today is our first day of the tour-everything went smoothly, alexis and scott were late as hell, we got stuck in a lot of traffic leaving new york and arrived on time for our soundcheck in cleveland, oh (buckeye state, pop. 11,353,140). the grog shop is a great club/bar that is closing but will reeopen and be even bigger and better. surprise appearance by our friend craig wedren of shudder to think and his new band baby!

we played a bunch of old songs we never play including wilmington, crash 17 (x-rated car) and sexy sam. it was nice to get the dust off. eli hit himself in the face with his bass like a dumbass. alexis broke his bass pedal-nice going on the first day. johnny and scott just looked damn sexy.

ahh chicago, il (land of lincoln, pop.12,419,293), home of old style beer, touch and go records and wind. we left late and arrived exactly on time and alive - 5:59 to be exact only to find the french kicks and the euro2004 qualifier had booted us off the marquee. this must be the work of the singer of french kicks because he's the only one tall enough to reach the marquee. lo and behold one of the promoters was our old friend sean who had booked us as soulside at club dreamerz with government issue back in 1987.

tonight's show was with a band called pele from milwaukee and french kicks again. the audience was damn sexy tonight, as were johnny and scott as usual. actually eli and I were pretty damn sexy too, in fact there was general air of sexiness throughout the abbey pub (even though the sexy interpol was playing at the empty bottle across town-surely people were very sexy there as well).

chicago. check!

we finally return to minneapolis, mn (north star state, pop. 4,919,479), the home of the infamous 1st avenue club, babes in toyland and more than 6 billion lakes (or something like that). we played 2 shows at the 7th street entry and somehow managed to rip open some sort of portal into the depths of hell because the temperature in the club was about 400 degrees.

it was good to see some of our old "peeps." oddly enough, since we last were in minneapolis they've constructed a hard rock cafe directly across the street from 1st avenue. mmm $14 hamburgers... and we got our own star at 1st avenue too-outstanding! shellac and arcwelder were playing across town at the 400 bar-home of the original house of gvsb.

we found the most amazing death metal radio station and were convinced that in fact, hell had opened up under the entry. the dj told us that they were taking everyone's eternal souls and baking them into one big cookie of eternal damnation which had to be left out to cool on the windowsill... of hell!

today we attempted to invent our own accent-it's still under construction but roughly, m's and n's are pronounced m-yoo and n-yoo and all hard consonants are pronounced schkkkhhhh or something like that (kind of like when you pronounce van gogh in dutch). we are fighting over whether the r's are w's or arrrrr's like pirates with parrots. fascinating? no. also, scott promised that he would wear only a purple speedo, cowboy boots and a holster for his gun that shoots jello shots.

the last time we played at gabe's oasis in iowa city, ia (hawkeye state, pop. 2,926,324) was with the jesus lizard about 6 years ago. before that was when we were in soulside in 1987 with a band called the blue hippos. the load in hasn't gotten any easier but the stairs have not aged gracefully.

this was a great show - we got 2 encores and we each lost about 50 pounds in sweat alone. apparently 7th street isn't the only place with a portal to hell. a voodoo glowskull took some time out from his tour to visit us. this was the french kicks last show with us and we bid them a fond adieu. great band and darn good smelling too. ooh la la.

driving due south to kansas (the sunflower state, pop. 2,688,418) we saw a whole lot of corn- more than you can shake a stick at. I wasn't sure if I should join the children of the corn or make crop circles.

at this point our clothes (hereafter known as stage nuggets) have really started to smell like sweet sweet love. all the washing and air drying is proving fruitless. they have a life of their own and we are considering sending them out on tour by themselves - gvsb2. tonight was our first night with radio 4 and our 2nd and last with ten grand-they are touring for another 138 days. insanity.

the bottleneck is a great place in lawrence and the show tonight was pretty good. t shirt sales are helping pay the bills-not enough to really be a cash cow-more like a cash mouse.