtown Spokane to get some food before we hit the road. After we all ate we went to start up the Winnefaygo. No dice. A lady and a daughter came out of Arbys and we decided to ask them for a jump. Aaron approached the woman and asked if we could get a jump. "Excuse me?" she said "Could we get a jump?" Aaron replied. The lady had the most horrified look on her face. "I don't have jumper cables." "We do." After a 30 second pause and silence coupled with a terrified face the lady exclaimed "I'd rather not, someone else will come around." I called AAA to get a jump since we thought it was our battery. About 30-45 minutes later Roy from the local AAA affiliate rolled up. He told us our battery was looking great. He got his plump body under our van and emerged 3 minutes later only to tell us we definately need a new starter.

Got it towed to an auto repair shop a couple of blocks from the immaculate Arby's we were at. After an hour or so wait and $176 later we were on the road to Boise. It was a 7 hour drive that we started at 5:00pm. Idaho is the most beautiful state in this country, if you haven't been, visit it. So many green green green hills and beautiful rivers. The drive got hellish with so many twists and turns I almost puked. We finally rolled into Boise at 1:30am and destroyed food since none of us had eaten in 12 hours. Met up with In The Face of War at a house we're staying at. They played a punk bar with The Ashers (members of The Unseen). We have to wake up in the morning so the guy we're staying with can fire someone at Papa Joe's (no, not John's, Joe's) then give us free pizza.

Can't spread too much about my family's life but I found out today that Stephens is not my last name and now my whole family is about to go through a huge process and getting our last name legal. Holy shit. Wild fucking day. Another long ass drive tomorrow to Taylorsville, Utah. I'm finally feeling a little better. I sadly passed the black death onto Tyler Cain who is now sick as shit. Home in 4 days. This tour has flown by. Hopefully I will see you all of the fourth of July.

4th of July @ Ghost House
- Hercules
- In The Face of War
- Life of a Scarecrow
- Thunderbolts

You guys are from Oma-mersa?

2009-06-29T03:47:00.002-05:00

Really limited interweb access on this tour, sorry for the lack of updates. Another brief overview.

6.23 - 6.24 San Francisco, CA: Stayed with our friend Nic for two days and checked out San Francisco, had an amazing time. We saw a lot of cool stuff and ate some incredible food. When we weren't out and about we played the new Grand Theft Auto game and it was amazing. Made me want to buy an X box 360 just to play that game.

6.25 Redding, CA: The show in Redding was nuts. We played at a place called The Downtown Eatery which was a bar/grill type place. There was almost no one at the show but we got free food and free drinks all night. Plus we got to stay in an apartment above the venue that was there for bands to stay in. Vic got super sick while in San Francisco and slept a full 24 hours straight. A wild ass time.

6.26 Portland, OR: Had a hellish 7 hour drive to Portland but luckily the scenery was beautiful. The show we played was super fucking awesome. Played a local Portland band called Life and Limbs last show. All of the bands were sweet, there were a ton of kids there and everyone had fun. Unlucky for me I got Vic's sickness at this show and passed out in the van, missing 3 of the bands. We stayed at some really nice kids house and they made us soup, stuffing and bread.

6.27 Tacoma, WA: I woke up feeling like dogshit in Portland and pulled a Vic, sleeping all day until it was time to play in Tacoma. We played an awesome venue called The Viaduct with some sweet bands. Met a nice dude named Bryan and we chilled at his apartment, stayed up late eating spaghetti and watched What About Bob. I didn't sleep at all and woke up every 10-2o minutes. My sickness was really kicking my ass and it was god awful.

6.28 Spokane, WA: Woke up today feeling the worst I have yet. Thought I was going to puke when I was ordering my bagel for breakfast I could only eat half of. I once again slept the entire drive today. Woke up to us stopping at a scenic overview and it was incredible. The show in Spokane was sweet. We played at the Cretin Hop. In the back of the venue they had a projector and a huge screen. After the show they played Resevoir Dogs so we hung out and watched that. Now we're at a huge apartment/house where a ton of people live. A drunk girl fell down and smacked her face hard as shit on the cement and I lost it. She almost fell backwards down the stairs. At that point it was time to get upstairs before shit got nuts. Our show in Boise got canceled tomorrow so we're just staying with some people ITFOW know. Our next show is in Salt Lake City on the 30th. We will be home in 5 days. This tour has been fucking awesome. The northwest is my favorite place I've ever toured.

Throwing Bricks

2009-06-23T14:03:00.002-05:00

This tour has brought crazy times. Last night we jumped on a house show and it ended up being the best show of tour. It was in Concord, California and we played with Until Your Heart Stops & Rebuilt. Two bands that I beg you to check out because they're fucking incredible. The show was awesome and everyone was super nice to us. They even asked us to come play their show in Reno the 24th so now the only day off we have on this tour is today. Which is super incredible because we usually have a ton of days off from tour so it rules to get one rest day then hit it hard the last 11 days!

The show ruled and we were all hanging out then it finally started to die down around 2:30am. Some local kids were hanging around walking back and forth all night. Then when we were all getting ready to settle down and go to bed these two twenty some year old dudes and a girl walked up. They were asking if the show was going on and if all of the bands were good. They were told by Tony (owner of the house) that the show was over. They just stood there in silence watching everyone hanging out. Tony told them that they could leave now since the show was over. They didn't take too kindly to that. They were repeating everything Tony would say then they kept asking him who's van was who's. Tony finally got them to leave.

Minutes later they came back and started throwing bricks at two of the vans. Everyone ran outside to chase them away but they were nowhere to be found. Everyone was a little weirded out but we didn't think much of it and I laid down to go to sleep. When some of the dudes were standing in the doorway telling us the whole story another break flies into the entry way of the house and almost hits 4 different people. Everyone got really sketched out and didn't know what to do. We all wanted to move the vans so they didn't get fucked with. While we were deciding whether or not to leave or just move the vans MORE bricks started to hit the house. We said fuck that and packed up all of our shit and drove to Oakland to go to sleep.

Today we have our day off on tour. Usually I would be bummed but today we're finally getting vegan pizza here in Oakland! Then we have the following shows the rest of tour. Come out to Ghost House July 4th!

6.24 Reno, NV @ The Eyeball
6.25 Redding, CA @ Downtown Eatery
6.26 Portland, OR @ The Daycare
6.27 Tacoma, WA @ The Viaduct
6.28 Spokane, WA @ Cretin Hop
6.29 Boise, ID @ The Good Life
6.30 Salt Lake City, UT @ Taylorsville House
7.01 Logan, UT @ Why Sound
7.02 Grand Junction, CO @ White Hall
7.03 Denver, CO @ Blast O Mat
7.04 Lincoln, NE @ Ghost House

how'd you not see that curb?

2009-06-22T17:14:00.002-05:00

I didn't have an ideal start to my day this morning. We played to 5 people last night in Fresno but I still had a great time. Vic got us a place to stay with a friend of a friend in Sacramento so we made the 2 and a half hour drive up here after the show. I slept in the van because it was pretty crowded in the apartment. I woke up this morning and had to shit extremely bad but the bathroom was in the room of the couple we're staying with and I didn't want to impose.

I hoped in the drivers seat of the winnefaygo and drove to the nearest thing I could find where I could poop and charge my phone. That was a starbucks. I pooped and then charged my phone for a little while then decided to get out of there. I stopped at Trader Joe's on the way back to get some orange juice and a banana for breakfast. I had to park the van in a different spot than it was at. I was pulling up to this huge curb when I ran into something and heard a loud POP noise. I screamed "FUCK" because I knew I had just blown our tire. Ironic because last night Vic asked me if we had ever popped a tire on tour and I told him "are you trying to jinks us dude?" He did.

Lucky for me I have AAA. So while most everyone was still asleep I called them up, got the car towed to a near by reapair shop and got a new one put on for $60. It really could have been much worse and it worked out for the most part. Playing a show in Concord, California tonight. Should be a good time!

I dated the drummer of AFB

2009-06-21T14:15:00.004-05:00

Wild times in California. Had a 7 hour drive up to Ventura from Arizona yesterday. Got stuck in traffic on the 101 but I didn't mind because we got to drive to Sacred Heart Hospital and I almost threw up because I was so excited. At a gas station a guy told us about his kids band who opened up for Kiss. He told us to check them out on myspace and add them so we can maybe play some shows together. The drive through California yesterday was beautiful. Mountains and farmland everywhere. Suddenly after going down into a valley the air got really cold and it felt like we were driving with the A/C on. It ruled!

We showed up to Ventura and said hi to all of our friends here. It was good seeing everyone again. While we were eating we got a call from In The Face of War. Apparently while leaving from getting gas they smashed their trailer into a pole and bent their wheel. It was a huge bummer because they couldn't make the show. They ended up fixing their trailer this morning and will meet us in Fresno today. The show was really awesome. It was in a recording studio and it was the first hardcore show to go on there. The owner was nuts and told us he played with the Sex Pistols for 18 months until he cut his fingers off, then he opened that recording studio. The only thing that sucked was the stupid fight during our set. It ended though and the show went on without any complications.

A big thing the venue was trying to instil at the show was that there were NO IN AND OUTS. Even for the band. They had a whackjob hick security guard running the door all night with a iron fist. While trying to go out to our van he stopped me and told me for the 700th time "hey! no in and outs!" I told him it was ok and I was in a band. I pointed to our van where the boys were toking on some pot, he looked back and me and made the "joint" gesture with his fingers and put it to lips. I didn't know what to do so I just said "uh, yeah." He looked at me and said "make it quick." It was fucking hilarious.

After the show we went to a crazy party in the middle of nowhere outside of Oxnard. It was this family's land surrounded by trees. We pulled up to an opening with a man made pond that had hundreds of coy fish in it. There were lights strung up, huge trucks blaring country music and weird pseudo cowboy/California bros. The party was a great time, I mainly just hung out around the fire by the pond. A drunk dude kept trying to jump in but the dude who owned the land wouldn't let him. All of the bros were pissing in the pond nearly falling in every time and it blew my mind. I felt like I was in rural Nebraska, not a big city in California.

The highlight of the night was when Vic and I started talking to this girl who asked us where we were from. We told her we were on tour from Nebraska. Her eyes lit up when she asked us "are you in a band? Have you ever been to Reno?" She informed us she was straight edge for 3 years and dated "big names" in the Reno hardcore scene such as the drummer for famed Seventh Dagger band Armed For Battle. But after a move to California to attend Paul Mitchell her edge couldn't hold up against the temptations of cigarettes. Her WASTED friend strolled over to talk to Vic and I. After talking she asked me if I was vegan straight edge. I told her yes and she said (in a drunken slur) "so you haven't ate or drank ANYTHING for 3 years?" I told her yes. She then said she went to many vegan straight edge bars in Reno but everyone there was eating sushi so she didn't think they were vegan.

She then informed us that the guys putting in A/C at her parents house suspect her and her friend of being homosexual because they share a bed. She told us "now they all thinking we're raging gay!" I lost my mind and almost fell into the fire laughing. The drunk girls continued the hilarity when they called each other retarded....

"You're a retard"
"No I'm not a retard, rain man is a retard"

They also coined the phrase "she's a zoo." Frat bros tried to kick us out of the party about 10 times but we just laughed and kept hanging out. They told Vic to walk home and he exclaimed "I live fucking 2,000 miles away." It was a wild night and we finally left there around 2:30am.

Today we're driving to Fresno, CA to play at Chinatown Youth Center then we have 3 days off. I think the days off are being spent in Santa Cruz, San Francisco & Angel Camp, CA before we play Redding on the 25th. I want to eat pizza and go sneak into Land of the Lost.

FAPFAPFAPFAPFAP

2009-06-20T04:00:00.002-05:00

So I am super bummed I haven't been able to keep up on this a lot. This is only the second time I've been able to get on the internet in the 10 days we've been on tour. So much shit has happened I don't even know where to start. Probably too much to type. I'm going to try to give a brief overview on what's gone down since the post I made on the 14th.

6.14 Oklahoma City: Before we left Wichita Gabe sharted in his pants and broke a plate Veronica made when she was child. A priceless item. I woke up early and took a nice 2 mile run. It felt great! Then at 3 we got on the road to OKC. Show was sweet! First real day of tour with In The Face of War. Played @ The Info Shop. Kale rules. Nice people! Drove to Fort Worth overnight to sleep at the Broveak house.

6.15 Fort Worth, TX: Woke up early to swim at Aaron's parents house. Had a blast. Made the 45 minute drive to Dallas to eat at Suma, an all vegan chinese buffet. It was fucking incredible. Got stuffed to the gills, picked up some cool vegan information, ruled. Drove back to Fort Worth. Went to AT&T to try and get a new phone, didn't work out. Spent 30 minutes stuck at some train tracks. Swam at aaron's, lifted, took a shower/fapped, ate spaghetti then headed to the show. Show fucking ruled. Played with an awesome band called Jubilee. Went to a pool party after the show and stayed there until 5:00am when the host finally kicked us out.

6.16 Lubbock, TX: Drove 5 and half hours straight to Lubbock. My arm out the window the entire time. Got burned as fuck and now I look like a freak. Got to Lubbock and ate at Burger King. Vic and I thought the burgers were Vegan, they're not, fuck Cha Cha. Went to The Way. First band played, no one there. Then a good amount of people showed up. During Go To Hell there were people just punching each other in the face, throwing each other to the floor, wrestling, picking on kids, being total assholes. Underage ( a band ) went on and started saying really fucking homophobic bullshit. We told them to fuck off and decided not to play the show. Instead we got burritos and hung out late into the night.

6.17 El Paso, TX: El Paso was one of my favorite places I've been to. The city rules, it has the best mexican food I've ever had, nicest kids and a sweet venue called No Mans Land. The show was awesome! Played with NYA, Wake Up In Panic, The Effort & Outrage. A ton of kids came out. We couldn't get anywhere to stay so we got a Motel 6 and watched Vampire porn while we fell asleep. Delicious Mexican Food and Kikis, two of the best restaurants I've ate at.

6.18 Tucson, AZ: Left El Paso pretty early for the long jaunt across New Mexico and Arizona to Tucson. Got there and ate the beautiful Taco Shop. Played at the Dry River with a lot of diverse bands and it ruled. Not too many people came out, The Effort was @ the Living Room and most people went to that. Met an AWESOME dude named Andy who let us stay at his place.

6.19 Temep, AZ: Woke up in Tucson today and ate at an all vegan chinese restaurant. My General Tso chicken straight up tasted like pancakes and maple syrup. It ruled! Hung out in a record store while the boys doped. Vic birdmaned me in a puddle. I got him back later! A bum asked Gabe and I to buy him booze since the gas station wouldn't sell him any (he was already wasted). I told him I was 18 and couldn't buy booze. Saw him sitting on a bench later next to a lady with tape all over her face. Drove to Tempe and ate at Green, an all vegan restaurant. Spent $8.65 but it was worth it. Vegan Buffalo wings. Blew my mind! Went to The Slurp and showed Vic how to lift weights. The show fucking ruled tonight. Like 50+ kids came out and we've never even been here. Played with Vice Grip and Land Shark. Had a really great time, everyone was so nice. Came to our buddy Gersons apartment. Walked to get burritos. It's 2:15 and I'm gonna wake up at 9 to run and take a shower.

I will try to update this better here on out. No time to write about all of the stories. You'll here them soon enough. Wild shit, maybe my next post will be all of the craziness we've encountered. I miss Nebraska. So pumped to be on tour.

-BC

SEE YOU AT THE PRINT SHOP

2009-06-14T13:41:00.003-05:00

First post of tour! Gonna keep this one relatively short because I have about 15 other people looking to use the one computer here at Veronica's house. Also I have a terrible cold and am allergic to the 5 cats in this house. Our tour kickoff show fucking ruled. So many people came out and it was such a great time. Thank you to everyone who showed up and had fun. Take Controls last show was incredible. I'm betting 200 people were there. All of the bands were really sweet. Saw Agress for the first time and they ruled hard. Take Controls set was nuts! So many people going off. It made me remember why I love being involved in punk rock music.

I haven't been getting too wild lately because I of course got a cold the day we left for tour. ICT Fest was last night. We had a hellish 9 hour drive to Wichita from Cedar Falls. On the way we pulled over to the side of the road because I had to pee. A cop pulled up behind us and I was a little concerned. Tyler then just gave him a "we're cool" out the window and we drove away unharmed hahahaha it was wild. Played the show and it was a super good time. Did our Black Sabbath cover for the first time, it went pretty well. Only have 18 records left which is sweet and not sweet at the same time.

Crazy thunderstorm last night. I slept in the van to avoid being sinusly (fake word) murdered by Veronica's cats. Only have a 2 and a half hour drive to Oklahoma City today. Playing with Violent Crime, should be an awesome time. People really want me off of this computer. I will give a better update next time.

Gabe shit his pants last night, I'm 100% serious.

Big Buck Hunter Porn

2009-06-10T15:06:00.002-05:00

Today at work I watched a little kid try to enter the following initials into the game "Big Buck Hunter Pro..."

TIT
FAG
ASS
DIK

There is a parental control type thing on all of our games so you can't enter names like that. Gabe tried a similar move a few months ago. I sat there watching him do this, laughing the entire time. He finally saw me watching him, turned around, entered "DAN" and started playing. Got off an hour early for my last day of work until July 6th. So excited. Tour starts tomorrow. Good times ahead. Hopefully I'll have some real good material for this blog. Be looking out!

f - r - e - e - f - o - o - d

2009-06-07T22:49:00.004-05:00

So pumped on life right now. Yesterday hung out with Kailey all day and had such an awesome time! Today ate valentinos grand italian buffet for Gabe's sisters graduation party. Met Gabe's family and they were all super nice. Went to the gym, lifted for an hour, came home to Tyler's step dad bringing us a new love seat. Went to Joey's graduation party, hands down the best one I've ever been to. The food was great, the friends were plentiful and the tunes were set to Sabbath. Came home, played guitar, took a cat nap then played a huge game of kickball at leavenworth park. A full 9 innings with The Float Crib coming out victorious 22-14. Tons of trash talk, so much fun!

I am pretty busy everyday until I leave. Honestly don't know when I'm gonna have time to pack. Tomorrow work 9-3, Koizumi practice then a show at Ghost House. Tuesday donate plasma, print Hercules inserts, Cruel Hand at The Manor. Wednesday last day of work 9-3 then Cody Ma's graduation party. Thursday donate plasma then play our tour kickoff/record release show. Leave Friday afternoon. This really snuck up on me. I remember telling Gabe "only 3 more weeks dude" and that feels like a few days ago. I am glad I have a lot to do these last few days though because if I didn't I'd be bored out of my mind and would just want to be on the road.

I have no food to eat until Friday and no spare money to buy groceries. I might just have to say fuck it and buy a little bit of food. I have to eat. Real tired, what a great day.

GETHIGHORDIETOUR

2009-06-06T16:03:00.002-05:00

6.09 Orland Park, IL @ Orland Park VFW **
6.10 Central, IL @ tba **
6.11 Omaha, NE @ Mosaic Community Center
6.12 Wichita, KS @ The Eagle's Lodge **
6.12 Waterloo, IA @ Amvets Post 19 *
6.13 Wichita, KS @ The Eagle's Lodge *
6.14 Oklahoma City, OK @ OKC Info Shop
6.15 Fort Worth, TX @ 1919 Hemphill
6.16 Lubbock, TX @ The Way
6.17 El Paso, TX @ No Man's Land
6.18 Tucson, AZ @ Dry River
6.19 Tempe, AZ @ The Slurp
6.20 Ventura, CA @ Mega Sound Studios
6.21 Fresno, CA @ Chinatown Youth Center
6.22 Santa Rosa, CA @ tba
6.23 Reno, NV @ tba
6.24 San Francisco, CA @ tba
6.25 Redding, CA @ Downtown Eatery
6.26 Portland, OR @ Blaine's House
6.27 Seattle, WA - day off -
6.28 Spokane, WA @ Cretin Hop
6.29 Boise, ID @ The Good Life
6.30 Salt Lake City, UT @ A House
7.01 Logan, UT @ Why Sound
7.02 Grand Junction, CO @ White Hall
7.03 Denver, CO @ Blast O Mat
7.04 Lincoln, NE @ Ghost House
7.05 Des Moines, IA @ tba **
7.06 Waterloo, IA @ tba **
7.07 Chicago, IL @ tba **

* = show does not feature In The Face of War
** = show does not feature Hercules

www.myspace.com/inthefaceofwar
www.myspace.com/herculesne

This is how I'm spending the next month of my life. So excited about everything right now!

GoinVeg

2009-06-05T18:57:00.002-05:00

I got a great little read from Lauren yesterday called "Goin Veg!" It's basically any vegetarian/vegan how to guide you've read but more personal. It doesn't just spout out facts in 2 -3 sentences. It makes things relatable to you and I really enjoyed it a lot. Thank you Lauren for passing it along. I've been vegetarian again for one month and 2 days! Bummed that I ever stopped but what can you, right?

Trying to slowly transition into veganism. I know all of the guides, books, websites, messageboards, etc say it's so easy but in actuality it really isn't. Maybe for some but it hasn't been for me. The main reason it's been an issue for me is getting ample amounts of protein in my diet. I'm not a bodybuilder or anything but weight lifting is a big part of my life and it's hard to grow and strengthen muscle without protein. It's quite literally the building blocks of muscle. I've found so many vegan protein powders but they come with two big problems. One, they are all even more expensive than regular protein powders and two, they are all derived from hemp. If you know me you that I do not have money and I won't put any hemp placed product into me. Where's the straight edge bodybuilding website?

I am actually pretty positive eating vegan on tour won't be too hard. Luckily for me all of the guys from In The Face of War are vegan so I just plan on eating whatever they do honestly. Might be a little childish but I figure they tour and are vegan so I'll see how they do it! Also, Vic is vegan but I went on tour with him in February and he just ate KFC potato wedges the entire time. That is something that I absolutely cannot do. My plan for tour is a lot of nuts, fruit, vegetables, and meat subsitutes. The only problem is I am finding that most of the meat substitutes that I love contain milk or eggs. Fuck. Whatever, I will figure it out. I think I am heading in the right direction, just need to fine tune my life.

I was concerned with food I still have with animal products and clothes I still have with animal products. I think getting rid of those things would be stupid. I've purchased them, I've already supported it. If I give it all away it will just be someone else actually using it. I have leather shoes, I may as well use them since I bought them. I think throwing them out would actually be worse than anything. It's really awesome that Kailey is kind of on the same track as I am. She is vegetarian but really doesn't want to be vegan. She can't give up cheese. But every time she has a lot of it she get nauseous and throws up and so hopefully I can convince her to quit!

I hope I can stick with this. I'm already feeling better since I stopped eating meat. This time I'm going into vegetarianism/veganism for new reasons than ever before. I never really cared about animal rights when I was vegetarian for 2 years and then again for another year. I mainly did it because meat made me sick. Now it's more of a social issue for me. I think meat and dairy tastes great but I think I'm a person with some self control. I'll keep this updated while I'm on tour and tell the 5 people who read this how it's going!

24.49.30

2009-06-02T11:43:00.004-05:00

Just did my finances for tour yesterday. I think if I did everything right I'll come home on July 4th with about $68. Fuck. Then I have to somehow get from $68 to about $800 in a month and a half so I can then go on another tour and pay rent up front for 2 months. Things are going to be really interesting in my life! But I'd rather go on tour and be poor than stay home and have a lot of money and nothing to do with it except buy useless shit I don't need. I know that's what would happen too, because I've done it before.

Been really stressed lately with trying to get everything done that needs to be done for tour. We leave in 10 days and still basically have nothing done. We're a real last minute type of band. I wish I didn't have to take on the brunt of all of the work. On top of work, Kailey, the gym, and all of the other shit in my life, doing everything for this band makes my days all really full. I rarely have a day where there is nothing for me to do. But then when I do have nothing to do I'm bored so I should stop complaining.

I'll be working on while we're on this June tour trying to book our August - September shows. Luckily I only have to book the first and last week, Battle is taking the middle week that we play with them. That will make things a lot easier on me. Still have to get our stickers and buttons made, finish and print our inserts and apology letters, get the winnefaygo an oil change and tune up, print out our directions, get our covers screened, assemble our records, make a merch sign, burn all of these cdr's for our records and I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of other shit.

It's whatever, it's all worth it in the end. Excited about the full few weeks before I leave, I'll get get to hang with everyone a lot before I'm gone for a while.

6.03 Greenfields @ Ghost House
6.04 Era's last show @ Ghost House
6.06 Wilmot Proviso @ The Float Crib
6.08 Koizumi @ Ghost House
6.09 Cruel Hand @ The Manor
6.11 Tour Kickoff * Record Release @ Mosaic

Hell yeah! Looking like I only have to work anywhere from 4-6 more days then I have 3 and a half weeks off! 24 days gone, 49 days home, 30 days gone. I'll be gone more than home all summer for the first time in my life. Pretty excited to see the entire country with my friends. Excited to see who we take with us in August. Hopefully some people who haven't experienced tour before so they can see how awesome it is.

Today : laundry, burning cd's and exercising @ my parents, donating plasma, then going to hang out with Kailey and Dani in Lincoln at 7:00. My mom was real nice to me and gave my poor ass $20 for gas so I could go see Kailey and Dani. She said she wanted me to see them as much as possible before I leave. I love my mom. No complaints today!

eastcoast2009pt2

2009-05-29T17:00:00.003-05:00

BATTLE/HERCULES tour route and dates have been confirmed. Big surprise for August 22nd in Omaha. So fucking excited to tell the world!

8.28 - 9.12 w/ Battle

8.22 Omaha, NE
8.23 Waterloo, IA
8.24 Kokomo, IN
8.25 Columbus, OH
8.26 Pittsburgh, PA
8.27 Philadelphia, PA
8.28 Burlington, MA
8.29 Haverhill, MA
8.30 Dover, MA
8.31 Providence, RI
9.01 Hartford, CT
9.02 Brooklyn, NY
9.03 Baltimore, MD
9.04 Richmond, VA
9.05 Wilmington, NC
9.06 Jacksonville, FL
9.07 Tallahassee, FL
9.08 Gainesville, FL
9.09 Jacksonville, FL
9.10 Tampa, FL
9.11 Port St Lucie, FL
9.12 Lake City, FL
9.13 Birmingham, AL
9.14 Clarksville, TN
9.15 Louisville, KY
9.16 Saint Louis, MO
9.17 Peoria, IL
9.18 Iowa City, IA
9.19 Des Moines, IA

www.myspace.com/battle
www.myspace.com/herculesne

on the subject of sleep . . .

2009-05-27T02:43:00.001-05:00

Up till 6:00am yesterday figuring out my life
Woke up at 10:00am and did nothing all day, it felt good
2:45 am and I still cannot sleep
Want to hang out with Kailey
Want to go on tour
Do not want to work
Do not want to go to school
Want to go watch Arrested Development and fall asleep

Sometimes when things look bad you have to say fuck it and think about how sweet other shit is. I love being alive.

Quick! Ask Zooey what stops xrays!

2009-05-25T04:01:00.003-05:00

It's interesting to me the way people chose to react to situations in life. Most of the time you think it would be more beneficial for you and everyone to live by cliches such as "don't sweat the small stuff" but that isn't the way it works anymore. There's a bigger picture that we miss because we're too busy nit picking at all of the bullshit day to day battles and obstacles we have to deal with. I'm not on any high horse, I do this all of the time too. I think that when it comes down to it you just have to weed out the shit in your life you disagree with and then move on. Don't get heated when it comes back up every once and a while, there are more important things to tend to. Getting caught up in day to day struggles will put you nowhere good in life.

I'm not really sure what I'm even talking about. It's 4:00am and I'm waiting for Black Teeth to get to my house so I can get some sleep and go to the zoo tomorrow. I guess I just see people lose themselves in trivial things everyday like their bad 6 hours spent at work or something said about them by another person. All of that shit is always going to be in your life. You have to make the choice to let it dictate who you are or give it an ultimate face push and stay positive. To hold onto another boring cliche, life isn't fair. I think the sooner we all accept that the better.

That doesn't mean that people shouldn't be held accountable for their actions. But, if you actually care about it then please act on and don't waste your time smackin your lips together. All that's gonna get is spit all over your chin and your situation nowhere. If you hate someone, tell them and move on. If you love someone, give them that news. If you want to be an activist then be one. But don't sit in your room bottling up all of your emotions and then talking down to people when they don't agree with you. It's easy to sensationalize things.

This isn't about a particular situation. I'm just trying to stay positive in my life. I've been a slave to misery and depression for so long. I'm trying not to confuse that with anger though. You should keep the anger but lose the loathing, and lose the hate. The hate is what really tears away at you, mainly the self hatred. Rather than dwelling on why I hate people and things I'm trying to dwell on the reasons why I am not like those people or things. Reasons like my friends, my family, my girlfriend, punk rock, straight edge, etc. Sweat the small stuff and you'll be drenched in it. I should probably clean so these guys don't think we're total losers, even though we are.

I'll go back on everything I said because that's who I am.

Wardrobe Malfunction

2009-05-22T17:06:00.003-05:00

I realized today when I started standing up straight that probably 95% of my t-shirts don't fit the way I thought they did.

9 YEARS

2009-05-20T02:31:00.001-05:00

GONE ALL SUMMER

2009-05-17T17:52:00.002-05:00

This will be the least amount of time I spend home over a summer in my life. I'll miss Kailey, my friends and my family a lot. But, on the bright side, I will get to see almost the entire country...

6.11 Omaha, NE
6.12 Waterloo, IA
6.13 Wichita, KS
6.14 Oklahoma City, OK
6.15 Fort Worth, TX
6.16 Lubbock, TX
6.17 El Paso, TX
6.18 Tuscon, AZ
6.19 Tempe, AZ
6.20 Ventura, CA
6.21 Fresno, CA
6.22 Sacramento, CA
6.23 Reno, NV
6.24 Redding, CA
6.25 Redding, CA
6.26 Portland, OR
6.27 Seattle, WA
6.28 Spokane, WA
6.29 Boise, ID
6.30 Salt Lake City, UT
7.01 Logan, UT
7.02 Grand Junction, CO
7.03 Denver, CO
7.04 Lincoln, NE
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
8.21 ST Paul, MN
8.22 Chicago, IL
8.23 Cleveland, OH
8.24 - 8.27 Albany, NY
8.28 Haverhill, MA
8.29 - 9.01 Providence, RI
9.02 Brooklyn, NY
9.03 Baltimore, MD
9.04 Richmond, VA
9.05 Wilmington, NC
9.06 Jacksonville, FL
9.07 Tallahassee, FL
9.08 Gainesville, FL
9.09 Ocala, FL
9.10 Tampa, FL
9.11 Port ST Lucie, FL
9.12 Lake City, FL
9.13 Tallahassee, FL
9.14 Birmingham, AL
9.15 Clarksville, TN
9.16 Louisville, KY
9.17 ST Louis, MO
9.18 Peoria, IL
9.19 Iowa City, IA

INTERNETZ

2009-05-12T14:10:00.000-05:00

The Float Crib is now internet friendly.

ChineseInternetTacosBikeRide

2009-05-11T14:34:00.002-05:00

Just ate free Hong Kong Cafe. Every Monday with Nathan and Gabe. Things are looking up and looking down at the same time. On the downside I am currently not working for 11 days. Over the next 2 weeks the only money I will make is $120 total from donating plasma. Luckily, on the upside I am using my down time in a positive way, getting a lot done booking shows, tour stuff, making flyers, getting internet at our house, etc. Finally getting internet at home, won't have to go to my parents house or work to use the internet. That will be really great.

I've been in a great mood lately which hasn't happend since probably 2007 so it has been a wild feeling. Playing a lot and going to a lot of shows coming up here...

May 22nd Young Widows @ Antiquarium
May 23rd Borealis @ Mosaic
May 25th Take Control @ Antiquarium
May 29th @ Benson Grind (Koizumi Acoustic)
May 30th Comadre @ Ghost House
June 4th @ Ghost House (Hercules)
June 6th @ The Float Crib (Koizumi Acoustic)
June 8th @ Ghost House (Koizumi)
June 11th - July 4th Hercules / In The Face of War Tour

hell yeah. punk rock is cool.

50 cent tacos @ the moon then a bike ride tonight. followed by internet use at my home. Maybe not so much of a shit life?

THIS IS JOHN...WHATEVER...

2009-05-04T11:22:00.002-05:00

Haven't posted anything in a tiff. Not much has been going on. Been struggling to get this Hercules/In The Face of War tour booked. You know no one gives a fuck about our band so it's real hard to book tours, especially on the west coast. It will work out though, it usually does in some way. Wild shit has happend lately. I'm only working 3 days in the next 2 weeks. Don't know if I'll be able to afford to live at The Float Crib after tour. Things are iffy right now. But just like everything else in my life, it will work out in some way.

FUCKEARTHDAY

2009-04-22T15:37:00.003-05:00

I don't give a shit about the earth. Here's what I'm all about ^ ^ ^

HORSESHOE

2009-04-15T12:33:00.002-05:00

Last night me, Tyler & Aaron decided to go to the casino around 12:30am. We rolled into the Horseshoe hoping to win big. Tyler and I didn't even plan on gambling, we just were bored and wanted all of that free soda. We loaded up a few cups o' sod and Aaron hit the roulet table. He instantly lost $15 so we thought we were already done after about 10 minutes. We walked around some more and he decided he wanted to play some blackjack. He wanted me to play so he gave me $10. After two hands of blackjack we were both out. It was a good enough time though, got us out of the house and into the land of freaks.

I can't believe the people you see at a casino in Council Bluffs at 12:30 on a Tuesday night. Tons of people were there and it blew my skull. People were spending hundreds, some probably thousands of dollars. Old and young alike. I thought it would be dead but every table was full and the slot machines were bumpin. The trash of America all attracted to one building...what does that say about us?

Afterwards we stopped at the donut stop for a few pastries before bed. We told the lady there that we had just went to the casino. She then started to tell us about her serious gambling problem. She informed us she couldn't even loan her boyfriends $5 and is too afraid to admit to him that she has a serious addiction to gambling. She just spent her entire paycheck over in Council Bluffs and she couldn't even buy things from Wal-Mart that she needs at home. I couldn't handle the conversation seriously so I just laughed the whole time she fed us all of this information. People are wild, I see it everyday. All you have to do is walk down Park Ave anytime, or go to the casino late at night...or even go to the donut stop.

MASTEROFREALITY

2009-04-14T13:09:00.000-05:00

PEEK A DOOR - 6:30AM

2009-04-12T13:41:00.003-05:00

Hercules realized we didn't have the money to drive from Minneapolis to Iowa City to Omaha. We could have, but we would have come home with $2.00 so we decided not to go to the Trash Talk show. I was super bummed but luckily I got dropped off along I-80 in Iowa and got picked up by Nik, Kailey, Lindsay and Moose. I had already been in the van for 6 hours then I realized I still had another 8 in the car, fuck. I did it anyways because it was Kailey's birthday and I wanted to hang out with her and of course I wanted to see Trash Talk again.

Iowa City is just your average college town, looked just like Lincoln, Lawrence, Madison, you've seen it all before. Joe formerly of Haunted Basement in Des Moines fame was there and it was really cool to see him again. The first band that played was a straight up radio rock band from Minneapolis called "A Verse Unsung." I thought they were awful but I guarantee they will be huge on the radio someday, they have what it takes. Most people just sat down and watched them but I stood in front with Joe and tried to at least pretend I was interested. I eventually sat down about 6 songs in.

In Defence played next and that was a great fucking time. Hercules played with them in October of 2007 in Minneapolis and they were a great time then. The dudes in the band are all really nice and they're just down for punk rock music. They had some great things to say about circle pits, tacos, pizza and gay marriage. Kids were really into them, even the nazi punks fuck off kids came out to show their support which was pretty wild. Haven't seen any of those kids in a long time, wish they'd come to local Omaha-Lincoln shows.

Trash Talk played next and I don't know what to say other than they were fucking amazing. Probably the most legit band in hardcore music right now. They tour hard, play hard as fuck and they're just super down to earth dudes who do this because they love punk rock muisc. They played a great set of stuff from all of their releases since Walking Disease. I was bummed for people from Nebraska didn't come out, it would have been a killer time. Lee told me that they're doing an all basement tour this summer and they really want to play Ghost House again so everyone be looking out for that show.

We didn't stay for The Bronx, I don't think any of us were super interested in seeing them and it was already 12:30 when Trash Talk got done and we still had a 4 hour drive back to Omaha. You know my old ass passed out right when I got in the car. I had a lot of trouble sleeping, I pinched a nerve in my arm at the show and it hurt like hell the entire car ride home. Still hurts today, I'm super pissed off. Got home around 4:30 but was still wide away from the 4 hour nap I just took. So I talked to Kailey on the phone for a little bit then watched all of Clerks 2 and threw in Grandmas Boy before I finally hit it around 6:30am.

This week has been pretty sweet, got out of Omaha for a while, saw some cool bands play. Whammy. Playing tonight in Papillion @ T.O. Garcias. Sorry that Hercules is playing AGAIN. Don't get sick of us. I'm excited to see what this place is all about, I'm always down for new venues. Hopefully some kids come out, fuck easter sunday. I'm back home so now I probably won't have a lot to write about. Hopefully I do though. I don't even know if anyone reads this.

ALAMINNEAPOLIS

2009-04-11T01:11:00.002-05:00

Left Fargo after eating some nice pita's at Pita Pit. Changed my life for the better. Drove to Minneapolis, pretty short drive today but seemed like it took forever. Stopped outside of Minneapolis and ended up sitting at a Target for an hour or so. Got to The Alamo around 6:30 and no one was there. It was really weird for a while but people finally started showing up around 8:30. I fell asleep in the van and missed Condominium, I was super pissed. I woke up to Tyler telling me it was time to play and I was really out of it.

Our set was pretty fun. I can never tell if anyone in this town likes us or hates us. Modern Problems from Winnipeg was super awesome. Real fast, old school hardcore. I went back out to the van and fell asleep again and slept through Dios Mio which really bums me out because they are one of my favorite Midwest bands. I woke up this time to Danny moving the van so we could load up. I talked to Kailey on the phone the whole time and didn't load up anything, kind of felt like a dick.

We were all really excited to eat what we were told were the best burritos in Minneapolis and Pineda. It was closed when we got there. Just my luck! Then we went to Little Ceasars to try and dumpster some pizzas from there but that of course did not work either. So we're at this dudes Charlies house making spaghetti, listening to black sabbath. It's a good time. Unfortunately for me he has two cats and smokes in his house, looks like another freezing night in the van for me.

Tomorrow (or today if you want to be a dick about it) we're driving to Iowa City to see Trash Talk @ The Picador. Friends from Lincoln are driving there as well so it should be a really good time. I am super beat this week. I have only been getting 4 - 5 hours of sleep since last Thursday or so. Don't know what my deal is. The shitty sleep I got last night (and will most likely get tonight) aren't helping either. Fuck the world, right?

Sunday we're playing in Omaha AGAIN (sorry everyone) with Energy, Defeater and Reviver @ T.O. Garcias. Should be a good time, never played there before. It will be weird going out to Papillion, I haven't been there in such a long time. But there's no point to go to a part of town that Jordan might possibly patrol. Come out, but don't watch us because we'll just be playing the same set we played Tuesday & Wednesday.

I'm tired, I think I'll go out to the van.

FAR-GO

2009-04-10T09:58:00.002-05:00

Last night Hercules played a show in Fargo, North Dakota. I was nervous driving up here because of the recent flooding on the entire city. Turns out the waters have receded for now but the 8 inches of snow they received after the flood is about to melt and start the whole mess over again. I'm sure everyone here is really excited for that to happen! The dude we're staying with, Wang, said his Uncle lost his house a few weeks ago. I can't imagine your fucking house gone because of water. Holy shit.

Tuesday we played Agnostic Front & Ruiner, the show was fucking badass. A lot of people came out and almost all of the bands were sweet. I honestly enjoyed Ruiner more than Agnostic Front. I know that makes me nuts but Ruiner is here and now, my time in hardcore, I think we live in the past too much, cool shit is also going on right now. Wednesday we opened up for Jucifer in Lincoln and I don't even know what to say...one of the best live performances I have ever seen in my life. Heaviest guitar tone I have ever experienced. There was a point when their gear was feeding back where I didn't know whether or not to throw up the horns or start crying like a baby. And of course they played in Omaha the next night and we had to leave. There's always a good show when we leave town!

We left Omaha late (like usual) at around 12:00 noon yesterday. Left The Float Crib around 11:30 but had to make a few pit stops to get drum sticks and gas. We took our good buddy DJ with us. We picked him up in the Walgreens parking lot on 27th ST when we were leaving Lincoln. We pulled up to 3 cop cars surrounding Lindsays car. We just parked and waited. A cop approached the van and started shooting the shit with us about our Deleons. He then asked us what we were doing, blah blah blah then asked to see my license. I gave it to him and he left for a while. Then we reappeared and said "You know you have a warrant, right?" I said "no." Then he said "hahaha just kidding, you don't" to which I replied "ok." Cops are fucking assholes. Then we finally got DJ and left! Got to sleep at 5:30 and woke up at 9:45 so I was fucking wrecked.

The drive to Fargo was a little longer but it didn't feel too bad. I spent most of my time finishing up the last few books of Y: The Last Man. I have 2 or 3 more and I don't want to be done, such a good story! On a pit stop to get gas, Tyler left the back door open and as we drove away from the fueling station we heard a load crash out of the back. Tyler turned around to see his board bouncing up and down the road to which he exclaimed "NO!! You need to pull over right now!" It was hilarious. Luckily nothing else fell out, we got really lucky.

Finally pulled into Fargo around 6:30, I had never been here before but it's not a bad town. The show was kind of weird at first. We jumped on a show for a touring act called Howards Dillemma. It's just one dude touring the country alone in a mini van. Think of the show is the rainbow meets B52's meets a weird sketch comedy show all with loud techno music behind it. It was awesome. He pulled people on stage and sprayed them with silly string, made them do other things to be apart of his act. Check him out if he comes through your town. Then we played with a bad two piece band called Almost Something then this really sweet melodic punk rock band from here called Too Fast For Frank closed the show, they were fucking awesome.

We played at a sweet 16+ (kind weird,kind lame) coffee shop called The Red Raven. Omaha or Lincoln needs a show space like this so let's get on that ok? Jed who did our show was a super nice guy but couldn't hang after because he had to go to work. We stopped at Taco Bell to eat since Pita Pit was closed. At Taco Bell Tyler asked the girls working if they wanted to smoke in our van. The manager said it was too sketchy but gave us free Cinnamon Twists instead. Had nowhere to stay but luckily Charlie aka "Wang" let us stay at his place. He has a really nice house with an awesome dog named Joe in Moorhead, MN. He also has 2 cats who shed, so to avoid death I slept in the van. Fell asleep around 1:30 then woke up EVERY hour until I finally just got up at 9:30. It was so fucking cold I can't even believe it. I was actually pretty cozy, just my face of feet were freezing. The worst sleep ever, but it could have been a lot worse.

Today we're playing in Minneapolis, MN at a house called The Alamo. Wang told us the kids there party really hard so I'm looking forward to playing. Haven't played Minneapolis since November 2007 so it's cool to finally get back up there. We kind of pass the northern midwest a lot of I don't know why. Hopefully after our June tour we can get back up north and north east like we did a year and a half ago. Tomorrow is Kailey's birthday and she's coming to the Trash Talk show in Iowa City. I'm excited to see her and excited to see Trash Talk again. Lincoln friends will be in attendance so it should be a wild time. I know Joe is going to crack some skulls.

It's awesome to finally have something to write about other than my boring day at work or how I have nothing to do. I like being on tour. I miss home, but I think getting away from it all is good for you every once and a while. Makes you miss it, makes you appreciate what you have at home and makes you realize what and who you really care about. My 21st birthday was the best birthday of my life. New hilarious license, the casino buffet, doubling my money playing blackjack, new shoes, hanging with the boys, scholtzskys with T, Jucifer show, mine and kaileys party at ghost house, presents from so many people. Thanks to everyone who gave me a memorable birthday! Feeling really pumped and excited about life today. Keep it up!

04/08/1988

2009-04-08T11:56:00.001-05:00

My new license is ridiculous. I'm 21. I thought I was like 16. Shit.

est1988

2009-04-07T10:58:00.002-05:00

Well, this will be my last entry as a child in the eyes of most of the world. Tonight at midnight I will be turning 21 years old. I will officially be an old ass man. Not looking too forward to that but there's not shit I can do about it. Playing some sweet shows the next couple of days. Tonight we're playing with Agnostic Front and Ruiner. Jucifer in Lincoln tomorrow. Then with Dios Mio in Minneapolis. Going to see trash talk the next day. Then coming home and playing with Defeater. A lot of sweet shows! Plus I don't work until Thursday the 16th so I have a lot of days off. That's not good for me money wise but it will make me feel great and that's all I care about. Things are looking up as of now. That can always change at anytime though.

Tomorrow : wake up. new license. casino - buffet/gambling for free. Lincoln. Ghost House early show. Knickerbockers late show. Ghost House birthday party for me and Kailey. Should be a great time! Come out!

OFFOFWORK

2009-04-02T13:56:00.002-05:00

Thought I worked today. I don't. Koizumi show tomorrow. Still sick, will sing like shit. Setting myself up to get knocked down again. Why the fuck are you doing this to yourself? Wish I knew. Holy shit.

FLOAT CRIB UPDATE

2009-03-26T11:36:00.002-05:00

Ladies and germs, the float crib is going to be changing very soon. We are getting two new residents. Their names are Craig Fort & John Pinning. Get ready to have your world flipped upside down by the additions to the what I like to think is an already pretty stellar roster. Float Crib is rolling 6 deep as of next week! More parties, more booze, probably more crime. Also a little more straight edge in there. Can you handle that?

Trying to stay positive right now, but I'm going to be honest it's really hard to. I didn't go into work today and I'm not going in tomorrow. I feel like shit and I wouldn't be able to handle standing in that one spot for 8 hours, alone, silent, in a windowless room thinking about everything going on right now. Going to Ghost House tonight for the SFN show, then back to Lincoln tomorrow for Tyler's 21st birthday. Can't believe Tyler Cain is going to be 21, then I'll be 21, then Danny will be 21, then we'll all be 21. Fuck we're getting old. Hope I can keep busy and keep from losing it.

SHIT LIFE

2009-03-25T11:26:00.003-05:00

I was happy for the past 2 months. Now I'm lower than I was before. Hopefully my favorite websites will keep me from losing it on someone at work. I need to quit my job and leave for a while. Fuck.

wwtdd.com
perezhilton.com
idontlikeyouinthatway.com
nebraskadiy.aceboard.com
fmylife.com
sorryimissedyourparty.com
wikipedia.com
myspace.com
hotmail.com

HOME FROM TOUR

2009-03-09T15:07:00.000-05:00

THANKS FOR COMING OUT TO OUR HOMECOMING SHOW, THANKS FOR READING . . . MORE SOON . . .

3 HOBOS . . . 1 AMAZING NIGHT

2009-03-05T02:00:00.002-06:00

Last tour blog from the road and I'm really bummed out about that. Right now I'm sitting at my friend Josiah's house outside of Tulsa, OK. We played a fucking awesome show tonight @ The Monolith. JVA blew the roof off of the joint! We saw 2 homeless people sleeping in seperate spots behind the venue then an hour later they were spooning each other. What a crazy fucking time. Our show in Little Rock was kind of a weird time. Norma Jeans traveling sound man did sound, he also ended up being the drummer in my cousins band. No one was at the show.

After the show we stayed at a house inhabited by a band called DreamFast. They had a hot tub. It was full of black water . . . but you know that didn't stop us from getting nude and partying in it all night. Another great night of everyone get naked & getting wasted. Tarlowski got so drunk that he passed out so we decided to draw all over his face, a classic move. He caught Vic in the act and drunkely yelled at vic to "get back here" then drifted off again. Vic ran away like a kid who broke a window will a rogue baseball.

That night we drove to Hot Springs, AR. I didn't know what expect since the show was set up very last minute. It was at a place called The Exchange. It's a venue / apartment / apart of a national park. Such a cool fucking space. The show was a great time and even though they were uber Christian they were really cool to us and brought a ton of kids out to the show.

* A QUICK SIDE NOTE - ME AND EVERYONE ELSE WE'RE WITH JUST GOT BIRDMANED BY JOSIAH'S MOM WHO HAPPENS TO BE IN THE GAME, BEST MOMENT OF TOUR!*

We stayed in the apartment above the exchange and partied real late since it was our last night to stay with JVA who left after the show tonight. Vic woke up at 4:30am and was pissed because in a tired blurr he thought we were leaving instead of just lying down to go to sleep. This morning I swear a hog walked through the room, I heard it.

The show in tulsa fucking ruled. Friends from Nebraska and Wichita / Lawrence, KS came down for it and we had a killer time. Played with 3 awesome bands plus JVA. A classic hercules show move, a homless loser came in, loved us, then told us he played with Eric Clapton. After the show he was down the street surrounded by 3 cop cars, a firetruck and an ambulance. Jesus fucking christ, hobos love Hercules.

Now we're eating pizza, watching family guy and being bummed our show in springfield got called off. We'll be in Lincoln late tomorrow night, probably watching Walk Hard. Friday or Saturday I'll do my final tour blog. Really excited to see you all but not pumped on going back to work. Let's hang hard this weekend!

COME OUT TO THE SHOW FRIDAY
@ KNICKERBOCKERS
9PM 18+ $5
HERCULES
JVA
BENEFIT OF A DOUBT

big cool, out

I had heard about the bean before...

2009-03-01T11:45:00.002-06:00

It's hard to surpass the last post, so I'll just type what has happend over the past few days. We left Myrtle Beach and drove to Atlanta, GA where we stayed at a super nice apartment in the midtown area over looking the city on the 28th floor. It was awesome. It was a longer drive to Atlanta so we just made some pasta and tots then fell asleep. The following day we ate some of the best chinese food ever at a place called Lucky Buddah. We drove to Birmingham, AL in a wicked thunderstorm and played at a sweet spot named Cave9. Not many kids came out but that has kind of been the feeling of this tour so whatever. We met some awesome people and it was fun to finally play a show after 3 days.

Hercules and JVA split up and stayed at 2 seperate houses. We stayed at one of the nicest houses ever inhabited by a 20 year old kid named Sam. It looked like a house that should be on the OC or something, really ritzy with all wood floors and radiohead posters everywhere. The boys stayed up late gettin high and we watched CKY4 which is amazing. I forgot how good those movies were. After that we poped in The Big Lebowski and drifted off to sleep.

There's not a whole lot to say about yesterday. We had a show get called off in Clarksville, TN so we decided to make the 10 hour trek to Fayetteville, AR where we will be playing tonight. The drive was long and most of it was through a pretty hellish snow storm. We finally arrived in Fayetteville, 2 hours ahead of the jv all stars. We drove around looking for something to do then the boys decided to get some alcohol and get drunk the in the parking lot of where we were staying. We sat there for about an hour, getting drunk (not me of course xxx) and exchanging stories of our first sexual experiences. If you haven't heard any of these yet . . . get at all of us because they were all some of the funniest stories I have ever heard.

We finally got a call from Tato (yes . . . like potato) saying he was finally home from his terrible 10am-12am shift at work. I was having trouble seeing him outside of his apartment complex and he finally told me "I'm in a fucking tie dye shirt man, I'm sticking out like a soar thumb." Blew my mind. JVA finally arrived and it was so sweet because we hadn't seen any of them for over 24 hours. Everyone decided it would be a good idea to smoke salvia . . . and was it ever a good idea. I won't go into detail on the stories, I wouldn't want to get anyone in trouble with their friends family or girlfriends (or ex girlfriends . . . i know you're reading this) but here are some of the reactions and quotes...

1) "I feel like I'm made out of popsicle sticks. My whole body is popsicle sticks! My tongue is like two popsicle sticks. I need to go smoke a ciggarette but I don't know if I can because my tongue is popsicle sticks."

2) *in a high pitched voice while lying down and laughing* "you're all outside. I'm in a orange room outside of an orange building. The walls keep flying by but you all stay the same. It's like a Caseys General Store."

3) "I'm seeing everyone in blinds, it's like you were all put into adobe photoshop and each one of you has a different effect put on you."

4) "Oh no."

5) "uhhhhhhhhh...."

6) "I was afraid I was going to be popsicle stick man forever. Everyone went stiff and my arms felt like 2x4's."

7) "Everyone is going down. Now everything is going up. Even everything you're saying is going up"

8) "Every surface of my body just became solid."

9) "you don't want no part of this shit."

10) "we're all seeing different things because we're all different people."

Those are just SOME of the amazing quotes I can remember from last night. We then threw on Wake Up Ron Burgundy and I passed out right away. 6 days left of tour. We luckily have shows every day now for this final week which is good. Hercules is running out of funds I think. Whatever though. Go to the show in Lincoln Friday. Party at Ghost House after. Big whemmy!

DIXIE STAMPEDE

2009-02-25T19:25:00.002-06:00

What can I say about the day we just had. Please...if you're going to read any of these posts...read this one. Last night we realized we had over stayed our welcome at Mikey sisters house in North Carolina. We met some girls in South Carolina when we played in Myrtle Beach a few days ago. They told us we could come stay at their house on our day off and we could go to this thing called "Dixie Stampede" which is basically like Medieval Times with the civil war.

We drove here last night and showed up to a beautfiul suburban home in a neighborhood called "The Farm." The house is complete with two living rooms, 2 bathrooms and much more. Think the party plex but not a shit hole. We stayed up super late playing a $1,000 acoustic guitar signed by Michelle Branch and watching The Dark Knight on blu-ray. Watch it in Blu-Ray if you haven't yet.

I woke up today to a melting pot of smells infultrating my nostrils. I came downstairs still in a daze due to my recent spells of dizziness (I might have vertigo). Cooking in the kitchen were our 3 new friends making eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes and biscuits. I nearly weeped at the beautiful sight of it all. We all gorged ourselves on a bountiful breakfast and talked about how awesome our lives were. Me, Vic, Nick and Mitch threw a football around outside to try to burn off some of the food we just ate.

The beach was calling our name. We grabbed the football and piled into a couple of cars and headed to the majestic Myrtle Beach. After kicking off our shoes and rolling up our pants we dipped our feet into the freezing water which turned them blood red. We picked captains and made some teams for a gentlemens game of football. Me and Tarlowski were captains. Teams were Me, Vic, Danny and Mitch vs. Tarlowski, Miller, Matty and Tyler. Aaron played all time offense. It was a hard fought battle but Tarlowski's team came out victorious due to Matt Vicars dropping THREE consecutive passes that all could have won the game for my team. God damnit Vic.

We drove to Dolly Partons Dixie Stampede not knowing what to expect. The building was probably the size of the white house. We had 13 free tickets to this show we knew nothing about. We chilled with some horses outside of the show then went in to take our seats. First we got a group picture that we will be purchasing when we get home from tour. We took our seats in the first arena for our pre show entertainment. We got free drinks and then witnessed the best stage show I have ever seen. This man was the master of juggling, balancing things and winning over a crowd. This man at one point balanced a 8 ft ladder on his chin! Words can't express how great his show was. I have a new hero.

We piled into a gigantic auditorium that smelled like the house we stayed at in Tallahassee. It was all sand complete with a plantation style back drop. We took our seats and the show began. It was a spectacal of north vs. south civil war mania. Think the wild west happening right in front of your eyes with flashy lights, a ring leader who looked like Lemmey from motorhead and people in the most sparkly clothing you've ever seen. There was also a part with a lady dressed up in neon clothing like in that terrible Batman movie with Poison Ivy flying around like a native american eagle. The tokers had to have a good time with that. The girls we are staying with happen to work at Dixie and they told us that a select few would actually get to participate in the nights show.

The first two people up were Tyler and Vic. They came out after a horse race and the ring leader told them they were going to ride some horses. They all stepped up to these women on horses thinking they were going to get on and race. Then the women left and the boys were handed those little horses on a pole. They were fighting for the north. They had to lap around barrels twice, winner takes all. Tyler started off by going the wrong way around the barrels and we were all losing our minds. On the 2nd lap tyler took off his safari hat and started twirling it around his head like a fucking cowboy. I almost threw up my plate of food which consisted of soup, a biscuit, an entire chicken, a slab of pork, a ootato and a pastry. $40 a ticket, 13 of us got in for free. Of course as Tyler and Vic exited the arena Danny and I shot Vic with a birdman and he had to lie down in front of 400 people.

I sat there waiting for something else cool to happen in the show. The ring leader said some people were gonna play some Carolina style horseshoe. Two men entered the arena and to my surprise one of those men was none other than Aaron fucking Broveak. I couldn't believe my eyes. Aaron entered wielding finger pistols and walking like a drunken cowboy from the 1800's. He told the ring leader his name was "Chino"...the crowd was silent. Then the man called Aaron "Cheeto" and asked him where he was from. Aaron won the competition for our side, the north. When he was asked who he was at the show with a spotlight was put on all of us and we stood up in exuberant joy, screaming for our man Aaron winning his Dixie Stampede medal.

This post in no way describes how insane Dolly Partons Dixie Stampede is. If you're ever in Myrtle Beach, SC you need to go see this show. Hands down the craziest shit I have ever seen. Even though we don't have a show today this has probably been the best day of tour and it's only 7:45. We're about to throw in A Goofy Movie and party real hard at this house for one more night. Heading to Atlanta, GA tomorrow. I'll be able to explain this madness better in person. I miss you all a lot. I'll be home in 9 days.

FRIDAY, MARCH 6TH @ KNICKERBOCKERS in Lincoln

HERCULES
THE JV ALL*STARS
BENEFIT OF A DOUBT

late show! come out! party after @ ghost house!

Hotel For Dogs

2009-02-23T10:36:00.002-06:00

Recap of the last couple of days. In Lake City, FL we played with some super metal core mosh bands. Saw kids get destroyed in the mOsh pit. JVA played and no one understood what was going on. We played and I made a joke about Danny murdering someone and no one got it, but we had a great time. We played with an awesome band from Gainesville called Battle, all super duper nice fellas. At the show a few of us were standing outside when a car with green underlights pulled up. I heard this story second hand but from what I was told the car slowed down then peeled out and as it peeled out the passenger threw a full cup of soda that nailed the back of Aaron's head with sniper like aim. I wish I could have been there to see that.

Also in the parking lot across the street from the show there was a 35 year old man playing a full drum kit at 11:00 at night. Me, Mitch and Vic approached him to see what was going on. He soloed for a bit as we walked up and then stopped when we got close enough to talk. He told us he goes out there every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. His wife won't let him play drums at his house so he has to set up in random places. His parting words of wisdom were "man...I just come out here to work things out" which was immediately follwed by a John Bonham like solo. He was still playing when we left the venue around 1:00am.

We drove 35 minutes to Gainesville, FL to stay with the drummer of Battle. Had a nice sleep but kept being awoken by the snarled breathing of his little pug named Bubba. The following morning we woke up and drove to a pizza place called Leonardos. Hands down, dopest pizza I've ever ate. I got a slice of the veggie and a slice of pepperoni. Both slices exploded in my mouth with flavor like a juicy apple does. It wasn't an explosion of grease ever, all flavor, all day. If you're ever in Gainesville, FL and want cheap awesome pizza...hit up Leonardos. After that we drove a little ways out of town to hit up a skate park so the wood pushers of the group could get their skate on. I spent the whole time writing and looking for a basketball so I could go jam on some little children.

That night we had a show in Jacksonville, FL which was a mere 1 hour and a half away. The Hercules crew decided to make a pit stop at Jacksonville Beach to check out the atlantic ocean. It was pitch black and the waves were crashing huge. It was one of the coolest things I have seen. We got to the show at Doozers pub and the vibe was pretty weird because there was no one there. We dicked around for an hour or so then loaded in and kids finally started showing up. JVA played their best set of tour this night, the sound was incredible and their voices were those of angels.

We played with a street punk band called Prison Orange who's lead singer opened the show with a story about picking up a girl who ended up being a man. I didn't watch much of their set because I had to get away from all of the smoke but I heard it was a wild time. The last band was a local ska band called Hith who really tore the house down. A couple highlights from their show is 1) them playing Zombie by the Cranberries and having a 45 year old drunk man sing all of the words 2) the fact that they played for an hour and 15 minutes 3) the sublime cover they did 4) the drummers old ass parents were there watching them until 1:00am.

After the show once every one was super wasted we piled out into the parking lot to stay at the bartneders house. Mitch was so drunk that he wanted to throw up but couldn't get himself to shove his fingers down his throat. So Danny and some random drunk girl took turns shoving their fingers into mitch's throat until he puked everywhere. Vic was trying to run away because he said if he see's someone puke, he'll puke. I held him tight and made him watch the entire thing and he screamed in horror. Aaron was thrashing about, head banging around until he would fall into the dirt and gravel. He later found a piece of glass or rock in his bruised and bloody knees. Vic yelled at a 30 something year old woman who was at the bar because she had a pearl necklace on and tickets to a symphony, he didn't think she belonged there. Apparently her name is "Mrs.Doozer" because she's at the bar, Doozers Pub, all of the time. A weird night.

After a pretty long detour after the show we finally made it to the bartenders house to sleep. There were probably 17 cats in the house so I decided that I would sleep in the van with passed out Mitch. Got about 4 and a half or 5 hours of sleep then woke up at 9:45 to the hot sun beating on my face. I collected myself and rounded up to the troops to make the 7 hour trek north to Myrtle Beach, SC. Vic was nice enough to drive us there. A pretty awesome scenic drive the whole time.

The show in Myrtle Beach was the strangest show our tour for Hercules. JVA of course did great but while we played the house music stayed on so there was this weird vibe between all of the songs. 2 songs into our set the owner told us to turn down. We did then realized we can't play quiet and so we turned back up and finished our set. Played a bands last show, they were terrible. Played with a sweet country band who really wanted someone to buy us all dinner. A few of us hit up the beach and got some really awesome sea shells. It was freezing but the beach was so cool I didn't want to leave.

We drove overnight to Wilmington, NC where we're staying at Mikey's sisters awesome. I guess this is the town where they film that show "One Tree Hill." It's about noon right now and I have 6 or 7 hours to kill so maybe I'll walk around town and try to get a picture of one of the stars. That's all I really got right now. Everyone in JVA is really sick and the hercules van is finally 100% better. We have the next 3 days off which sucks super hard. We're hopefully going to stay here another full day, go back to Myrtle Beach to go to "Dixie" for free which is like Medieval Times but with the Civil War, then we'll go hang on in Atlanta, GA for a day and hopefully all get free snorg tees t-shirts.

As always give me a nice call or text message. If I don't answer your call I'm most likely in the van where I couldn't hear you if I answered or at a show where I also wouldn't be able to hear you. I miss you all back at home, let's party hard when we all get back. 12 more days I believe. Be home soon! Check back for more posts, sorry this one was so long.

"we're having loud metal rock bands here tonight"

2009-02-20T16:41:00.002-06:00

Tallahassee day 2. After the library I got a text message from Vic asking if I wanted to go swim in a sink hole. I obviously said yes. I was with The JV All*Stars and asked them if they wanted to go. For some reason they decided to go to the mall and get keys made instead. What a bunch of whack jobs. We drove about 30 minutes outside of Tallahassee and parked along side of the road. We walked about 15 minutes into a random forest until we approached a sink hole in the middle of nowhere. Mikey just tried to kick me off of his computer but since I'm updating Big Cool's Corner he decided to let it slide.

The sink hole was awesome. The water was absoultely freezing but after living in the sub-zero temperatures of Nebraska since October I wouldn't have cared how cold the water was. We had a blast swimming, trying to get swing on a rope into the sink hole and avoiding being scratched by the dog Davis we brought along with us. Mitch fell victim to the fast moving paws of the pitbull and suffered 4 large bloody scratches on his back. It looks like a bear tore into him. Vic can't tread water so he sat on a log in the water and got drunk. He later told me he was hungry because "swimming" really makes him want to eat. I told him how he didn't swim, he just sat in water and we looked at each other for 10 seconds or so and then moved on.

We got back to the shit shack and our new friends Frankie and Matt made us pasta with vegan sausage and garlic bread. After we napped and feasted we decided it was about time to go to our show at the OAF House. The OAF house was a great venue in Tallahassee that is sadly shutting down tomorrow. The house was your classic punk house that had a a shed in the backyard where bands played. This dude told me that the house has been around for 10 years and it's run is ending this weekend. A sad day in punk rock.

We all hung out and finally loaded in around 10:00pm. Us and JVA decided to share equipment and switch off playing. We'd played a song then they played a song and so on. It was going great and the shed was getting hot and wild. Then when Eric got a wild hair in his ass and decided to turn on Aaron's rat pedal while we were playing the cops came and shut us down. A girl high on LSD told us we had to turn the drums and bass down. We laughed and decided to stop playing since there's no way to turn drums down.

Some people went to a party across the street and got high while Nick Miller and I chilled in the Winnefaygo and told each other about our current situations in our lives. We partied late into the night. Kids in Florida like to jam tunes really load outside and dance around the speakers until they're too drunk to stand up. I fell asleep sandwiched between Nick and Vic hoping that one of them wasn't going to roll onto me in the night and crush my windpipe.

Today we chilled at the OAF House for a little longer and once again chilled around their speakers while they jammed the local college radio station. I walked through the FSU campus to go eat at Jimmy John's and it reminded me why I hate college and most people. Vic got to eat vegan soul food and I think it made him really happy.

We're in Lake City, FL right now at the Marion ST Cafe where we will be playing tonight. It's weird as hell here. I think everyone is bummed out that we're a loud band playing at their coffee shop. Tonight is a 6 band show and Jim from this band Battle told me that some kids messaged them on myspace saying they were going to kick their ass while they played. If that happens I'll try to make an immediate post and I'm sure Vic will update his twitter "Vic On Tour." Here's what everyone is doing right now

Vic : spacing off into mikey's eyes while growing a wicked goatee
Mikey: holding his head in his bands growing a disgusting mustache
Aaron: playing with a pack of sugar
Nick T: Telling Mikey that it's time to load in
Eric: Eating a whole pizza to himself
Nick M: Watching Eric eat that pizza, possibly trying to mooch a piece off of him (of course)
Tyler: Skating around Lake City sharpening his siqqq skills
Danny: Playing with his hair, sitting on a bench in the sun
Matty: Out of sight, but probably playing video games

Mitch: Drawing a picture of a wizard titled "eric the wand bearer"
Me: updating big cools corner with my left leg over my right leg getting a mean glare from everyone behind the counter. maybe it's my rise and fall shirt.

until next time this is big cool saying "big baybay, big whammy, big cool."

old man witherbee . . . the railroad man

2009-02-19T11:25:00.003-06:00

It's been a few days since I've been able to get to a computer to post anything. The last picture is of Matt Vicars doing a shakey face photo. Drool filled fun ensued. Here is a recap of the last few days, it may be a long read....

We drove to Houston on the 15th and got to this venue called Java Junction. The space was really sweet, it was a cool venue in the back of a really fancy looking coffee shop. The girl doing the show made food for us and even made Vic his very own special vegan dish. All of the local bands were there and the girl told Hercules we were playing first. There weren't a lot of people at the show but there happend to be a girl from Omaha with her friend who came to the show to see us play. We set our stuff up, waited a while then decided around 8:15 that we should get the show going.

We jumped up on stage to turn our shit on and start playing with the sound girl said "wait, no one is playing." I took that as "we're still going to wait a bit." Then when we asked her why she said "the show is off." Even though all 4 bands had loaded in and there was a handfull of kids there the dude who owned Java Junction decided it wasn't worth it to stay open. Instead of yelling at him we decided to take down our gear and get the fuck out of there. These DHL kids who were drinking and driving said we could drive 45 minutes out of our way to stay with them. Luckily Vic saved the day and knew a girl in Houston. We stayed at her apartment, watched whose nailin palin and american hardcore with a dude who was shooting coke, who had just kicked his heorin addiction.

Monday we drove to New Orleans, LA. I wish I had some pictures to post on here because New Orleans was one of the coolest places I've been. We played in this bar where they have filmed a dozen movies, including the most recent one staring Jennifer Coolidge aka Stiflers Mom. The bartender/owner had such a thick Louisiana accent I couldn't understand him half of the time and it was awesome! No one was there to see JVA then out of nowhere 50 fake crust kids showed up for the band of the night Crackboxxx. We played and it was kind of weird but a great time. The lead singer of Crackboxxx broke a bottle of booze all over JVA's merch and some of the glass went into Eric Mellows leg.

Crackboxxx played and all of those fake crust kids from outside stormed in the back and started to get real wild. At one point when they were just throwing each other into the bar and broke the bar off of it's foundation the owner freaked out on everyone in his thick farmer dude from Waterboy accent and the show was over. What a wild time. Crackboxxx is an awesome band, check them out. After the show we strolled around Bourbon ST at 2:00am looking at all of the wild shit going on. Some people went into some strip clubs. A taro card reader gave us a box of dumpstered pizza then we went to a bar where I got free soda all night.

The next day we ate a great contraption called Tachos (tater tot nachos) then strolled around the new orleans some more. After getting a call from Mikey telling me we hopped on a show in Mobile, AL it was time to leave. We rolled into Mobile around 8:00pm and had just missed their Mardi Gras parade that looked like a wild ass time. We played at the Alabama Music Box to no one but of course a homeless dude walked into the show and loved Hercules. Hobos are our biggest fans. They love the loud guitars.

We got a hotel in Mobile and had to move rooms because there was an infestation of hundreds on ants in our beds. We woke up the next morning early to eat the "continental" breakfast that ended up consisting of cornflakes . . . and that was it. What a bunch of shit. I don't remember the drive to Flordia much because I fell asleep listening to New Found Glory's new record "not without a fight." Take out the dumb Chad backup vocals and it's a flawless record. Check it out.

We got into Tallahassee and went to the venue called Birds Oyster Shack. We walked in and met the owner Ray who was so nice to us right away and told us up front that he was paying us $150 and giving us free food and drinks all night. We hung out there eating burgers, fries and oysters for hours. Some of us sipped on coca-cola and some of us sipped on more adult beverages. That night a bunch of college kids showed up to play a bean bag game called cornhole. The only people who watched Hercuels and JVA was Hercules and JVA but it was a great time. JVA played flawless last night.

We hung out at Birds for a few hours after the show and shot the breeze. We got a place to stay with this girl named Frankie. After having a really hard time finding the house which was only a mile away from the venue we finally arrived around 1:30am. We stayed at a house called the shit shack and the name reflected the house, it is great. Unfortunately a ton of traveling kids are staying there so there wasn't actually anywhere for any of us to sleep inside. Hercules and Vic slept in our van, and jva slept in their van. Mitchell slept of the porch in the warm Florida air. There was a wicked thunderstorm last night and it was actually awesome the sleep in the van and watch the rain and lightning.

Tour is going great. Today we're playing in Tallahassee again at a placed called the OAF House. Don't know what to expect really. It's probably 60-70 degrees in Florida today which is awesome because I read it's about 19 back in Nebraska. Tomorrow marks the halfway point of tour and it's already flown by really fast. If anyone actually reads this you should text me or call me. I'm missing everyone at home and I have nothing to do all day. Until next time . . . big baybay

DIRTY VIC

2009-02-15T03:32:00.002-06:00

VIC YELLS AT GIRL...HILARITY ENSUES

2009-02-14T02:31:00.003-06:00

I fell asleep last night with my shirt off, pants on and belt undone. I have become a vagabound loser. Had to get up early today in Lubbock, TX so we could get to Fort Worth to play our show with the punk rock veterans in DropDead. The drive today was a short 5 hours to Fort Worth. We rolled into town and dropped our stuff off at Aaron's parents house, the 2nd Broveak residence we're staying at on this tour. We then drove to Spiral Diner so Vic could eat his first big vegan meal of tour. According to Mr. Vicars to food was "incwedable!"

I was really bummed Omaha or Lincoln people didn't come down to the show. You missed OUT. Hatred Surge was one of the best bands I've seen live. One of the heaviest bands ever. The PA was fucked up for the first little bit so I couldn't heard the lead singer but once the PA got fixed her voice blew up and scared the hell out of me.

DropDead was almost too good to describe. The dudes were rolling around the venue all night just talking to a lot of old friends. The people in DD are straight up 40+ years old. The drummer looked like he could be my grandfather but they were all incredibly nice people and they still play fast as fuck. They had to borrow equipment so they didn't get to use their usual set up so they weren't as load as I would have liked. Can't believe I got to play a show that DropDead was also playing. Highlight of tour.

After the show Matt Vicars decided to get behind the wheel of the van. After a smooth 10 mile ride we were almost to Aaron's house when we pulled up to a red car that looked like it could go pretty fast. There was an attractive woman driving the car so Vic decided to "holla" at her. He said "Hey girl, you vibin me? you vibin me?" to which she replied "no." After he asked why and few times and didn't get a response he retaliated with "well the fuck you bitch." Not a very classy move for this is the era of Classy, not Dirty Vic.

We were pulling up to the next light and to avoid anymore confrontation with this woman Vic decided to pull behind her. We follwed her for a few lights and started talking about how it would be funny if she lived in Aaron's parents neighborhood. As we were coming up to our turn the lady got into the same turning lane as we did. Now we were concerned that she thought we were following her. Great...she lives in Aaron's neighborhood. As we followed this woman we found out she even lived on the same street as Aaron. We had to pass her parked car to get to our house.

She got out of the car and noticed that we had followed her to her home and she was not happy with us. She stood by her car with her arms folded, glaring at us most likely assuming we were trying to gang rape her or something. Vic kept yelling "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" but she just kept starring. Vic decided to write her a note explaning what he did and why he did it. He assured her that he did not mean what he said and that she seemed like a very nice girl. He placed the note which included his name and number under her windshield wipers.

If I wake up in the morning and our windows are smashed in and our equipment is gone Matt Vicars is going to owe us thousand of dollars for his actions. I'll keep you all updated.