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Hella Rad First Look: The Stoic Club, Louisville's angels of chaotic heavy rock With their new EP "Gestalt" The Stoic Club seek to satiate the soft and heavy sides of your taste. Think The Chariot meets rise-era Drop Dead Gorgeous; It's whiny, angry and in your face. Strap in https://thestoicclub.bandcamp.com/album/gestalt

Hella Rad First Look: Short Handed gets sensitive for Jungle Book acoustic session

Short Handed walks this fine line of trend between the Real Friends influenced pop punk currently dominating the Chicago sound, and the softer American Football approach to the emo sound (not just because of the trumpet, shut up). It’s refreshing to hear such a young band have more than one discernible influence in a year where it seems like everyone heard the latest record from their favorite band, picked up their guitar and went “same.” The lower vocals in this session, with their front heavy presence in the mix, are almost reminiscent of the approach on Coloring Book (Chance The Rapper). It’s a nice step away from the pleasant, airy background instrumental, to a more focused and concrete message. When you’ve finished the session, head over to their bandcamp and grab their entire debut EP “Peace of Mind” for whatever price you see fit. https://shorthandedil.bandcamp.com/album/peace-of-mind Don’t be a turd, donate something. Love, Dad

The More You Know: A quick list of ineffective ways to book a run We've all heard this ancient wisdom about how your early tours are supposed to suck, "it's how you learn!" We've all seen the meme of the pictures of a stadium crowd and an empty bar "don't expect to play this until you've played this" and sure, there's some truth to them, otherwise we wouldn't all know them, but where's the line? At what point are we making it harder on ourselves by being lazy or stupid. Which things are hard because our band doesn't have recognition, and which things are just hard and require persistence. Let's talk about them: 1. Flat rate booking agents? This is a BIG topic of contention in DIY. I know I've covered it, but quick refresher, a booking agent SHOULD make a percentage (usually 10%) of what they bring in for the package nightly. So someone asking you "pay me __ and ill book you a two week tour" is inherently doing something outside of that philosophy, since they get their money no matter what. But remember, I said this was contested in the DIY world so I have to be preparing some positives to show you right? The truth is, there actually are some ways this can be a good thing. Let's say this person wants $250 to book you a two week tour (a common figure I've seen). My band lost ~$200 on our first 2 week tour, because I was still very new to booking. If you can get this person to agree to get you no less than $50 per night, and to give you drives no longer than 5 hours unless they can get $100 on one end of that drive...the truth is you'd do better than our tour, and if your merch was cool there's actually a way you make money on that tour, even after paying that agent. Now, is this the "DIY Way"? Of course not. Could you use this one 'mistake' to make a bunch of friends and contacts and at least ensue that your first tour isn't a total mess...absolutely. Keep in mind that is ONLY if this agent will agree to that guarantee stipulation I made above, check references who have worked with them before, ask promoters, ask everyone, and NEVER PAY ANYONE ANY MONEY BEFORE YOU HAVE REAL HARD CONFIRMATION FROM PROMOTERS THAT SHOWS EXIST. 2. Booking your entire tour via Facebook status? Oh wow, what an awesome cheat code you've found! While all these other bands are being rejected by contact after contact, you've just put the whole thing out there so your friends can tag people for you and book the whole thing! And I'm not even talking a few last minute panic dates, you've gone ahead and put the whole routing out there months ahead of time! Well, here are all the reasons this is a bad idea. - over tagging. Just like with Facebook event invites, laziness has ruined tagging as well. If you book shows, you are undoubtedly tagged in posts like this almost constantly and after a while you stop even clicking them. - you look lazy. This is pretty self explanatory, and if you don't get why this looks lazy...you might just BE lazy. The idea that other bands don't do this, and suddenly you come along like 'oh hey here's the routing book it for me' inherently flys in the face of the term 'hard work' - if you're having this many problems finding contacts, you are likely going too big too fast. If you haven't made a single friend anywhere in the region you need help with, you likely haven't done the small things yet and are just trying to skip ahead. That's okay, and it's ambitious, but in doing so you cannot also take the easy way. The two are mutually exclusive. 3. Booking your entire tour via one post in a "DIY touring" or regional touring Facebook group? - see above 4. "What venues should we hit up" This is by far the most common and complicated. It seems like common sense: the venue has an in house promoter who gets the room for free, surely that promoter books the best shows at that venue, right? Unfortunately, from personal experience I can tell you that is almost exclusively wrong. Now, let's not get it twisted here, there are some REALLY great in-house promoters, but there are a few unique problems facing this arrangement: - the in house gets the room for free, so there is WAY less pressure to make money for that door deal - most in house promoters don't really have a reason to go to other venues which means they see almost exclusively locals that play their venue. There are clique problems in every facet of music and there are ups and downs for all of them, but this one is particularly harsh, because it means your show can only do as well as the venue's average. Now, you're a young band so any show that doesn't rank is sick of course, but taking an obvious limit is one of those things I was talking about with the whole "are we making it harder on ourselves" thing. - the in house promoter is likely to have a heavy work load. They're the in house for a venue they get a ton of show offers, and the young band trying not to starve will fall pretty low on that priority list. 5. Asking every veteran band you know to tour with you -this is an odd one, but we've all been there. It sucks to have to tell a band you can't do a tour with them, especially one who has told you in the past that they strive to find whatever level of success they attribute to your current position, but here's the part no one talks about: we're all still trying to move up. -a band just starting to see some outside interest needs to keep finding more access to that interest with each tour and taking your friends on their first tour at a point where you really needed the help yourself can be damaging -of course more established bands should take smaller bands, but I will always see it as the established band's place to offer. -one of the hardest things we all learn in our early stage is that not every musician you respect who says "you guys are sick" has the want it means for anything more to come of that statement. We learn to take the compliment and move one, don't think every "good set" from a headliner means you should ask them to tour. Your "big break" will feel more like a next step than a miracle. -think "who SHOULD tour with us" not "who do we need to tour with" your correct tour is probably also your most sensible one DON'T GET ME WRONG: there's a time to call in that favor, but your first tour is not that time. You'll know it when it comes, wait for it. There is no easy way. Every promoter from all those "easy list of DIY promoters" posts has been spammed to death. This is hard. This takes time. You cannot cut corners. It is worth it. Love, Dad

Tennessee solo artist Andrew J. Bogues has been somewhat of a folk hero up to this point. With a decent tour history in support of a minuscule two released songs, both via live session, he seems to have built a following on word of mouth.

His debut EP “Mulligan” is the soft, country influenced fusion of the Julien Baker, Pinegrove, and Turnover roots into a beautiful, if gut wrenching short epic; a man’s journey from onset sadness to the brink of coping.

The full playlist is available via Bogues YouTube channel, linked below, with supporting dates for the EP building to a Nashville release at The End with Bogues over Oso Oso, Chase Huglin, Pictures of Vernon, Secret Stuff, and Hodera on October 24th.

Additional dates with Ponder to include: 10/7 - Ashland City, TN - Lawton’s 10/8 - Indianapolis, IN - Hoosier Dome 10/9 - Cincinnati, OH - The Dungeon 10/10 - Louisville, KY - Cedar Grove

Hella Rad Tour Story Number 5: Squatter's House Our first tour ever we had a show at Spinellis in Louisville and the show was awesome, got free pizza and Spinellis shirts. A guy at the show overheard that we needed a place to crash and he said we could stay at his clothing studio (Git Fukt Clothing) and we humbly accept because our image of a clothing studio sounded just fine. We went skating at David Armstrong skate park before heading to this dudes studio on the other side of town behind the other Spinelli's. He didnt tell us it was a shitty part of town. We are out in front of the Spinelli's and a cracked out lady runs over to us and panicked says "The DEA is raiding my house right now, they're taking my kids! I just really need a cigarette if you guys have one". The guy we talked to at the show comes out of Spinelli's and yells at her to leave and tells us to come inside, we do. Inside a girl with a wonky eye and missing a couple fingers says loudly "Everybody loves free drugs!" and we were all straight edge at the time, the dude tells her that and she gets pissy about it. He tells us the house is around back so we walk through an alley to find a shitty little white house without a front door. We walk inside and there is a chair stuck in the ceiling, a knife in the wall, graffiti and trash everywhere, a small baggie of what I believe to be heroin on the kitchen table, and an immaculately clean brand new stove. He pulls the knife out of the wall and walks up to me and says "This is in case anything happens" to which I reply "...am I going to have to stab someone?" and says "Hopefully not man! However we do get a little bit of homeless traffic in and out but its nothing to worry about. The females are usually down to stay and lay, in which case there are some condoms in this drawer". He opens a kitchen drawer filled with a few dozen condoms. We walk to the back room and he says "This is where you guys will be sleeping". Theres a very thin and stained full size mattress on the floor, a few full ash trays and a bunch of garbage in the closet. We tell him we are going to go get our bags, but instead walk outside to collect ourselves over what the fuck is going on and decide to go tell him thanks but no thanks. We walk back to the Spinelli's and I get a call from my girlfriend at the time while the rest of the boys go inside to tell him we were just going to drive. After I get off the phone I walk into Spinelli's to find that my bandmates aren't in there, so I walk back to the squatters house. As I walk into the doorway I make eye contact with to men, one of which is tying his arm off and the other is preparing the heroin with a spoon and needle. The man with the tied off arm says "sup man?" and I immediately bold out the door. A car is following me with its head lights off as I walk down the alley towards where we parked our van. Terrified, I start sprinting down the alley and the van pulls up quickly as a few of my bandmates are yelling 'GET THE FUCK IN THE VAN, NOW". We started driving to Kokomo, IN and really thought about how we actually could have died that night. -Chris Bayless, Ghost Key

Dad Rant: stop being late for everything Somewhere along the way, it became this accepted part of being a small touring band, that you're going to be late for everything. That shit is lame. You're on tour. Unless something happened, you've known about each of these drives for at least a month. The 7 1/2 hour drive didn't just pop up out of nowhere, and 300 miles didn't somehow get longer while you were driving it. Traffic is not a new concept, you just didn't plan ahead like you should've. When you're late, you tell everyone involved one of two things: you're either irresponsible and can't be counted on to plan your own life and follow through with that plan, or you just don't care enough to put the effort in and be on time. Both of these things are lame, and they make people judge things about your band. Now, obviously sometimes it's unpreventable. Keep in touch with the promoter. Reach out early and often and let them know what's going on with your situation. If you're a local band, you shouldn't be late. Point blank. I could draw this out and think of other things to explain how they shouldn't make you late, but that's the entire message here. You're from here. No excuse. When you're late, you show the other bands you didn't prioritize the show. You're not making the effort to put as much time as possible into networking and spreading your band. In a big way, you're wasting a huge part of what playing a smaller show is supposed to be. That's lame. Get your life together and be on time for the things you commit to. Love, Dad.

Hella Rad Tour Announcement: Everyone Leaves and Spill tour to and from Gainesville’s Fest 15

Everyone Leaves (Little Heart Records) will do a short run of dates to and from Gainesville, accompanied by Spill (Broken World Media) from 10/23 to 10/28. Check the Flyer above since you’re probably one of those people who likes bright colors, or check the full list of dates below!

*Everyone Leaves Only 10/21 - Louisville, KY - Spinelli’s Downtown 10/22 - Birmingham, AL - The High Note

*Everyone Leaves and Spill 10/23 - Atlanta, GA - Masquerade 10/24 - Fayetteville, NC - Drunk Horse Pub 10/25 - Charleston, SC - Compass 10/26 - Wilmington, NC - Reggie’s 42nd St 10/28 - Gainesville, FL - Fest 15!!!

*Everyone Leaves Only 10/29 - Nashville, TN - Black Cat Ballroom 10/30 - Cincinnati, OH - 492

Spill: https://spillband.bandcamp.com Everyone Leaves: https://everyoneleavesband.bandcamp.com

Bring a friend to a gig!

TourWith Everyone Leaves and Save Face day 10, parting is such bullshit 10:30am we wake up at Jake's mom's house. Save Face and The Traditional are both still in Buffalo and will meet us later. 12:00 we take a listen through the updated versions of our masters. This is the first time we've heard the guest vocal track fully assembled and it's really cool. We're excited about it. Just talking back and forth with a friend about locking in the single premiere so we can announce pre-orders and actually get this thing out into the world. 12:35 we agree to go toward Akron early so we can stop and see my mother who has just gotten her second "remission" notice from her doctor. It's been a rough year but she's been really strong and that's so wild to me. 2:00 Tyler and I realize that there is one local on the show tonight and they have asked to play first, so it will be basically a 4 touring band show to whoever we happen to draw. Tyler gets online and starts trying to find a second local, I get online and spam every person I've ever met from this area hoping some of them will come out. We'll see what happens I suppose. 4:50 we've all been staring at merch layouts for hours and are kind of starting to crack. I think there's comic sans on a shirt now. Not totally sure. 8:30 first band starts, it's a very young punk/pop punk band. I like watching bands like this, because while they're almost never super tight or anything, I lose myself in this weird thought of like "what will they go through to get to where I am? Will they take it this far? Do they think I'm just some old moron or am I their dream like the bands I saw were when I was their age? Idk I'm weird but it gives me this cool feeling and that's sick. 9:45 the traditional is about halfway through their set, and then Chris Bernstorf (one of the factual nicest people on earth) is gonna do his spoken word set before save face and then we're last. I'm really upset that the tour is over tonight. I want to be out forever and not stop playing, but we're not there yet. Some day. 10:18 Chris Bernstorf's intro and first poem always give me goose bumps. He starts by making the crowd sing with him (all star or fat lip the times I've seen) since he doesn't have backing. Chris works solely off of the strength of his voice and his message. Say what you want about poetry or spoken performance art or touring by yourself forever, but Chris has more heart and guts in what he does than almost any band I've seen however many times. It's easy to convey emotion when you can use volume and loud Amps and pedals and harmonies, but if you had to do it by yourself with just your voice, could you do it? Could you get people to stay in a humid basement to listen and watch? I couldn't and I think statistically you couldn't either. Try it some time. I don't know why, but I always border on crying when Chris plays, even when he's not reciting anything sad 10:50 save face is playing and I hate that the end of every song is the last day I'll hear that song for a while. I've loved almost every band we've toured with, but I've only been this sad about the last day a few times. This band is so incredible live and I really hope if you only get one thing from this series, it's that you should support them. Please go listen to them right now while we go play our set: https://saveface.bandcamp.com 11:58 we just finished our set and sold a bit of merch. I'm so hot I feel like I'm gonna die. I need food and soda and a bed NOW. 12:07 there's a band after us now called Los Ojos and then we're gonna pack and get food with save face. I'm going to make a summary post tomorrow after I've had some time to rest and collect myself. Which reminds me, CLLCTYRSLF, that cool band from last night, is staying at my house tonight whenever we get home. Until then.. Love, Everyone Leaves

TourWith Everyone Leaves and Save Face day 9, Phil's 21st (and final) birthday 11:00am I get back to the Head North house and we all listen through out masters together and send off notes to the engineer. We finalize some design work and talk about the stream pitch. 12:00pm phil's mom and Freddy's girlfriend surprise everyone, having driven all the way from jersey to celebrate phil's birthday with him! They leave to go get food and hang out, the rest of us go to mighty taco, which is the best buffalo fast food. 3:30 ok so we just got to that venue and it literally looks like the set of a punk show where a murder happens on law and order. What a day. 5:30 bands have started. A few bands dropped but there are already a good amount of people here 6:15 alleys is always so good. We're next and then I finally get to see CLLCTYRSLF from philly. 6:35 Alleys finished and there are a pretty decent amount of kids here. Really stoked to play, but there is a little bit of worry in our ranks about how hard we hit a stage vs how this stage doesn't seem to want any part of that. Quick prayer. 7:45 CLLCTYRSLF is really cool! In the strangest way they remind me of if chiodos or drop dead gorgeous had to start an adventurous take on this whole high energy emo scene today. Really interesting sound, and interesting is my whole thing. Their last song is the perfect closer for a set, it's this small idea that grows and turns into this massive song by the end. Really cool set. 10:45 the show ends and we pack and grab McDonald's on our way to the freeway to drive to Jake's mom's house to sleep. Tomorrow is the last day of tour and that's lame, but then Monday we get to announce the next tour so that's sick! Love, Everyone Leaves

TourWith Everyone Leaves and Save Face day 7/8, stranded in Ottawa; dad polos in Syracuse Ok, so after we signed off in Ottawa, we were all set to go stay with someone, and then at 12:50am that person told us it couldn't happen anymore. Things happen, we were absolutely not mad at that person, but now it's 1am in a foreign country and we have nowhere to stay. I am obviously one of those people who exists almost solely on the Internet, so I hopped online and started scrambling. After about 15 minutes, Will from Swim Team got ahold of the band Pine, and they agreed to take us in! That was an unbelievable feeling, That we could pull that off at 1am in a country we aren't from. We grabbed gas and food and went over to stay with them. They were SUPER hospitable and gave us their basement and living room. Both bands passed out. In the morning we found out Cory from Safe To Say also lives in the house. We hung out and talked music and tour and life with him and Darlene (Pine) and it was really cool to just sit for a minute, not drive, and talk. Later in the afternoon, we got up, got food, checked out a music store, got more food, and then went for the border. After exchanging currency and crossing the border, we got to Nick's house (Ahnest/the promoter for Syracuse/a wonderful human). We walked to a pizza place and ate, then headed back to his house. Most of the package went to sleep, but Phil went outside to speak very sternly into his phone for a while, and Tyler Chris and I stayed up talking about dedication and horse the band and doing insane things everyone else would call you crazy for as a small band, and then we got into the weird music. This is a ride: the weird music thing is a conversation the crazy member of your band will have with the crazy member of another band many times in your touring life. DIY makes you a little mentally unstable, and weird music seems to be the fiber that the craziest of us cling to in order to keep ourselves alive. We started with horse the band because we're all in love with them. If you don't know that band or any of the reasons they're an incredible force, you need to educate yourself and then a lot of this blog's posts will take on new meaning for you. Tyler and Chris kicked it off with Maximum The Hormone, who have become one of my new favorite things overnight. Watch this video for god's sake. This is what music is missing. Everyone plays their guitar into a fucking camera in a warehouse or the woods or a living room or blah blah blah blah stop it. Bring the weird back. http://youtu.be/TdwT5JlH8gM I countered with this wild 2chainz video, and Lady Baby. Watch Out (2chainz): http://youtu.be/cG21b8Kx2DI Nippon Manju (Lady Baby): http://youtu.be/MDi-P0G9VMU The Lady Baby made Tyler and Chris remember their friends Gang King and I was gifted with this fucking GEM! Snowman (Gang King): http://youtu.be/okja53mK2ZY I didn't think to include this last night, but you should also watch this from Tyler The Creator, who is a GENIUS whether you enjoy his music or night. IFHY (Tyler, The Creator): http://youtu.be/3lDqMx4rmFU I'll stop there so I don't crossover over into material for a post I'm writing about how everyone's music videos suck and we should all be trying harder, but watch those! Then we all went to bed. Dad Polos in Syracuse. Sometime earlyish: everyone but me woke up and went somewhere that involves coffee and probably food. 12:00pm I woke up and saw everyone walking in with coffee. 2:30 we left the house to go to target, and lunch, and a good will where I decided I liked Freddy's polo, and that I now required a 2xl Polo and Neon Pink swim trunks, which I bought immediately. 5:15 we drove to the venue and loaded in. Tonight's venue is a REALLY cool art space with art and graffiti all over the inside. 7:00 the traditional (adding to the package for a few days now) still isn't here, so we start a little late so they don't have to feel pressured to speed. There's an acoustic opener and then our set. 7:45ish hey look! The Traditional is here! 8:00 we play to a pretty good crowd who don't seem to already know our music, but seem interested, which is honestly one of my favorite types of crowd. Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer every show sold out in a room that is too small for the amount of kids in it, and I'd love all of them to be screaming and flying through the air, but if I can't have that, I'd love a crowd of new kids who can dig it. 8:45 Save Face plays to a few more kids than us, same deal. Really great! We're both pretty pumped on it. During their set Tyler dedicates a song to us, and also to me for having my shit together, which means more to me than I think he'll ever know. I constantly doubt myself, I constantly think I'm letting everyone down and that they all hate me, so for someone outside of my pre-existing circle of friends to notice and say something means a great deal to me. I feel weird typing that but I'm not gonna delete it like I keep telling myself to. I want to say it. Thanks Tyler. Save Face gets better every day. I don't understand it. They're on like day 50 and they're cooler every time they play. I wanna be like that to someone one day. 9:05 Save Face is done and ALL I can think about is food. Dammit. I'm so hungry. Ugh. 9:30 The Traditional starts and WOW does their vocalist sound like the dude from Cute is What We Aim For. They're ripping their first song right now. 9:45 The Traditional has a really tight, pleasant sound to their music. It'll be cool to hear what a day 2 set sounds like from them! 10:20 Nick starts his set. I haven't seen nick play in 2 years and I'd forgotten how awesome his voice sounds live. 11:45 show is over and it's time to drive to buffalo to stay with head north and Django! See you tomorrow! Love, Everyone Leaves

TourWith Everyone Leaves and Save Face day 6, Ottawoah 11:00am so we go to a gas station/Tim hortons combo, and get this: there's no soda. They were also SUPER weirded out by me pre-paying for gas...I guess no one steals gas in this country, that's wild. They also have plane packaged cigarettes which I haven't seen in person and it's weird. Everything is so different here, but it all just seems slightly better than what we're used to. In the states, Tim horton's is a solid 4/10 for me, here it's actually really good! 12:00pm we listened to the Rick and Morty over dub of a Georgia court case in the van while waiting in traffic to get out of Toronto 1:00 the drive to Ottawa is almost entirely on the same one freeway and the only albums I have on my phone are Views, The Life of Pablo, and the Church Tongue album. Also, let's take a second to talk about that: when Church Tongue releases their album they're going to be the biggest band on earth. This album is flawless start to finish and it has everything. Really incredible album, let alone as a first full length. We can't wait to watch that band explode. Judging from my emails, I think we get to announce our next tour Monday which is sick because it's our tour to and from Fest and it looks like it should be another wild one. Cannot wait for that! 4:00 this drive is taking longer than it should, and now we get stuck in stopped traffic for a half hour. Super annoying. 5:00 finally within 40 miles of the venue. Original ETA said we'd have been there a half hour ago. We plan ahead, so we're still on track to be just under an hour early for load in, but having been in the van for this long when we shouldn't have is just annoying. We've finalized almost all of the pre-order designs now though which is cool. (10:14pm I had a whole bunch of cool stuff typed and then my phone crashed and deleted it so now I'm redoing it from memory) 6:00 we get to the venue and find out it's a giant underground pinball bar and arcade and this is one of my favorite venues on earth! 7:00 doors open and immediately there are a ton of kids. One kid pays and immediately b-lines for our merch table and buys two shirts, which is wild because it's our second show in this country and our first in this city. Now I should note here, this is almost definitely not our doing, this is more than likely the work of the promoter Ryan Fitz. This kid is a fucking prodigy. All of my friends who know him agree. He's 17 and he's already promoting shows correctly and getting great turnouts. He's really putting his heart into this and doing it for small bands and it's so amazing to see someone so into it at a time when everyone in music just seems so tired and ready for vacation or death. It's no secret that I'm a lover of work ethic, and this dude has more than most people way older than him. It's so sick. 7:30 first band plays to a really decent crowd, especially for a Wednesday night. Cool surfy band! 8:15 Save Face plays to a really cool crowd of very interested kids and there are just a really great number of people here. Tonight feels like an indie movie about being in a touring band fighting to convince people you're worth caring about. This feels like that final scene where they rip the gig and kids are finally like "yoooo" and that's sick. Moments like this are so special, the last time I felt this was in a shed in North Carolina playing a show with Pictures of Vernon. There were Christmas lights and graffiti everywhere and we were in the absolute middle of nowhere and still 70 kids cared and were pushing to get closer to the stage to tell the words and it felt like this moment was hitting me in slow motion. If I could live a life of these moments, punctuated by giant sandwiches, I could die happily at any time. 10:00 we just got off stage and holy cow. Kids here are so nice and cool. Crowd was amazing. Geez. 10:30 the band after us is a group of self proclaimed nerds playing really tight rock songs. They also covered part of Tom Sawyer, which made my life, and now they're covering "Godzilla" by Blue Oyster Cult and everyone is yelling the words to the chorus. This is so wild. We're all having a blast. Freddy and Tyler from Save Face are standing with Dakota and I and we're all just so confused and stoked on life. Tonight is a win even before we know what we did in merch. This is a special show and these are so rare, so to have more than one on a tour is just crazy. Completely blown away. 10:40 there are still groups of kids paying to get in. It's a Wednesday night and this room is pretty damn full. I have no clue how Ryan and the rest of these bands have promoted so well, but the rest of us need to step our game up like hard. 10:50 second last band says "what's up its our first show" and immediately RIPS. Their tone is solid, they're playing their songs cleanly, their vocalist is expressive but not overdoing it. This is so cool. I wish our first show had been this good haha. 11:10 okay that band is called Swim Team and they are now one of my favorite bands I have ever heard on tour. Their sound is fresh and cool, they sound like a mix of microwave and turnover but slower, heavier, and dreamier. It may just be the mood today has me in, but this set is literally perfect. If any of you read this, I meant it when, a few minutes from now, I tell you that you were incredible and I hate you for never having an "our old stuff sucked" phase. Wow. What a band. They closed with an LCD Soundsystem cover. 11:20 this is the only show that has ever gone this late that hasn't annoyed me. What a night. What a show. Ryan Fitz, that promoter prodigy I babbled on about earlier, is about to play his set and then we're all either going to go stay somewhere and hopefully eat/sleep...or try to drive to Syracuse I guess. 11:25 Ryan covered Your Graduation which is sick.

TourWith Everyone Leaves and Save Face Day 5, oh...canada 8:00am our friend Katie's roomate wakes us up to let us know it's time to get ready so he can leave. Tons of groaning. 9:00 we get to the Donut Bar Katie works at and it's just wonderful. The donuts are huge and soft and amazing. I walk next door to an Autpzone and have someone come look at our fuzes, but of course the turn signals and brake lights pick this moment to pretend nothing ever happened...so no fix. I buy coolant and walk back to the donut place to let the van cool for a while before opening the radiator (I've waited too little in the past and burned off half of the skin on my chest). 10:00 with hopefully working turn signals and brake lights, a reservoir full of fresh coolant, and screenshots of the directions because no one has international service, we're shooting for the border.m 10:30 while getting gas I struck up a conversation with the guy at the pump next to us and it turns out he played baritone saxophone for the buddy rich band. We talked about music while we filled up and then went our separate ways. Talk to everyone you can, the world is full of those moments and most of them are really great. Playing Canada for two days doesn't seem like an objectively big deal on paper. In the grand scheme of things, it's just two more shows, but this is more than paper or spread sheets today. Last August we did one of my least favorite runs. It was the first time I ever stressed myself to vomiting over booking, our tour partner didn't seem to want us on the run. For the first time, we felt uncomfortable doing this. There were good moments on that run for sure, but in total it was a loss and it wrecked my spirit. It was a strange feeling, and when we started talking about where the next tour should go, and with whom, the answer in the back of my mind was "nowhere." For the first time, I doubted something I've had visions of since I was 4 years old. I worked through it and we did a decent tour, followed by a REALLY good one (the first of 2016). Since I worked past the doubt that tour created (and wrote a song called The Lonely End about it) I have been hell bent on making this work, now more than ever. We are all as committed as we've ever been, so to cross into another country today, it feels like starting over but as a real band. We don't matter to many people, but we matter so much to us, and I think that's a huge part of the battle. 12:00pm we get to the border and we're immediately pulled for search and immigration. Security was super serious and wouldn't laugh at my amazing jokes, but they were very professional and kind. Both bands made it through okay, and I found out I apparently have international service so that's cool! Now just finishing the last 2.5 hours of the drive and then our first Canada meal and show! 2:00 gas is priced in cents per litre here. I am living a nightmare. 4:00 we're eating at a local waffle bar called Starving Artist and I can't wait to get this spicy chicken sandwich with waffles for bread! 4:50 okay, as a self proclaimed "fat kid" I have a soft spot in my heart for hockey jerseys, because while I hate myself and the way I look almost without exception, the way a hockey jersey fits may be that exception...and Canadian thrift stores are FULL of them...oh geez. 5:00 after a long talk with my bank about how I'm in Canada, I buy a Leafs jersey. 5:30 we're in the venue, which is a really cool cafe and we're just waiting for the other bands to get here for load in. 5:45 everyone is playing a game where you pull a card with a question on it and try to guess the person's answer from the choices provided and it's weird and funny. There's no small amount of yelling, but that's sort of how our tours go also. 9:06 we just got done and WOW is everyone at this show nice! We gave away a bunch of free promotional merch the second our set was over and all the kids wanted to talk about our set and our band and ask us where we were from and it just feels really cool when people ask like real questions. Really good night, can't wait to hear the rest of the bands. 11:10 the last band has finished, everyone was cool. We're gonna try to grab food on the way to our friend Tanisha's house and then watch Netflix and pass out! Talk to you tomorrow from Ottawa! Love, Everyone Leaves

TourWith Everyone Leaves and Save Face day 4, we're gonna hardstyle on 8 mile 12:00pm after grabbing gas and food at a Flying J/Mcdonalds we've gotten about an hour of today's drive out of the way. Our turn signals are out, and apparently, according to a really angry man in a truck that we covered in tattoo decals wearing a bandana on his head, our brake lights are too. So, that's something we'll probably look into at some point. We're currently blasting The Life of Pablo while Carolyn and Aubree work on merch designs for the pre-order bundles we have to submit when we get home from tour. I'm also finalizing the last date of our next tour via Facebook so we can get it announced the second this one ends. We do our best to work from the road so there is never any radio silence between our band and the people on the outside who have started to care about it. 4:45 so the original venue had a problem a few weeks ago and the show was moved. I've just been routing us to the new address without looking into what it is and we're here and it's apparently some sort of upstairs unit of a print shop? Interested to see what this looks like. Mover Shaker is a really cool band we've wanted to play with for a while and we've known Damion from Bleak Falls for a long time and we've never been able to see him in a band. Today is another special day. It feels really great to have 4 days in a row where it's just us hanging out with friends we've missed and playing to a bunch of kids who know our songs. This is not how every tour goes, but when they do its a huge deal. 6:30 we walk into the upstairs and it's a really cool apartment. It's small and a few kids being at the show would make it look pretty full. We really love playing small overcapacity, in favor of large undercapacity. The owner is super nice and he plays a band called Tawny Peaks that I haven't had anyone to talk to about in a long time and I lose my mind talking about how much I love them. Out back on the porch there are stairs to the roof and it's all covered in Christmas lights. I really like places like this. I feel like I'm in an indie movie about being in a DIY band rather than actually being here haha. 7:00 Bleak Falls, our friend Damien's band, opens the show and they're really cool. They open with some noisey stuff, and then they switch to some low-fi sounding melodic stuff that I really liked a lot. Now Save Face is setting up, and I'm really excited because I love having a partner we enjoy watching every night. They check with "Something Right" by Microwave, a band we've become friends with, every night and it's so funny. They just stop in the middle of the intro and noodle, then start their set. Preoccupied is the catchiest song in this genre and you'll never convince me otherwise. 10:00pm Mover//Shaker is amazing and they covered I'll Stop The World And Melt With You and they're so cool. This show has been unbelievable, just like the tour thus far. Any time you get 4 great shows full of friends in a row, where no band is weak or mean or bad live, it's a blessing at this stage in the game. To play all of those shows to good crowds of really nice people is just icing. 11:00pm we're off to stay at our friend Katie's house to rest up before our first trip to Canada tomorrow. Two country band, wow! We'll try to find wifi to post tomorrow's! Love, Everyone Leaves

TourWith Everyone Leaves and Save Face day 3, Sudden Suspension's last show 1:00am Chris from Save Face tells me his philosophy for every set is to rock so hard he can't move his limbs after 2:00am I texted everyone that we should be up by 10, ready to leave by 11 11:05 no one is ready yet. Dakota and I sit around sharing stories with Kyle from human after all about dumb things that have happened at work that have made us or our friends quit 11:40 Phil from Save Face now has a mustache 12:00pm Chris and I walked to the farmers market and bought the best banana chocolate chip muffins I've ever tasted. So ready to knock out this drive now! 3:00 we pull into the parking lot of the venue early (we like to be early for things). Save Face isn't in town yet, but we always like the chance to check out a venue before we have to load into it 3:30 we went and got portillo's to kill time til. Ribs. Amazing choice. So good. 5:00 we loaded in and set merch up. Tonight is another show full of good friends so it's really cool seeing everyone! Chicago has become like a second home for us. 7:00 the show has been wild! All these bands are so good and it's so cool to see such a great crowd for Sudden Suspension's last show. Our set was so fun and it felt like one of the best sets we've played musically in a while. Crowd reaction was so great and we've done REALLY well in merch tonight. 10:30 sudden suspension just finished their last set, which included a wall of death, a broken string, and a ton of guest vocals and a ton of push mosh. Wild night. We're all gonna go get Chicago deep dish and then crash at Brandon's before the drive to Detroit tomorrow. Today was sort of fast paced, sorry it's so short, love you! Talk to you tomorrow, Everyone Leaves

TourWith Everyone Leaves and Save Face: Day 2, hello Wisconsin! 11:00am we're in a gas station each deciding between Cinnabon and Wendy's to hold us over until we get to a few of our favorite Milwaukee restaurants. Jacob initiates the first round of "drink drink pass" for the tour. This is where someone buys a generic energy drink the band hasn't had and everyone has to share it. It is unanimously agree that green "hype" just tastes like monster. 12:00pm after an hour of system of a down and rage against the machine Jacob remembers that it's scene phase Saturday in the van, and starts the playlist off with Nickasaur and old Bring Me The Horizon. Everyone in the van hates xoxo but Jacob. Also, all the old Never Shout Never songs are gone from spotify and that's bullshit. 12:15 the whole guitar solo section of bat country is sick 12:30 upon hearingYou're Not Alone, an intense discussion on why saosin doesn't play old songs and how dumb that is. What's the one thing you need for today to be a "win" for you? Dakota: make it through the set without breaking something else Jake: just to see Kyleigh and joe Aubree: more coffee Jacob: I need it to stop raining, but also to hangout with Kyleigh and all the bands. Root beer too Brandon: nothing except like it doesn't rain. I'm pretty optimistic Carolyn: it would be cool if it would stop raining. 2:30 we're on our way to pick up our friend Kyleigh from an mke suburb while texting joe from Human After All about somewhere good, local, and affordable to eat 2:35 something gives me the idea to play the scooby doo theme. Everyone is confused so I let a second version play and then switch to the Seinfeld theme. 2:45 the monster mash makes its first appearance of the tour 3:30 we ran into our friends in an amazing band called Lume (who are also not from mke) and just nerded out about how random that was 4:00 we ate at a burger/shake place called Kopp's that was affordable and REALLY good. It's still raining 4:45 we got to the venue early for load in and met up with Hot Mulligan and Human After All. The venue tonight is a cool bar that opens into a pretty sizable floor space, but something that will still look really good when the show hits 50 kids. Big enough but not too big is always super cool! We were also told that the venue's security guard does a patrol to check on the vans every 15 minutes, which is amazing 6:45 this is a really tight knit community. Everyone in the neighborhood knows the venue exists, the security guard knows every person walking by, and while this isn't the community's "scene" they all seem to be okay with everything tied to a show happening here. That's really cool to see because a lot of DIY spaces are not things the community around them particularly love 9:45 we just got off stage and Human After All is about to start. Every band has been cool today. There's one more band after them and then we get to go eat Ian's, which is the main thing keeping me alive right now because I'm so hot and tired 11:20 we're helping Human After All load their stuff back into their practice space and then going to get Ian's. We've heard there's crab rangoon pizza, so we're all excited. 12:00 we've had crab rangoon pizza and hawiian pizza and all kinds of other wild pizza, and now it's time to take a picture and go sleep on a floor so we can get up and play Sudden Suspension's last show tomorrow! Talk to you tomorrow! Everyone Leaves

TourWith Everyone Leaves And Save Face: Day 1, everything starts at some point We leave for tours on Friday because I can work til 1, come home, and we can leave in time to make a show. My job is closed Saturday and Sunday, so a 10 day tour is only 5 days off if I do it this way, which will soften the blow when I eventually tell my boss we landed a month long full US some day. The shorter tours serve the same purpose with everyone else's jobs. It's 9:30am and I'm at work right now. I work at a Dog Daycare, and today my dog Sarabi won't be coming home with me. My work will also board my dog while I'm on tour, for free, which is an UNBELIEVABLE asset. I got paid this morning, but almost all of my check is unavailable to be spent, because rent is due right after we get home, and I'll have a 1 week check after that to eat on for two weeks. The week after tour is usually all peanut butter and jelly for me. Everyone else seems to budget much better than I do, but I enjoy most things in my life, so I can take this one just fine. Currently, I have not packed my bag and the van is not packed. This is much less prepared than we are normally, but life does that sometimes. Today is only a 3 hour drive to Indianapolis for the first show, so I'm not particularly worried. I AM a little worried about having run out of my anti-depressants and my adderal this morning, but I didn't have the time to make an appointment and get the prescriptions extended so it'll have to wait til we get home. We hope to leave the house between 1:30 and 2:00. 2:05 we leave First two songs played through the speakers are Holy War by Thy Art is Murder and Watch Out by Two Chainz at 2:40 after talking about stupid home drama we don't have to deal with for 10 days. What show are you most excited for and why? Dakota: I hardly know where we're going (he's not kidding) Aubree: Milwaukee, because that's the first time the holy trinity have played together (human after all,everyone leaves, hot mulligan) Jake: Chicago, because I miss Scoot from Kayak Jones Brandon: buffalo, because I can't wait to see and meet drunk Casey (bolles) Carolyn: I'm just really excited to be in Canada and see all the friends. I'm excited to see the show of life. All the shows that aren't in Florida. The vocalist of Float texted me asking if I have any tips for fixing your broken voice before a set because he slept in cold air, and I have a thing I learned from Aubree that I modified a bit, so here's that advice as well: Yeah! Ok so go to a CVS, but the red halls cough drops and two regular sized bottle of water. Drink a quarter of one slowly, then let it sit til it's room temperature. Crush up 7 cough drops into a powder, put into the water bottle, shake it. Drink another quarter of the bottle. Drink the other half during the band before you. Then go warm up. 5:00 we're at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis a half hour early for load in and there's metalcore on the PA. We're friends with every band on this show, all of whom are local, so it's a really welcoming first date of tour. I try to start tours this way because I does take a show to get into the groove if we take more than a week off. We play this game where we see how long we can make it without a band playing Sugar We're Goin' Down. One time we made it to the last show of tour. This time we lost on the first band of tour's soundcheck, so not a great round. 9:30 we just got off stage. The first set of every run always feels like garbage because you've been able to exist in your fantasy world of how your set sounds since the last tour, and I feel like everyone kind of romanticizes it whether they mean to or not. 10:45 after a decent little merch rush, we pack the van to head for an Arby's just outside of Demotte, IN to meet up with a really good friend, Brandon from Sudden Suspension, and follow him back to his house to eat our roast beef and sleep before finishing the drive to Milwaukee tomorrow. Goodbye for now, talk to you tomorrow! Everyone Leaves

TourWith: Time to put my money where my mouth is I've talked a lot about theory. I've told you how you should do things, and how it should turn out if you listen to me. This is all fine and great, but does it work? For this first attempt at a "tour diary" series, I'm going to take you out with my band. I am our booking agent, in most cases I act as our TM as well (we aren't big enough to require a real one). In this intro post I'm going to tell you how I booked the tour, and my thoughts as we leave for it. The later posts will be very sporadic. Most bands are pretty vague about how a tour goes, other than "the shows have been sick" or "this tour has been a blast" or "please donate to our gofundme so we can get home" so I'm just trying to give you a real idea of what life is like out here before anyone REALLY cares about your band. How I build a tour: Save Face is a rock/emo band from New Jersey. Their agent is a friend of mine, Michael Pfohl, from a really cool Nashville Emo band called Secret Stuff (I shared a tour story about punks shooting michael in the junk with a bottle rocket a while ago). Save Face played a show for my friend John in my hometown and I ran doors. I had heard of them, but they used to be a band I wasn't into, and I didn't know they had changed their sound (later in the night, their vocalist Tyler would tell me he'd thought the same of us). After their set I talked to Tyler for a while, mostly bullshitting about our mutual friends, but I also mentioned the idea of a tour together. Tyler told me about this insane two month run they were doing, and we agreed it could be cool to put the Midwest (our home region where we draw best) at the end of that, so they could spend the last 10 days with some friends and hopefully have a shot at some more reliably good shows. Later in the month, Tyler and I confirmed routing and began work on the tour. I booked my dates: Chicago, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Syracuse, and Ottawa Ontario fairly quickly. Tyler and Michael confirmed Detroit, Toronto, Buffalo, and Akron in good time as well. There is one off day, which I am always against unless an amusement park is involved, but things happen. As the show lineups announced, we were fortunate enough to be billed alongside a lot of what I would consider "known bands" (bands with tour history and/or decent online presence) which is NOT a common thing, and may prove to be a lifesaver (DIY touring is always a fight for your life in some sense). These "known bands" include: Float, Human After All, Hot Mulligan, Sudden Suspension (final show), Sleep On It, Kayak Jones, Mover//Shaker, Ahnest, The Traditional, Casey Bolles, Sundressed, Cllctyrslf, Alleys, and Chris Bernstorf and those are just the names we already know in that category. Venues: A big thing I'm excited about, we only play one true house show on this tour. House shows can be really cool sometimes, but for the most part they make me uncomfortable. I feel like I'm annoying people by playing, because they seem like they're only there to drink and talk to their friends. That's just how I feel, maybe your market's house shows are different, but I've only felt differently on a few occasions (Fowlerville, MI/Murfreesboro, TN/Clarksville,TN/Huntington, WV. Guarantees: I'm not sure I'm comfortable talking about money in this, but I will say that most of the shows have guarantees, which is mostly the result of playing many of these markets a few times and building the necessary draw to convince a promoter the package is worth money. Where do we sleep? In Indiana, Chicago, Milwaukee, Toronto, and Buffalo, we already have boarding confirmed with friends of ours (met through touring, boarding bands, and the Internet). Detroit we will drive to Toronto after and stay there, Ottawa and the off day I will figure out on the fly (I'm not worried), Syracuse we will figure out or drive to buffalo after and stay with friends of ours twice. Who are we? Normally, we bring a merch person named Steven, and a photographer Carolyn Ambriano, along with the 4 or 5 of us (our 3rd guitarist Dakota occasionally misses a run). Steven cannot make this tour, but Carolyn is with us. We will share the merch responsibilities between the rest of us. We pay Carolyn at the beginning of tour for graphic design work she has done between tours (she does all of our merch and tour flyers), as well as a pet diem to eat, as she is sacrificing her time to be with/work for us. Jacob (me) - I play guitar and sing. I handle most of the driving, by choice, and I like to handle a lot of merch as well because I like talking to people. I am almost solely responsible for the deathcore, musical theatre, trap music, and a cassette of whale noises (not a joke at all) played in the van. Aubree - they play Bass/sing and handle merch as well. They are also too short to reach the pedals and see over the dashboard at the same time, thus they are unable to share driving. Jake (yes it gets confusing) - he plays guitar and sings. Jake is responsible for the majority of the metalcore, and a decent share of the hardcore played in the van. He shares some of the driving, and eats almost exclusively chicken and french fries. Dakota - he plays guitar, sleeps, and does a share of driving as well (not all at once). Were he to have it his way, Trivium would be the sole soundtrack option in our van. Brandon - he plays drums and does not possess a license (somehow in 2016) so he also cannot drive. Brandon is responsible for quiet but effective one liners from the furthest bench, and backflipping in the pit on the joyous occasion we actually get to play with a heavy band. And that's about it. There will be a second post today, as a Day 1 post, but this is all I can think to tell you ahead of that. I have NO clue how this is going to go, the tour, or this blog series (as far as readability and content). This tour could be anything from mundane, to unbelievable. So let's go. Love, Dad.

#Tour Diary #Everyone Leaves #Save Face #Emo #DIY #Tour

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