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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Fall / Winter tour diary part III: The never-ending party (?) grinds on, and on, and on...


Let's pick up where we left off, shall we... 

November 20th, Nashville, TN

We were playing the same venue in Nashville that we were at a few months prior with Cannibal Corpse, the Exit Inn, but this time, we arrived in town much earlier. We decided to head downtown to check out the heart of music city USA. It was kind of cool, very kitschy. We ran into the Speedwolf guys at the Ernest Tubbs record store (which carried both kinds of music, country and western), checked out an awesome vintage guitar shop and ate some amazing barbecue not far from the club. I know I started off the last update by saying I was eating healthier and cutting back on meat, but this was an occasion that definitely called for eating some serious red meat. I ate something called Cowboy Sushi, which was a chunk of hot link with a jalepeno inside, wrapped in a strip of barbecued beef brisket. If you think that sounds amazing, you are correct. At any rate, we finally moseyed over to the venue and were still a bit early. Kevin and I went and checked out a weird old bookstore across the street that had been closed the last time we were in town. The bookstore was plastered with right wing clippings, cartoons, Romney / Ryan stickers, and also had signs everywhere banning cell phone use, loud children, unsupervised children, etc. etc. Needless to say, it was not a friendly atmosphere. That said, the place was crammed full of old books. Almost half the store was Civil War history (I wonder whose side the owners were on?) and most of the books were at least 50-60 years old. Between a hesher in tight black jeans and a leather jacket and a half-black Canadian, we got a lot of dirty looks from the old man who presumably owned the place. At any rate, it was finally time to load in and get settled at the venue. We finally got our whirling saw blade props up and running, after carrying them around for a couple of weeks since the Vermont show. The show itself was pretty decent, not mind-blowing but definitely solid. We partied for a while after the show and Dave Witte turned me on to some of his private reserve stash of extremely unusual and unusually strong micro-brews. Somehow I went from kinda drunk to severely wasted instantly. By the time we got in the van a little while later I was super riled up and wanted to rage. The other dudes were seriously wondering if I was on coke, PCP or what. I started blaring classic Death Metal albums and pounding on the dashboard screaming along at the top of my lungs and being a very obnoxious jackass. I'm a bit hazy on the rest of the night, but it may have involved some random vandalism on my part, and it definitely ended (for me anyway) with a meal at Waffle House where I finally started to calm down before the imminent passing-out to come.
I did manage to find this gem among the racks of country. A true diamond in the rough!

It's okay to eat meat when it's cooked in a giant choo-choo shaped BBQ, right?

This dude definitely knows what he's doing!

Dave Witte - his seemingly bottomless craft beer arsenal will getcha!

Mike surveys his handiwork, mounting our fancy spinning saw-blades at last.
November 21st, Lexington, KY

We got to Lexington pretty early in the morning and met some folks that knew some other folks Bud had met in Vermont. We had parked at their place, which is where I woke up, cotton-mouthed and confused. I met the dudes that lived there and we walked quite a ways to where the other Exhumed guys had gone to get some coffee. After killing some time, we headed to the venue, which was really close by. I learned that Dave had given me Barley Wine the previous night, which I will absolutely pin all my obnoxious behavior on. It was Dave's fault! Whatever it was, whew... Anyway, the show was pretty cool, a lot better vibe for us than the Summer Slaughter stop there without Cannibal Corpse had been. After the show we headed to our buddy Mark's house. We had met Mark when he was doing sound on the Black Dahlia Murder Canadian tour we did earlier this summer and we hung out with him, his brother and some of their friends watching Robocop and Poultrygeist and drinking Jack Daniels well into the early morning.
Bud gets cozy in Kentucky
November 22nd, Day off

Holidays are never that cool when you're on tour, unless you're headlining and you route to your Mom's house or something. The next day's show was in Richmond, VA, Municipal Waste's hometown, so they had planned well and were probably already home by the time we left Lexington around noon. We stopped at Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving lunch / dinner, figuring that would be the closest to a home-cooked all-American meal we would be likely to find off the interstate. My mom approved of our choice of restaurants so I guess we did okay. We stopped to break up the drive and watch some football in Charleston, West Virginia. We ordered a couple of towers of beer, and ended up meeting a couple of flight attendants who came over and partied with us for a while. They had a tower of some fancy beer that we helped them dispose of pretty quickly. One of the flight attendants got pretty sloshed and then they went out for some “fresh air” and totally took off, ditching out on their bill entirely. Luckily the waiter was pretty cool and didn't charge us for their drinks. When we got gas a little later, we met a hilarious redneck gas station attendant who was bemoaning the lack of good methamphetamines in his area and his unwillingness to use his nephew's drug hookup because his nephew was just a kid. Slice of Americana right there. Without further incident, we headed out for Richmond VA.

November 23rd, Richmond VA

We rolled into Richmond really early, and I was inexplicably awake at around six AM. That is not like me at all. At any rate, since we were so early and it was black friday, I decided it would be as good a time as any (and hopefully cheaper than most) to get a laptop. By the time we got to Best Buy around nine in the morning, the real maniacs had already done their shopping and it was a fairly sane shopping experience. Since we had so much time to kill, we headed to Barnes and Nobles for some free wifi. I dicked around on my computer for a few hours while the guys checked out the mall, got coffee and whatever else they do. At any rate, eventually I got in a nap, and we were at our late load-in with plenty of time to spare. This would be the last day of the tour with Kevin Stewart-Panko along for the ride. He was unexpectedly called away with a family emergency. This is the second tour we've done with him, and he hasn't finished either of them. Was it something we said? Was it my incessant farting in the van? At any rate, there was a matinee show at the club before ours so we couldn't even load in until 8PM, and of course it was a total clusterfuck. But it was worth it. The kids were going apeshit, and the place was packed. I managed to sneak out for a beer or two with Albert Mudrian, author of “Choosing Death” and Decibel magazine's intrepid editor-in-chief. It was good to get caught up and look at his oh-so-cute baby pictures. After the show, we dropped Kevin off at the airport in Richmond and headed south for Bud's house in Charlotte, NC.

November 24th, Charlotte NC

We got there early in the morning and headed into Bud's pad to get some inside sleep while Bud caught up with friends in town. By the time he came back I had slept and showered and we were ready to head to the venue, the Tremont Music Hall. We had done a very underwhelming headlining show there, but tonight was much better. I think after coming back with Cannibal and again with Napalm Death we might be starting to get a little traction in Charlotte. A friend of Bud's brought us her Thanksgiving leftovers which were much appreciated. The green bean casserole was great even cold. At any rate, the show was cool, and afterward we headed to Bud's local watering hole, The Thirsty Beaver, to have a couple of beers until last call. We ended the night on Bud's couch and recliner before an early van call for the drive to Chattanooga Tennessee.
Two of my favorite drummers not named Mike Hamilton, Danny Walker, or  Col Jones - in Charlotte, NC
November 25th, Chattanooga TN
I woke up at a Wal-Mart where were getting our oil changed. Now I know that Wal-Mart is an atrocious corporation that preys on small towns by destroying local business infrastructure and reducing the average wage level to below the poverty line, but when you're on tour, it helps to buy goods and services at national chains because you can actually take advantage of their warranties and return policies no matter where you are in the country. At any rate, this seemingly trivial detail will attain at least a semblance of significance as you read on. So... This show had been moved from Knoxville to Chattanooga due to the venue in Knoxville getting shut down. The place in Chattanooga was a tiny bar with very little PA or any space for staging equipments, banners, etc. We were all stoked when we saw it. Especially after having so much fun “roughing it” in Buffalo, Denver and Cheyenne we were excited for such an up-close and personal kind of show. Again loading in and out wasn't particularly easy, but after getting everything figured out as far as sharing equipment to minimize logistical hassles, we headed off to grab some food at the Yellow Deli, another find from the Happy Cow app. The food was killer, and we headed back to the venue ready to have some fun. The show had a great energy, and when Reed from Speedwolf dedicated “I Can't Die” to a biker in attendance, things really got going. It was one of the many nights after Oakland where I kept thinking I might end up going to get more stitches in my lip. Thankfully, Steve, who was running sound for us and Napalm Death on the tour, helped me keep the microphone and my face more or less out of harm's way. I met a super nice kid named Dave who gave me his band Aortic's cover of “Decrepit Crescendo” on CD, which was not only accurate but pretty well done. The place was so small that after we played, I hung out in the merch area most of the rest of the night where we worked on a bottle of whiskey and somehow ended up leaving with a mounted boar's head. Good times. While I was sippin' Tennessee whiskey, Mike Hamilton was regulating shit next door during the Municipal Waste set. Mike was onstage trying to help Dave with his kit during one of their songs, and got dragged into the pit, almost getting into a brawl until Tony stopped the song and explained the situation. Later that night, we ended up crashing at some dude's apartment with the Speedwolf guys. The apartment was a little weird because a) there was no toilet paper / paper towels / tissues anywhere and b) the room Dr. Philthy stayed in had a strap-on dildo on the dresser. We had to split pretty early the next day so we didn't even get a chance to thank him or get an idea of what kind of freaky shit goes on there on a daily basis. We may never know, and that's totally okay with us.

November 26th, Birmingham AL

We had to split earlier than we'd planned from the casa de strap-on due to Wal-Mart never giving our keys back after yesterday's oil change. After going about 40 minutes in the opposite direction, we got on the road to Alabama in earnest. Again, we were at the same venue we had played earlier with Cannibal Corpse, so it wasn't too much of a surprise. This time we skipped the cool downtown area with the hilarious statue of the goat man reading books to the little animals and just hung out at the venue once we got there. The show was cool, not as intense as when we played with Cannibal, but still a really fun vibe. Nothing too incredibly interesting happened, so onto New Orleans...
Barney making one of his 1 zillion guest appearances, this one with Municipal Waste on "United Forces" in Alabama. 
November 27th, New Orleans LA

The last time we had played in New Orleans we made a grievous mistake before the show. We headed to Bourbon Street for “a couple of beers” at around 2 in the afternoon. Needless to say by the time we played ten hours later, Rob could barely stand and the rest of us could barely play. We left the show angry and wasted in the pouring rain. We were determined to not repeat that experience and to make it up to the folks that attended the last show – which may have been the worst show I've played since high school. We instituted a self-imposed ban – Exhumed is not allowed in New Orleans until seven PM. We killed time about a half hour away soaking up our hangovers, scouting for more stage props (unsuccessfully) and of course, sitting in the van. By the time we got into town, it was time for load-in. Our plan worked and the show turned out to be really fun. They had totally revamped the kitchen at Siberia for the better. Dinner was delicious, and after we played I got a killer asparagus sandwich, anticipating the need to soak up the undoubtedly copious amount of alcohol in store. After the show, we headed to the outskirts of Bourbon street with most of the Municipal crew, Mitch from Napalm, and the Speedwolf guys. Interesting things that happened that night / morning: Reed from Speedwolf bounced a guy out of a bar, not sure why; a random dude in a suit gave me 10 dollars to monopolize the jukebox with; Rob almost fought a guy because Rob didn't like his bike; Bud got up to piss after passing out and left his shorts in an alley; and, to top it off, we saw a bad-ass midget on the ride to a friend's house at around 7am.

November 28th, Day off

We woke up sometime in the afternoon and headed into the Garden district to get some excellent Mexican Food (not like barrio style, more like Mexican fusion, but fucking delicious) at Juan's Flying Burrito, which is becoming something of a tradition for New Orleans mornings for us (even though our New Orleans mornings usually start after 2PM) and hung out loafing until around six in the evening when traffic on the way out of town died down. It was a long drive to Jacksonville, Florida that I was eager to sleep through. We did manage to get pulled over for the first time on that drive, for failure to stop at an agricultural inspection station. The State Trooper turned out to be a pretty cool good ol' boy and we went along our way without ticket or further incident.

November 29th, Jacksonville FL
Now, anyone that knows me knows that Florida is not one of my favorite states, classic Death Metal notwithstanding, but in late November, Jacksonville is an awesome place to be. I gleefully donned shorts for the first time in a couple of weeks, did laundry and then we headed to Jacksonville beach for a few minutes of sea and sand before finally checking out the latest James Bond flick, Skyfall. I love Bond movies in general and really enjoyed this one as well. At any rate, after the movie, we headed to the venue which was in a weird strip mall kind of place. The venue was huge and cavernous, with multiple stages and rooms but seemed very unorganized and set up really oddly. At any rate, the show wasn't all that great, but it was a good day, the weather was nice and we had some good Mexican food for dinner near the venue where Shane from Napalm ate an enormous burrito in one go. Now we know how he got the Brujeria gig. We were all psyched to hang out with friends in Atlanta so we hopped in the van and got moving pretty soon after the show.
Jacksonville Beach, FL. Beautiful place.

Vern, Napalm's drum tech takes on a formidable burrito challenge in Jacksonville.

November 30th, Atlanta GA

Again, we got there very early. It seemed like all the drives toward the end of the tour were just a bit too long to stay in the town we played in, but short enough to where we seemed to arrive at around seven or eight in the morning the following day. At any rate, we woke up and headed to Little Five Points to hang out for a bit. We picked up some supremely ugly Christmas sweaters at a thrift shop, poked around some other stores, ate lunch at an excellent natural foods store in the neighborhood where I got an amazing jerk-style tempeh sandwich that was one of my favorite things I've eaten all tour. After that we hung out with Mike (Longoria) from Withered and checked out their jam space until it was time to load in. The club was a new place I'd never heard of or played before but the it was really nice. Next to the club was an event facility where a swanky wedding was taking place. Apparently the wedding was being filmed for a reality show about weddings which was odd, but there were a lot of well-dressed, good looking women going in and out of there all night which was cool. I met up with my old buddy John Mincemoyer who writes for Iron Fist and Terrorizer (among others through the years) who took us to Mellow Mushroom for some pizza. Their spinach and feta pizza was killer. The show went over really well, and afterward, I headed off with Mike (Thompson) from Withered and our Mike (Hamilton, for those of you keeping a tally of all the Mikes in my life) to another bar for a quick drink, then we made it back to the venue in time for a killer beer / meat tasting hosted by micro-brew master Dave Witte and a friend of his who is a professional butcher. It was cool hanging with Brann from Mastodon and the Royal Thunder crew as well, all while enjoying some delicious meat like blood sausage, pork pate with pistachio and pork skin, hand sliced prosciutto and other exotic carnivorous delights alongside Dave's extensive selection of beers, everything from stout to sour to porter to you-name-it. I cracked a couple more beers with Ryan and Phil on the Municipal Waste bus before we took off for Tampa that night – our last night on tour with Municipal and Napalm.

Ted gets a little TLC in Atlanta. Poor guy's been through a lot!

Beer and meat tasting prep. Yum!

Brann from Mastodon and Bud - Contamination tour 1999 reunion!
December 1st, Tampa FL

We woke up in Tampa at Rob Barrett from Cannibal Corpse's place, where his lovely wife received us and made us an amazing lunch. Rob was on tour of course, but his lady was a great host. By the time we headed to Ybor City for load in we were fed, showered and had managed to watch some Dirty Harry movies. It was the last night of the tour for us and Speedwolf, and it was definitely a celebration. The show was kicked off by Bastard Deceiver, an awesome grind / crust band from Tampa, which was an excellent surprise. We organized another group stage-dive during “Suffer The Children”, and as I watched Napalm's last song, “Instinct of Survival” from the side of the stage, Shane walked over and handed me his bass so I finished the song out with the band, which was awesome. While that happened, the other Exhumed and Municipal guys came out and started doing jumping jacks. It was definitely a party vibe. We were all bummed to not be continuing on to Miami and the cruise, but looking forward to heading home and getting some rest. Between the recording, Japan, and the tour, none of us had really been in our own beds since September. Of course, that didn't stop us from heading down the street to the Boneyard for more drinks. Toward the end, somehow country started dominating the juke box and it ended up being us and Speedwolf singing along to David Allan Coe (and even a Garth Brooks song, I admit it) and being drunk idiots. We headed back into town to crash out at a friend of Mike's and get psyched for the loooooong drive home. The drive would end up being quite a bit longer than we anticipated, but we'll get into all that in the next installment of the continuing adventures of the drunk, dumb and ugly that is our collective life on the road.
Body bag in the swamp. At least his beard is right at home.


Barney guesting on "Iron Fist" with Speedwolf in Tampa. 

Last pic of Barney, I swear! Barney and I at the afterparty at the Boneyard in Tampa. 

'Til next time – face front, true believers!
Cheers,
Matt and the lads

Monday, December 3, 2012

"If You're Not Wasted, The Day Is" Tour diarrhea part II: The Wrath of Khan

11/7 Salt Lake City, UT
I woke up that morning in a Target parking lot, dragged my ass out of the van and got some snacks from the store. One thing I've really worked on for this tour has been changing my diet. As you can probably guess, we don't live the healthiest of lifestyles. Between binge drinking, unpredictable sleeping / hygiene opportunities, crazy weather / altitude changes, and everything else, it's pretty tough to stay healthy on tour. Dr. Philthy had been pulling marathon drives for most of the tour with a constant stuffy nose, and we are constantly sore and tired. Not to whine, but just to kind of give you an idea of what goes on. For me personally, I've always had a lot of digestion problems and have been bemoaning my inability to fit into my original Sodom “Obsessed By Cruelty” shirt for some time now, so I decided to change my diet. Hey, it's way easier than not drinking. I've been eating about 85% vegetarian on this tour, vegan when I can. Meat only when it's really good / unusual or I'm incredibly hungover. It's been working. I've had less intense hangovers, fewer digestive issues and have been generally been feeling better. Furthermore Barney from Napalm, who is vegan, turned me onto an app called Happy Cow that helps you find vegan / veggie food anywhere on the planet. Pretty badass. Anyway, I digress. The point is that my breakfast was an apple and one of those Kind bars. Those things are awesome. We headed into town after trying to figure out how to mount the two motorized spinning saw blades we picked up in Vermont and picking up our erstwhile merch guy / tour manager Kevin Stewart-Panko from the airport. Tonight's show was with Skeletonwitch, Havok and Mutilation Rites, so we were stoked. The turnout was pretty good for SLC, but as we were playing, we quickly realized that it was not a Death Metal kind of crowd at all. Both us and Mutilation Rites seemed to generate more confusion than excitement amongst the audience. Luckily, we were able to avoid the watered down Mormon beer and have a good time hanging out with our friends in Havok and Skeletonwitch, as well as get to know the Mutilation Rites dudes as well. We stayed at a house in town and things got pretty ridiculous. The 48 beers we bought from the store were slain pretty quickly, as well as some Evan Williams and some other stuff that I can't exactly remember at the moment. We headed to the van bleary-eyed that morning and found ourselves in a winter wonderland. To many of you guys reading, that may not be interesting at all, but to a bunch of California dudes, there's a definite novelty factor there.
Salt Lake City Snow Action.
11/8 Boise, ID
Every tour has that one show that you expect to be underwhelmed by and you're right. That was Boise. The show we did there a while back with Goatwhore was very middling, but fun, and we knew that tonight would not be a night of rock 'n roll triumph. We did however have a good time playing for the handful of people that made it out, and they were clearly stoked on the show. We didn't stick around for too long as the ride to Seattle might be fraught with snow as well, and being from California, we try to avoid driving in snow as much as we can. The drive proved to be a bit nerve-wracking and very fucking cold, but manageable.
11/9 Seattle, WA
This show was a combined show, pairing Municipal Waste, Napalm Death, and ourselves with the Gwar / Devildriver / Cancer Bats tour, which meant an early load-in, but our intrepid pilot, Dr. Philthy not only made it with time to spare but also found time to visit the town where one of his favorite TV shows, “Northern Exposure” was filmed. Of course, the rest of slept through all that completely. Seeing the Gwar stage setup was pretty amazing and inspiring. There is a lot of production that goes into a show that elaborate, and it was neat to see the behind-the-scenes. As much as we try to provide entertainment along with the music (?) we play, it's not even in the same universe as what those guys do night after night. Seattle is always fun and a good show, and this one was no exception. We went on right before Cancer Bats and had the rest of the night to get into trouble. We hung out with our agent, Dan Rozenblum and his charming wife, as well as some friends from Skarp and Scotty from Tank Crimes Records who joined the tour for the West Coast dates. After a certain point, I lost large chunks of what happened. I know we went to a bar across the street where a bunch of Husky fans were partying after the game. Rob passed out on the floor of the bar, which did not go over well with the bouncers. The bouncers' displeasure did not go over well with Mike Hamilton, but luckily for all, a confrontation was narrowly avoided. We left the bar, and then went on Napalm's bus for a drink or two... I'm sure there was more retardation throughout the night but I'm at a loss as to the details. Rob and Bud hung out with the Gwar guys a bit, which I'm sure was cool. I passed out at some point, which is probably best for everyone.
Gwar Props in Seattle. Sorry, my new phone's camera has no flash.
 
November 11, Portland OR
I always like to do the West Coast from South to North, because the party in Seattle is always a corker. Usually if you route your tour that way, you'll have a day off between Seattle and Denver or wherever you're going to recuperate. This tour was routed North to South (which is how it's been the last two times we've been around those parts) so that usually means Portland gets the hangover show. This one wasn't too bad though. Plus, I finally got to see Wehrmacht, a band I've listened to for years and years. They sounded great and gave me a huge shot of energy for our set, which went down really well. We got to hang out with the Relapse crew and some old friends, so that made the night awesome. Matt Jacobson, founder of Relapse, now owns a couple of kick ass pizza parlors in PDX called Sizzle Pie and he brought a few pies to the show which were delicious as always. We hopped in the van to prepare for the long and potentially treacherous drive to Oakland the next day.
Hamilton makes a friend on the drive from PDX to Oaktown.
 
November 12, Oakland, CA
I love playing in the Bay Area. Even though I haven't lived there in a few years, it will always be my hometown. I was especially proud that the biggest turnout of the entire tour was in Oakland – over 940 people came out on a Monday night – and that's not counting the 100+ guests of the tour package. The line was around two blocks, and the Metro was a bit understaffed to handle it, which resulted in our friends in Impaled playing to not nearly as many people as they should have been. Attitude Adjustment was awesome, another band I've been waiting years to see, and then it was our turn. I have to admit to a certain amount of satisfaction in saying “We're Exhumed from fucking San Jose” and people actually know where that is and cheer. The set went over great, and kids were stagediving all over the place. For the closer, “The Matter of Splatter” which we segued into our cover of Siege's “Drop Dead” I ended up getting hit in the face by the microphone, which actually split my lip. I have a history of trying to be too rock 'n roll about things and it not having good results. I used to have really straight teeth until I decided to not take my wisdom teeth out, for example, now my bottom teeth look like a British person's. This time I figured I should really spring for a trip to the hospital.
Exhumed past / present - Ross Sewage, Rob "Body Bag" Babcock, Yours Truly, and Derrel Houdashelt
 
I got in the car with our original second guitar player, Derrel Houdashelt and headed to the Alamdea Hospital where I eventually got 7 stitches in my face. It was not really all that fun, but at least I won't be getting any uglier. Needless to say with the hospital action, I missed the rest of the show, but I'm sure it was amazing. Luckily, Eli's Mile High club was hospitable enough to let us all after-party there, where we drank well past closing time with a bunch of familiar faces. Needing to drink with a straw was a great excuse to keep ordering Johnnie Walker on the rocks, and having my face busted up was a great incentive for people to buy me drinks. Talk about silver lining! We headed for Southern California sauced and happy, looking forward to seeing more old friends for shenanigans and stupidity.
Check out my rad face.
 
November 13, Santa Ana, CA
We drove straight past LA and on to Orange County for a show with my favorite Death / Grind band ever, Repulsion. As if a bill with Municipal Waste and Napalm Death wasn't awesome enough. Despite my swollen mouth, spirits were high when I woke up in Burbank. We finished the rest of the drive and compiled our extensive guest list at the Observatory. It was awesome to see Gordon Conrad (MW's manager, and former VP of operations at Relapse for like, ever), especially since he's such a salty east coast dude and so out of his element out west. He seemed more relaxed than I've seen him in years which was nice. I hung out for most of the night with Col and Marissa from Repulsion as well as some of the Gravehill dudes, our old drummer Danny Walker, and tons of others. I didn't even see all the people we had on the guest list – it was a pretty crazy night. We grabbed some beer and crashed at Col and Marissa's hotel – thanks by the way! The drive from Santa Ana to LA was very brief and easy the following day so we proceeded to get plowed and obnoxious. As usual.
Repulsion doing "Maggots In Your Coffin" with Barney in Santa Ana
 
Two of my favorite people, Col Jones (Repulsion,Dekapitator, Mortuous. ex-Exhumed) and Mike Abominator (Gravehill, ex-Gasp, etc)
Slaughtercult Cupcakes - Slaughtercups - made by Christina Shaw! Thanks!!!
 
November 14, Hollywood, CA
Like I said, we had plenty of time to kill before the show. We headed to Amoeba, and I finally got some records I'd been dying to get- new stuff from Stars, Guided By Voices, Hammock, and The X-X. Sorry, that's about as non-metal as it gets, but that's mostly what I listen to. Anyway... after some record shopping, we had lunch and headed down the strip to the House Of Blues. Between Summer Slaughter and Death To All, this was my third time that year in that venue, and I still keep getting lost. At least the decent food served at HOB offsets the overpriced drinks, totally contrived atmosphere and cheeseball LA-ness of the place. That and the kids being awesome. My amp had been continually giving me problems for a couple of weeks, and my old friend Leon del Muerte was kind enough to loan me his backup amp for the rest of the tour, a solid state Line 6 which doesn't have the greatest tone in the world, but is incredibly durable and dependable. That was a big relief. The show was killer and we were surrounded by old friends. Another friend, Joel from Toxic Holocaust hopped on the Municipal Waste bus in LA for a few days of the tour. It was good to get to see him again and hang out a bit. Once again, our intrepid agent Dan Rozenblum was there and we decided to crash his posh hotel at the Beverly Hilton, drink his minibar, and be total dicks until about 7am. We had the next day off, so what the heck?
Dave Witte and Chris Dodge outside House Of Blues in Hollywood. Totally rad!
 
November 15, Day Off
The Municipal Waste dudes had talked to us about heading to a Jimmy Kimmel taping with them on our day off, and we figured it would be fun. We were all still pretty hungover by the time we got to the studio (right across from Mann's Chinese Theater) in Hollywood, but once Mel Brooks, that night's guest came out, I was beyond fucking pumped! The guy that created Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Spaceballs, and High Anxiety – right there in the same studio! He was funny, charming, engaging and sharp as a tack despite being 86 years old. After the show, we grabbed food and drinks at Hooters and I remembered why I never ever eat there and want to resume doing that. Despite that, it was a good fucking time. Then we all cabbed it over to the Comedy Store for some stand-up. We were repeatedly called out by the comedians – one dude called our group “Biker Rapists On Vacation” which is an excellent movie title that I've already copyrighted. I'll keep you posted on the script. Anyway, we topped it off with a couple of drinks at the Rainbow and grabbed a cab back to the van to head to Phoenix.
November 16, Tempe AZ
We arrived at Ryan Butler's home in the morning, and it felt like as close as we would get to being home for quite some time. After recording “Necrocracy” there, I've spent more time at his place in the last few months than I have at my own house. We took some quick showers and power naps and then headed to Tempe (basically a district in Phoenix) for what would turn out to be one of the strongest shows of the tour. Arizona is hit and miss for us it seems, but this night was definitely a hit. We played to a packed house of manic stage-divers, got shitfaced with a ton of friends, and I didn't eat anyone's hat. Joel Grind joined the Muniwaste dudes for a rendition of “Nuke the Cross” which was a cool little rare treat. All in all, an excellent night. We were pretty smashed when we got ready to leave, having taken numerous shots and whatever else, at one point Rob, Mike and I were all in the urinal, and Rob decided to turn his “sprinkler” on us and chase us while peeing. Classy. We were going to steal a few hours of sleep at Butler's, but Mike got too drunk and couldn't remember where the key was stashed, so we ended up passed out in front of his house for a couple hours before heading off to El Paso.
Drawing on Drum Heads - it's what I do in my spare time.
November 17, El Paso, TX
El Paso is always a cool place to play, and the House of Rock is a cool venue. They always treat us well and have pretty good sound, so I was stoked for the show. The turnout was solid and kids were definitely psyched, which makes our job pretty easy. As usual, after the show was over, the bar accommodated the bands and we got loaded, doing shots and whatever else people were handing us. Good stuff.
November 18, Ft. Worth, TX
I swear we've only had two really good shows in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area throughout our entire touring history, and those were with Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse, respectively. Anyway, the show was okay, but again, for whatever reason, we've never really had a big fanbase in Dallas. We managed to have a good time anyway, there was plenty of beer upstairs and some random people to fuck with, so all's well that end's well. I passed out relatively early that night, and when the other guys got in the van, we noticed that Bud's face was a bit messed up. Somewhere, somehow he fell flat on his face. When I asked him what happened, he simply replied “I don't know, I just woke up and my pillow was all bloody”. Another day in the life.
November 19, Day off
We pretty much drove all day, stopped for a late lunch in Little Rock and then watched the Niner game on Monday Night Football at TGI Fridays. Again, I was reminded why I only order appetizers there.
 
Dr. Philthy proves that home is where you find it on tour. Rest area somewhere between Texas and Tennessee.
In the interest of everyone's attention span, I'll pick up in Nashville in the next couple of days. Thanks for reading and bleeding with us. Cheers!
- Matt and the lads
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Monday, November 19, 2012

If you're not wasted... the day is... Tour diarrhea Fall / Winter 2012


Municipal Waste / Napalm Death / Exhumed tour diary

October 26, 2012

We drove up to Richmond, VA from Bud’s pad in Charlotte, North Carolina and arrived there around one in the afternoon, after picking up our token-Canadian tour manager / merch guy / internationally published journalist, Kevin Stewart-Panko. It was good formally meet a couple of guys in the ND / MW crews that I hadn’t had a chance to hang out with just yet. We bought some new merch racks from Home Depot, picked up a slug of new shirts from indiemerch that had arrived at the local FedEx location, and were underway. Vektor got there at the last possible minute, and all proved to be awesome guys. I have to admit, when I heard their first album, I wasn’t into it, but seeing them live really changed my mind. The band was tight, interesting and had a lot of dynamics and stage presence. The show was a lot of fun, with Municipal Waste closing this date out. We kept the party rocking at a hotel room with some old friends. Apparently we all got uber wasted, because we were awakened in the wee hours of the morning by Bud, utterly blacked out, pissing all over my shoes.

October 27, 2012

The next morning, I managed to take a quick shower and find my flip-flops before we said our goodbyes and headed to the Big Apple. My first order of business was to find some new shoes. Once we loaded in for a sold-out show at the Gramercy Theater, I headed to Union Square to pick up some new kicks. I have worn the same shoes, Vans “Off The Wall” Skate Hi-Tops for the last 15 or so years, so I knew exactly what I was looking for. The only store I could find within quick walking distance didn’t have them in plain black (my first choice), blue, or checkerboard. They didn’t have the Bad Brains, Maiden, or Slayer hi-tops in my size. The only cool shoe I could find in my size (12 isn’t that unusual, right?!?) was the Spicoli-style checkerboard slip-ons. I have been toying with the idea of getting a pair of these shoes forever, and I needed something pronto, so I took ‘em. It was a little weird not playing in hi-tops, but I persevered like a champ. Oh yeah, and there was a storm coming. The day was played in NYC, it was very much business as usual, tons of people on the streets doing their thing. My mom, avid Fox-News watcher that she is, was deeply concerned for our safety. Like any dutiful son, I called her to assuage her worries and assure her that the storm was probably not going to be that bad anyway. The show at Gramercy was awesome, albeit a little early. We had a huge stage to work with, which allowed us maximum opportunities to ham it up and do our best Steve Harris impressions. After we wrapped up, got everything in the van, and skarfed down some extremely mediocre pizza, we hung out with friends at the show for a bit before heading over to Brooklyn to catch the Tombs show at St. Vitus. We fought NY traffic to get there just as they were starting. The band sounded awesome, and soon alcohol of all types was flowing fast and furious. After the show, they had a karaoke DJ come out. Exhumed + drunk + karaoke = extreme stupidity. The next day someone reminded me of my presumably awesome rendition of Ratt’s “Lay It Down”. Much after that is hazy, people started thinning out, I puked up a couple of shots, lost a flannel shirt, and four AM rolled around before I really knew it.

"Necrotized" live in the big apple

October 28, 2012

I woke up in Connecticut, not too terribly hung over, but I soon discovered that I had, blacked-out, pissed all over my phone, ruining it. Two days, two urine-related accidents. Yikes. From the beginning of the day, my thoughts were on one thing: Game Four of the world series. After loading in, we grabbed lunch at a local sports bar a few blocks away and it was nice to see the Raiders actually winning on Sunday for a change. The local opener for this date was a power violence band called David Carradine, who were killer. The crowd that night was basically a hardcore crowd, but our set went over pretty decently, regardless. As soon as we were loaded out, Dr. Philthy and I headed off to a bar to watch baseball. Most of the town was shut down due to Hurricane Sandy, and it was getting windy and drizzly, but not too bad. Unfortunately that meant the first bar we went to closed at 11:45 instead of 2 AM. Undaunted, we trudged the mean streets of New London Connecticut until we came upon an Irish pub with the stones to stay open in the face of impending disaster. Needless to say, the night on a personal high for me, as my team won their second World Series in three years. But I digress.

October 29, 2012

We all passed out in the van and got up pretty early to make the drive to Boston. This is when it started to hit me that the storm was for real. Half the town was closed, including the UPS outlet where Mike had some new cymbals shipped to him. While it was nice to be able to find parking in Cambridge pretty easily, we had to do a bit more walking than usual to find someplace to eat. Lunch was an Indian buffet, such a welcome change from the usual fast food crap that we often subject our bodies to on the road. I was pleasantly surprised that the show was even happening in the wake of the storm, but dubious as to how the turnout would be. I needn’t have worried, the show turned out really well, and a good time was had by all. The Napalm and Waste dudes headed straight to Canada, while ourselves and Vektor went to Burlington, Vermont for an off day show.

October 30, 2012

We drove overnight, just to get away from the storm, which by now I was starting to realice was actually a pretty big deal. It was good to have a day to run errands and do little shit that we often don’t have time for. I got a new phone (yay!), and we started to plan our Halloween costumes. Phil from Waste assured me that their costumes were hilarious and insisted that we participate. After many ideas were tossed around and rejected, we decided to do something subtle and classy. Dress as Motley Crue. After eating some rad gourmet-ish tacos at Gordijo’s, we killed some time hunting down leopard print spandex, black and red lipstick, wigs for Mike and Bud, and bananas to stuff our pants with. Then we headed to the venue, a tiny bar in the Burlington suburb of Winooski. The guy putting the show on, Jake (of Vaporizer, who were killer that night) was a stand up dude, who actually read our rider and had fresh fruit, veggies and hummus waiting for us on arrival. That was awesome! Then we found out that Vektor was still two and half hours out getting their transmission replaced and might not make the show – not that awesome. Like I said, Jake was good people, and he headed out in his band’s van to pick them up. We re-shuffled the line-up since they were running late, and we ended up playing second of four. I was just stoked they were going to make it out and be able to continue the tour with everybody. I wasn’t too terribly sure how well the Vermont show would end up going, as we had just played there recently with Cannibal Corpse, Abysmal Dawn, and Arkaik, but the crowd was killer, the room was packed, and people were crowd surfing inches from the ceiling. Because the turnout was killer, everyone ended up making a little bit more money that we had planned on, which was especially cool since it allowed us to donate some money to the Vektor dudes to get their van fixed up. We stayed at a house down the street with a super sweet couple who were at the show.
Bud and Mike decided to start a two-piece Bluegrass band on the side to help make ends meet on tour.
October 31, 2012

So far this blog has been yet another chronicle of our seemingly endless heavy metal triumphs and wacky anecdotes, but here’s where the story takes a turn, dear readers. So… here goes. We woke up and grabbed quick showers before heading to cross the dreaded Canadian border. It’s always a nerve-racking experience, simply because they can choose to tax you on every piece of merchandise you’re carrying. Not to mention, if you have a DUI, like four out of six people in our tour party do, they charge you $200 per person to obtain a “temporary resident permit” to be in the country, or if they feel like being dicks, they can arbitrarily decide to just not let you in. Now, most Canadians I know are not dicks. In fact, they’re some of the nicest folks out there. We’ve never had an issue getting in, and had already been there on the Summer Slaughter tour for Heavy MTL and Heavy TO, as well as on the Black Dahlia Murder tour, which was mostly in Canada. Ironically, our tour manager Kevin (one of those extremely nice Canadians I was referring to earlier) is writing a book about the travails of various bands crossing over from the states to Canada. Given the lead in to this paragraph, it should be obvious that we were denied entry into the great white north. This was extremely disheartening, since the Montreal show was already sold out, and our headlining show at the same venue had been insane, so we were looking forward to a night of seriously intense mayhem. The woman we spoke to at customs informed us that we had received too many TRPs in too short of a time, and had been taking advantage of the largesse of the Canadian government long enough. She stated that we would not  be able to apply for any further TRPs until we had all completed their extremely convoluted rehabilitation process. To give you an idea how complicated it is, our drummer Mike Hamilton has been trying to complete it for over seven months. In short, she was a fucking bitch. We had to sign documents that legally bound us to leave the country immediately, and stated that if we were found in Canada after being denied entry, we would be arrested. Gnarly. The US border folks (you have to go through customs if you get denied entry into Canada) told us that they see this sort of thing all the time. Then they searched our van anyway, but at least they weren’t dicks about it. After informing the necessary parties (MW’s tour manager Cartel, our label, our agent, etc.) we drove to a McDonald’s to use the free wifi and start making alternate plans.

So it was a totally rip-roaring Halloween party. Or something. Anyway, we decided to hit the Canadian consulate in Buffalo the next day to try to make the four remaining Canadian dates. Our intrepid agent, dauntless Dan Rozenblum, threw a show together for us in Buffalo the next night at a DIY venue called the Funeral Home, which was located in an old… wait for it… Funeral Home. Trying to not think about all the money we had just lost from losing these dates (not to mention missing the opportunity to embarass ourselves in our Halloween costumes), packed into the van and headed for Buffalo.

November 1, 2012

We finished the (not particularly long) drive to Buffalo, dropped Kevin off at the airport so he could go cover Fun-Fun-Fun fest for Terrorizer Magazine (where MW and ND would both be appearing). We quickly learned that the Canadian Consulate in Buffalo was closed this summer. So we planned to hit the consulate in Chicago, where we would be arriving Saturday. Of course, the consulate is… wait for it… closed on Saturday and Sunday. So we realized pretty quickly that there would be no more Canadian dates for us in 2012. Then we went to a Napa Auto Parts to test our van battery, as it had been failing to start sporadically. We had just gotten a jump, so our battery tested fine, as did our alternator. There was another part that might have been causing the problem, the neutral safety switch, which was had replaced just to leave no stone unturned. After all that fun stuff, we grabbed a big ol’ bowl of pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) to stave off the upstate NY cold and headed to the venue. There were already some folks milling about and the place was pretty cool looking. Clint, the guy that set up the show, was super cool and helpful, we loaded in and set up merch. The night actually ended up being awesome. The bands Cain and Avulsion were both killer and great guys and the crowd was killer. Given that the show had been booked the previous day, it was a total triumph. We ran through some songs that aren’t in our normal set list like “Vacant Grave”, “Open The Abscess” and “In The Name Of Gore” with varying degrees of tightness and had a great time with everyone. It turned out to be a great night.

Here's the entire set from Buffalo. If you have an hour to kill or whatever.

November 2, 2012

One of the cool things about heading to Buffalo was that it enabled us to do some banking. Nothing worries me more than having a bunch of cash floating around. Plus, once we have money in the bank, we can actually pay some bills, which is a good feeling. So on the 1st, we had deposited all the money we had on hand. I went to the bank before we left town to deposit money from the Funeral Home show, which ended up being way better than we had anticipated (thanks again, Clint!). I was profoundly concerned to see our band account balance at zero. Turns out, unbeknonst to your truly, I owe the state of California back taxes. I also had no idea that the state can simply remove money from your bank account at will. No notification, no nothing. They may have tried to notify me, but probably don’t have my current address, and I’m not home anyway, so… Long story short - because of me being an idiot somewhere down the line, we had a lot less money than we thought we did. Between the storm, Canada, the van not starting without a jump again that morning (even after replacing the switch thingamajiggie the previous day), The tour had already been a doozy. We dusted ourselves off and headed for Kent, Ohio - famous for being the place where National Guardsmen shot and killed four Viet Nam War protestors. We got to play with some old penpals of ours, Drogheda for the first time, and hang out with some friends from Hell's Headbangers and JakPrints. The show was not bad either. The people at the bar were awesome and let us keep drinking there until four am or so - serving up various shots of anything and everything. 
Custom Merch for the kids in Ohio. Grind Bloody Gore - get it?!?  Pretty clever, huh?

November 3, 2012

We re-joined the Napalm Death and Vektor guys on the 3rd for a sold-out show at Reggie's Rock Club which was awesome. Loads of old friends were there, the Cardiac Arrest crew, the Macabre crew, Bruce LaMont, and lots more I'm sure I'm forgetting at the moment. Not too much to say about the show except that it totally ruled and was super fun. After Napalm left the stage, we headed to the bar attached to the venue and checked out a cool redneck rock / country outfit called the God Damned Gallows who were excellent and a lot of fun to drink with. Then it was a relatively short drive to St. Paul where Municipal Waste would re-join the package. 

November 3, 2012

We rolled into St. Paul without incident and headed, of course... straight for the Mall of America. The largest mall in the country. It's frankly a little scary. Packed with disciples of consumerism with every damn store you could possibly imagine. We headed to Buffalo Wild Wings to catch some football. I was a bit too hungover to deal with all of the bright lights, crowds, screaming children, etc. But a couple of beers and some food softened the blow. The show that night was excellent with friends from Bodies Lay Broken and Black Market Fetus in attendance. From there, we had a day off before we hit a last minute show in Denver that Reed from Speedwolf set up for us.  Good times were imminent.
You can build some crazy shit with legos.
Dr. Philthy meets his dream girl at the Lego Store in the Mall of America

November 4, 2012

Driving out to Denver through the "fly-over" section of America. We did stop in North Platte, Nebraska and some some cool Wild Bill Cody stuff before hitting Applebee's for dinner and football. IN a weird turn of events, one of the busboys actually recognized us from the show we'd done in Lincoln earlier in the year with Cannibal Corpse. It was flattering, but it did not score us any free drinks. We decided to skip Monday Night Football and charge straight into Denver to hang out with Steven and Brian from Cephalic Carnage and inflict some serious brain and liver damage. We hit a bar called 3 Kings and proceeded to get intensely intoxicated. They let us stay after hours for some ski shots and insanity before the cab ride back to Steve's, where we kept drinking until 5 or 6 AM or something ridiculous like that. 
Bud cares about the dental hygiene of our furry friends in North Platte NE
For some reason, I love those old-timey dioramas. And apparently, Wild Bill Cody agrees.

'Merica. North Platte, NE

If the van breaks down, there's always covered wagon. North Platte, NE
Dr. Philthy makes new friends, North Platte, NE
November 5, 2012

By the time we were in a state resembling human, it was late afternoon. Luckily, Mike Hamilton is the ultimate breakfast maker. His staple of fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, chorizo (sometimes soyrizo), and tortillas have cured thousands of hangovers. We ran some errands and putzed around Denver for a minute before heading to the show that evening. The show was in a glorified jam space, but it turned out awesome. The place was packed, we sold a lot of shirts, and had a lot of fun running through songs like "Vacant Grave" and "Waxwork" that we rarely ever play. That night, we picked up a show for the next day in Cheyenne Wyoming at Ernie November - a record store I'd been wanting to go to for years. After the show wrapped up, we hit Chubby's, an infamously greasy Denver burrito spot that I highly recommend and then headed back to 3 Kings, where we once again stayed after hours riding the shot ski into brain dead oblivion. Great times.

November 6, 2012

The drive from Denver to Cheyenne is a mere hour and a half, so we had time for another epic Hamilton afternoon breakfast before we headed north. The store was smack in the middle of downtown Wyoming, and full of killer vinyl, CDs and shirts. Of course, I nabbed a few things. The turnout was actually really cool and everyone loaded up on shirts and whatnot, making it a pretty damn successful night, especially since the show had been booked the previous day. We headed across the street to (surprise!) a bar where we grubbed on all manner of deep fried appetizers and even some Rocky Mountain Oysters. Hey, you only live once, right? We all passed out in the van for the trip to Salt Lake City for the show with Havok and Skeletonwitch the following day, as well as reuniting with our intrepid merch guy  / babysitter / token Canadian, Kevin Stewart-Panko. But that, as they say, is a tale for another day. 
Vinyl score in Wyoming!!! Yes!
More triumphs, trials, tribulations, trephanations, truffles, and trundle beds to follow when we pick this up.