Steve's Tour Diary

  • New York City

    2009-11-13: I do my best not to crow and gloat too much about the Yankees winning the world series. I'm pretty sure that more people hate the Yankees than love them and that's fairly understandable. Jason Victor, he of the guitar pyrotechnics of all things Miracle 3, wonders how in the world I can be a Yankee fan. And I seemore

  • Brendan Mullen, RIP

    2009-10-17: Every major city punk rock scene had it's one or two promoters who got the ball rolling. You've got your Malcolm McLarens and your Tony Wilsons in the UK, you've got your Hilly Krystals in New York, Dirk Dirksens in San Francisco. And in LA that person was definitely Brendan Mullen. Now, I should point out that I was eithermore

  • No longer in the Van

    2009-10-05: I'm sitting on the couch at home in New York and watching the Vikings against the Packers. Linda is a few feet away, sewing and cheering for Brett Favre. That alone is disorienting. It's also disorienting that she's sitting to my right. In the van she was always on my left. This is how I know I'm no longer onmore

  • Every picture tells a story that I'm waiting to tell

    2009-10-03: Welcome back to the weekend edition of the tour diary. The tour is over. Long live the tour. And there are tales to tell. Oh yes, there are tales to tell. A wild, triumphant finale in Austin. You want go-go-dancers on stage? We've got 'em. You want the story of our bandmates rocking the Austin City Limits festival with Robynmore

  • 36 Hours in New Orleans

    2009-10-01: The original plan was to play our show in New Orleans and then spend the following day off driving to Austin. In theory, that plan would make good touring sense. It's a nine hour drive to Austin and nobody likes a long drive followed immediately by a show. But this was a different story. This was New Orleans. And we,more

  • Bill Berry in the House (and up on stage)

    2009-09-29: You should have been there. We played at the 40 Watt in Athens last night, one of our many "hometowns" on this tour. It was already determined that we would get Mike Mills on stage for some songs. After all, he was our quite able pinch hitter when Peter was unavailable for our Spanish festival show last month. Mike beganmore

  • Chapel Hill Show

    2009-09-29: Chapel Hill ShowPlease click here to listen and/or download showSet OnePast TimeTed Fucking WilliamsTwilight Distillery/I'm Not BitterGratitude (For Curt Flood)Out There On The MaroonLove Me AnywayThat's What You Always SayVintage VioletIt Won't Do You Any GoodThe Lurking BarristerTell Me When It's OverWaiting Like MaryBetty Let The Good Times CrawlLies Of The Living DeadAmphetamineSet TwoBroken ManJackie's LamentThe Death Of Big Edmore

  • The Road to Athens is paved with endless intentions

    2009-09-28: Who's going to complain about short drives? Not this guy, that's for sure. But this rare brief van excursion (a mere 90 minutes from Atlanta to Athens) means that I will somehow have to combine diary writing, book reading, sports page perusing, van napping, water guzzling, various band van banter and CD listening into a little more than an hour.more

  • I'm Not Going To Tell You

    2009-09-27: It's Sunday. Time to get some rest. I'm not going to tell you all about last night's show at the Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill. I'm not going to tell you that we all agreed it was one of the best shows of the tour. I'm not going to tell you that we had the chance to drink Brooklyn Pennantmore

  • Smothered, Covered, Chopped, Peppered and Topped

    2009-09-26: Sometimes the best shows come under the most difficult of circumstances. We were all pretty exhausted yesterday as we pulled into Arlington, Virginia for our show at the Iota, dragged down by the cumulative effects of long drives, lengthy shows and very little sleep the night before. And then we hit the stage at 9:30 only to find that Scott'smore