Inside the Electric Circus: Exhumed's life on the Intoxicated Holocaust US tour, Part I

Exhumed Intoxicated Holocaust tour diary: the US leg part I

When we were approached about this tour, we were on board as soon as we heard about the killer line-up. Toxic Holocaust, Ramming Speed and MammothGrinder are bands that I actually listen to, which is pretty rare for bands formed after 1985. I liked that all the bands were different, Toxic doing their crust-thrash thing, Ramming Speed doing their NWOBHM-infused crossover, and Mammoth Grinder with their down and dirty caveman-level death metal. After all the touring we've done, it's become obvious that a good package helps to get people in the door – we'd already played all these markets with Dying Fetus in October and then played half of them again with Iron Reagan in December. We had our customary weekend of rehearsals before embarking on the road. We added “Your Funeral, My Feast” to the set – it was the last song on All Guts... we had yet to play live so we figured we should go for the complete set. We also worked out “Carrion Call” from Necrocracy for this tour but it wasn't coming across live the way we wanted it to, so we dropped it after a few shows.

"Your Funeral, My Feast" and "Limb From Limb" live in Santa Ana January 2014

Mike, freshly relocated to Tampa, Florida, flew into San Francisco, as did Bud, albeit from North Carolina. Rob took a train from Santa Ana to Grover Beach and hung out with my visiting girlfriend and I (speaking of commuting, she's from the UK) for a night before the inimitable Dr. Philthy came and picked us up in our battered van. Our van's sliding side door didn't open and neither did one of the back doors, and it quickly developed an oil leak which you'll hear more about later. So we started the tour in a rolling death-trap.

We drove north to San Jose to rehearse in the Cretin (featuring Exhumed alumnus Col Jones and Matt Widener) jam space, which was empty since they were recording their new album “Stranger.” Bud's parents still live in San Jose, in the same neighborhood I and all the original Exhumed guys grew up in, so we crashed there for a couple of nights. After scraping the rust off on during the first day's rehearsal and raiding Bud's parents' liquor cabinet that night, we dropped my girl off at the airport and went back in early for the second (and final) rehearsal so we would be done in time to catch the 49ers / Seahawks NFC championship game. The rehearsal was a success, the game not so much, but the pizza and beer more than made up for it. After plundering Bud's folks' liquor again I decided to call it a night when Rob and Bud's wrestling resulted in cracking one of the walls. The next morning I was feeling pretty hungover as we headed north to Chico for the pre-tour warm up gig we had scheduled for Monday night.

Our Monday night gig turned out far better than we had expected, with a hundred people coming out and making us feel very welcome in their small college town. We headed to the promoter's pad to crash where we enjoyed his very large dogs and semi-functioning hot tub. We had the following day off to drive up to Seattle to start the "official" tour, which we spent touring the Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico. The tour is free, informative and most importantly they give you tastes of different beers. All you have to do is book a tour in advance (we booked it the day before). One caveat, make sure your ID is valid, because mine is expired and I didn't bring my passport, which meant I wasn't able to taste any of the beers. Ouch. We grabbed In-and-Out Burger and spent the rest of the day and night in the van.

The badge of shame I had to wear since I didn't have a valid ID with me.

L to R, Bud, Dylan, and Rob testing hops at Sierra Nevada.

Mike with the Sierra Nevada vats as beer gets heated (if I remember correctly) along the way to deliciousness.

Yes, that big copper thing behind Mike is full of beer.

The Sierra Nevada brewing facility is disturbingly clean and sterile.

Entrance to the shwag store.

The view from the taproom where I enjoyed some really delicious... lemonade.

We arrived in Seattle with plenty of time to spare and were soon met by the Ramming Speed guys in their patented rusted-out short-bus. We had met them at the end of the Dying Fetus tour when we did a one-off show with them in Raleigh. We hit it off with them swimmingly, by that I mean we drank until about 4:00 am with them, shouting Iron Maiden melodies. We were very familiar with the venue, Studio Seven, which has become our go-to venue in Seattle, so as soon as doors opened we loaded in, grabbed showers, and made ourselves at home. We play there so much we've become friends with the owners and always have a great time there. The Mammoth Grinder dudes rolled up in Toyota, which was a bit unusual, but we learned that Mammoth Grinder and Toxic Holocaust were using Ramming Speed's backline – so we were carrying about four times the gear of all the other bands combined. It was the same case when we toured with Fetus , I guess we're stuck in the 80s mindset that excessive guitar cabinets and elaborate drumsets are essential. I can live with that. 

The Seattle show was predictably killer and we ended up partying at the venue until about 5:00am. The next day, the other bands headed to Canada for the Vancouver tour stop. We opted to play it safe and stay in the good ol' US of A, even though we were admitted into Canada last year with Fetus, we felt it was too dicey to risk for one show after getting turned away in 2012 (on our tour with Municipal Waste and Napalm Death). Even if the Canadian border cops decided to allow us in the country, we could potentially be charged $800 just to cross the border (Mike, Bud, the good Doctor and myself all have drunk driving convictions – leading the Canadian government to require us to each to purchase “Temporary Residence Permits” each time we enter the country for $200/person, or potentially not let us in at all as happened ) so we opted out and instead headed to Spokane, Washington to do our own show.

My favorite thing about playing the Hop in Spokane is the shop Time Bomb across the street. When we played Spokane with Suffocation in April, I had spent $60 on Marvel Super Heroes Slurpee cups from the 1970s. Yes I have a girlfriend, and no she isn't imaginary, I swear. This time however, Time Bomb was closed, but a sister store, GiantNerd Books, had opened next door. I was able to pick up a couple of very rare Jack Kirby comic mags from the 70s – SpiritWorld and Days of the Mob. To say my day was made would be a dramatic understatement. The show was pretty decent, our friends in Xingaia supported (and Christine, one of their girlfriends, their pr person and all around fun gal brought us insanely delicious baked goods to munch on again, which ruled), playing their thrash-infused hyper Death Metal with a sneer and some hilarious samples spliced in. We went to one of their houses for a party afterward, but I bowed out relatively early after a rapid succession of vodka-and-something shots. The next day I was still in pretty rough shape.

Our van was also in pretty rough shape. The oil leak we'd spotted hadn't improved - in fact it had gotten worse. We went to a mechanic who fixed the leak, and then informed us that our transmssion was in terrible shape – which we kind of knew already. The mechanics were literally shocked that we intended to drive from Portland to Oakland the following day and predicted categorically that we'd be broken down on the side of the road than to be enjoying a juicy Nations hamburger in the home of our favorite football team. Sufficiently spooked, we seriously considered that our semi-faithful van (we had already put a new engine in it) might not pull through. We scrambled for options, and ended up finding a rental van in Portland through Bandago – who specialize in renting vans to touring bands. Their services aren't cheap, but inlcude a decent amount of mileage, roadside assitance and brand new, perfectly maintained vehicles. We decided to bite the bullet and spend the cash on the rental van, which meant that we'd all be going home with a significantly smaller amount of money than expected at the end of this tour, especially since we were planning on buying our plane tickets for our already-scheduled European tour with Toxic Holocaust out of the profits from this tour. But we simply couldn't afford to drop a new transmission in the van right at that moment (we didn't have time to anyway) and we couldn't risk not being able to finish the tour in our old van. We hitched the trailer to the rental van, and decided to drop off our van in San Jose at Bud's parents (who are total lifesavers). The Portland show was fun, but because my ID was expired, I wasn't able to drink any beer at all again (I think between that night and the brewery tour, I've learned my lesson) and we ended up at Sizzle Pie, the pizza joint owned by Matt Jacobson (who also owns Relapse Records, you might have heard of them?) for some complimentary slices. We finally left town about 3:00am with both vans, and headed to the Bay Area.

The Oakland Metro Opera House before the show

Mike Hamilton, booze advisor

Turning garbage into gold: Mike's old drum head with some of my scribbles, an old set list (that was there already) and our signatures. This netted us dozens of... cents at the merch table.

I love the Oakland Metro, love the city, love seeing old friends, hanging with Mike's brothers and assorted family members and even just driving by the Oakland Coliseum makes me a little misty-eyed, even if it's been 12 years since I've had reason to be optimistic about a Raiders season (and yes 510 purists, I know I'm from the suburbs!). We did end up enjoying that delicious Nations cheeseburger after all (salmon burger in my case, if you wanna get technical about it) before the show, enjoying an East Bay tradition. We had played the Metro with Iron Reagan and local support from the awesome Necrot on a Monday night in December and it had been a solid show, even after having been in San Francisco five weeks eariler with Fetus, so we were anxious to see how it would go on a Saturday night with a fully stacked tour package. Suffice it to say, the night did not disappoint.

We had to split fairly soon afterwards, to drop our ailing van off at Bud's folks in San Jose and then stop by my place in Arroyo Grande to drop off some gear and pick up some other gear before the following day's in-store at Grill 'Em All in Alahambra and show at the Joint in Los Angeles. We had a great time and a great meal at Grill 'Em All, who added their first vegan item to the menu for Toxic Holocaust (Joel's been a vegan for four years or so), some TH-themed fries. I went for the spicy Napalm Death-themed burger and did not regret it at all (as much as my underwear might disagree). The staff were awesome, welcoming, and generously pulling pints of beer, so it was a great warm-up. The show at the Joint (where we had hosted our Necrocracy listening party night) was destined to be packed – the venue was woefully undersized, really more of a bar than anything and it was quickly sold out. While we played, I could see kids looking in through the windows, watching the show from outside. It was a trip. We partied with tons of friends and familiar faces, then after the show we headed further south to Santa Ana to crash at Rob's.

The line at Grill 'em All.

Exhumed, immediately after gaining 8 pounds at Grill 'em All in Alhambra. 8 delicious pounds.

Mike was up early the next day to pick up our sound-guy for this tour, Cephalic Carnage guitarist Brian Hopp who was in town for the NAMM convention. While he was being productive, I dragged my carcass down the street to Charlie's Best, the local taqueria / burger joint for some much-needed greasy fare. Soon we were back at the Constellation Room in Santa Ana, where we had just played a sold-out show with Dying Fetus in October, and even after that, we had played locally with Iron Reagan in Anaheim in December which was a killer show in its own right, so we figured that the show would be a corker. Before the gig we shared a dressing room with the Toxic guys and got a taste of just how much they loved awful music (maybe even more than us??). After being treated to some obscure christian metal jams from the '80s courtesy of Joel and Phil (Nick just sort of hung his head dejctedly and said “welcome to the last four years of my life” as Joel and Phil delighted in knowing every cringe-worthy lyric), we had a killer set, feeling much more at ease with a seasoned guy behind the board.

"Sickened," "Gravewalker" and "The Matter of Splatter" in Santa Ana

After the gig, we piled in the (admittedly much more comfortable) rental van and headed for Phoenix, where we predictably showed up at Ryan Butler's doorstep at 9 in the morning. Ryan is a saint, aside from engineering and co-producing our last two records and playing guitar in the awesome Landmine Marathon, he lets us hang out at his place every time we roll through on tour (which is about five or six times a year), watch cable TV, shower, do laundry and hang out with his dog Leia (who makes an appearance on our split EP with Iron Reagan). We had played in the area just five weeks earlier with Iron Reagan and had a good show, even after just playing there in October with Fetus, so we felt like we were pretty much a glorified local band at this point. We'd been having consistently good shows in Phoenix, and the package was killer, so we weren't too worried. Our confidence was rewarded, and the energy in Phoenix was killer. 

We always swing next door to Asylum Records to hang out and check out the stock, and I somehow resisted the temptation to buy the Japanese pressing of Spellbound by Tygers of Pan Tang that they had there, remembering how much extra we were spending on the rental van. At any rate, we made our traditional stop for late night Mexican at Filberto's with Buter and a few friends before packing back into the van to drive to Albuquerque for the following day's show. But that, as they say, is a tale for another blog.

"Back From The Dead And Ready To Party North American Tour Part I" Recap, Part III. I mean, part three of the recap of part one of the tour. Or does that sound even more confusing? Ah, fuck it.

North American tour recap, part the third, in which our heroes return to their native soil, none the wiser from their extensive trials and travails...

Well, after much procrastination, I realized that I need to finish the tale of our last tour, because we're about to start our next one. This has been a really busy year for Exhumed, which is great, but touring really cuts into my time to catch up on my pet projects, like updating the blog, posting old live bootlegs from my VHS tapes on Youtube, organizing my urine and hair into jars labeled with the time and date of collection, reading comic books, hanging out with friends and family, and learning macrame. But alas and alack, that is, as we say, a rockupational hazard. At any rate, where we? That's right, our intrepid sextet of loveable misfits was traversing the wild and unforgiving northern wasteland that is Canada... So, without further introductory fluff, let's dive headfirst into the third and final chapter of this crepitous chronicle- and I promise that, as far as third chapters go, it will be at least as much of a let-down as Return Of The Jedi.

We were headed west from Calgary to Kelowna, British Columbia, through some of the most beautiful forests and mountains in the world. So of course, I slept through it all, hung over and totally exhausted after our two days in Alberta. By the time I was coherent, we were practically there. Since we drove straight through, we arrived in Kelowna about noon or so. If you haven't heard of Kelowna, BC, don't feel bad. I've been all over Canada, and I'd never heard of it either. That said, it is a beautiful spot, nestled in the gorgeous Canadian Rockies with an abundance of lakes. We grabbed breakfast / lunch at McDonald's (sorry, punk rockers!) and then hit the grocery store for picnicking supplies. We rolled up at a nearby lake whose name totally escapes me, laid out some blankets, waded in the chilly mountain-water, ate some snacks, and dozed off under a shady tree. After killing a few hours that way, we headed over to the venue, which was literally a Knights Of Columbus Hall in town. Now, you may ask yourself, what the hell are we doing playing a Knights Of Columbus hall in a small town in eastern British Columbia that no one has ever heard of? Aren't we a “proper heavy metal band with a record label and all that stuff”? Well, the answer is simple. When criss-crossing the globe, you're inevitably going to run into areas where there is a lot of ground between major cities (aka “primary markets” in the parlance of our booking agent and record label) and you end up playing some pretty random spots in between. The alternative is a day off, and for us, a day we don't play is a day without pay – see how I did that rhyming bit? Pretty neat, huh? And a day without pay is to be avoided whenever possible. About one day off per 2/3 weeks is what we try to shoot for to avoid killing ourselves on the one hand and going broke on the other. At any rate, we arrived at the venue about five or six in the evening, and were greeted by the hospitality of the very nice Kristina, who had promoted a show of ours a decade earlier in Penticton, another, even smaller town in eastern British Columbia that you've never heard of. Like a lot of small-market promoters, she is really enthusiastic to get bands to come through and puts a lot of personal work into the shows. She and her family had whipped up a big ol' buffet of burgers, dogs, potato salad, veggies, soft drinks, water, and of course, beer. After eating and napping a bit more, the other bands began to arrive, and after load-in, Rob, Deedee and I headed over to Kristina's house to grab showers before showtime.

The turnout was definitely better than I expected, considering the remoteness of the show. Brandon, an old friend of Wes' actually lives in Penticton (about 70 miles away from Kelowna if I remember correctly) and came out, which was cool. The last time we were in Canada (in '05), we ended crashing at his place and I stayed up really late drinking beer and recording a terrible Sunset-Strip style cock-rock song called “Hollywood Ninja”. We never recorded any vocals for it, but we all thought it was hilarious at the time. At any rate, back to the more-recent-past... That night in Kelowna, we played on the floor, with no monitors, triggers, or anything remotely fancy. It's fun to do shows like this every once in a while, really raw and primitive, right there with the kids. We all had a good time, and headed back to Kristina's to crash out before heading to Vancouver the following day. The next day was the Monday of a three-day weekend, which made playing in Vancouver (one of those “primary markets” I mentioned earlier) on a Monday slightly more logical, but what we non-Canadian types failed to take into consideration was that everyone vacations near Kelowna and would all be heading back to Vancouver that day. Needless to say, progress was excruciatingly slow. We planned to be at the venue around 5 or so (somehow we always end up leaving at least an hour later than we plan to), but with traffic we didn't make it there until 8. This of course is the height of unprofessionalism, but at least we had been in communication with the club and the other bands (who were also late, but not as late as us) while en route, so everything was basically cool. We totally missed soundcheck and of course loading in our gear and merch was a bit of a clusterfuck, but as Dismember once said, “and so is life”... or something like that.

The dressing room at the club was about the size of a walk-in closet, so Rob, Dylan and I headed into the Vancouver-y night for a walk to check out the town. Of course, the club we played, the Rickshaw Stop, is in the absolute worst part of Vancouver – right next to the needle exchange for heroin users. In fact, that may be the grossest, most ghetto part of the whole country of Canada. But it does have character. Luckily, the club had security near our van the whole night, so we felt pretty good about taking off. Within a half a mile, we were out of junkie-town and into Chinatown, which was much nicer. I remembered eating at a really good noodle house in the area where Leon sharted his pants back in '05. Another mile and we were near the harbor, in a pretty nice part of town. After taking in the maritime sights and making fun of the D&D nerds fencing at the nearby sword fighting academy (as a D&D nerd myself, I feel totally justified mocking those dudes – and I took fencing in high school, so there ya go), we cruised back to the club. We saw a bar with a sign that said “Vancouver's Favourite Country and Western Bar” and Rob and I couldn't resist nipping in for a minute for a drink. We had a beer at one of the most depressing, down-and-out bars I have ever seen. I can confidently say that Rob and I were the best-looking people in the whole place- including the women (and the transvestive hookers) which should give you an idea of just what a bummer the vibe was that was happening there. But it was an appropriate, endearing, bummer vibe. The guys playing guitar and singing Hank and Cash songs with a drum machine were actually pretty good and the beer was relatively cheap, so all in all, it was 15 minutes well spent.

We made it back to the venue as the night was getting underway, and the turnout was pretty good, which always makes doing a good show easier. Another thing that made the night memorable was that someone had overflowed the toilet in the backstage area, so the whole floor was wet, and it didn't really smell that great while were getting dressed for the show. We were a bit over-tired that night, but after meeting up with some old friends like Justin from 3 Inches Of Blood, who we played with years ago when he was in Allfather, we were ready to rock- soggy, urine-smelling shoes notwithstanding. The show went over well, but we were anxious to get into Washington and a) get the border crossing over with (believe me, it can be a hassle getting back into America too) and, b) get the three-hour drive out of the way so we could get some serious rest- in a motel, in an actual bed. We hit the border at the Peace Bridge and had literally the quickest, easiest border crossing in North America I've ever experienced, and drove most of the way to Seattle before stopping at a Denny's and Motel 6.

Canadian money is adorable. And, bizarrely valuable in today's failing first-world economy. 

We piled into the hotel and proceeded to crash the fuck out, exhausted and happy to be back in the good ol' US of A. We woke up the next day, hit a Bank Of America to deposit the meager amount of adorable Canadian money we had accumulated (I love the Canadian $5 bill, it has a picture of kids playing ice hockey on it) and get going into Seattle. Mike wanted to check out Pike's fish market, so we headed out to the touristy part of town. It was a gorgeous, clear, warm day in Seattle- perfect weather to watch a couple of dicks throw oversized fish at each other while a throng of families from the Midwest watched and took pictures. Elsewhere at the fish market, we ended up randomly meeting up with a dude from Scorched Earth who worked at a non-throwing oriented fish stand there. He recommended a good restaurant nearby (I think it was called Athena?) that wasn't totally exorbitant, and we had an amazing lunch. Something about incredibly fresh seafood and Pacific Northwest Microbrews seemed to revitalize us. There was also an amazing comic book store nearby where I found a few back issues of Jack Kirby's run on “Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen” that I didn't have yet (I'm still missing 2 Kirby issues) and we all left happy campers. We already had confirmation from the other bands that their border crossing was similarly simple and we had all re-emerged in the US without incident. Macabre would also be reunited with their tour manager, Eric at last, which would help things move more smoothly and punctually, so it was shaping up to be a good day.

This is the kind of crap I spend my very limited disposable income on. And amazingly, I'm single. Who would've thought?!?

I was excited because we were back in the states, we had a huge shipment of merch to pick up at the venue, and our intrepid booking agent, Dan Rozenblum of the highly reputable Pantheon agency would be coming out to the show to celebrate his birthday that night. We were playing Studio 7, which is kind of near the Mariners' stadium, and a pretty big venue for us. I was a little nervous about being able to fill the room, to be honest. It's never good when the one show of your tour attended by your booking agent tanks. We got settled in and unloaded, and Wes and I headed off to the Pyramid Brewing company with the Cephalic Carnage guys, where we ran into Luke (World Under Blood, Sleep Terror) who had played guitar with Vile when we toured with them and Cannibal years ago. I totally didn't recognize him at first, not only because it had been a long time and I wasn't expecting to see him there, but also because the dude is fucking yoked these days! It was great catching up with him for a bit, watching some baseball and enjoying some of Pyramid's Hefeweizen. When it was getting close to show time, we headed back and I was pleasantly surprised to see the place filling up nicely. I got to hang out with Terry from Scorched Earth which is always a pleasure, and old friends Renae and Joe from Skarp (Joe is also in Theories, Book of Black Earth, Splatter House, and probably about 10 other bands I can't remember right now). I also did a double take when I saw Renae – last time I saw her she was a drunk crust-punk chick, but now she's a mom and really looked like a proper, adult, lady! Always good to see friends doing well. At any rate, the show was awesome, great vibe, loud kids (even the folks upstairs were making a lot of noise) and a lot of fun.

You know it's a good night when everyone is happy. Not just the audience, not just the bands because people showed up and we got a lot of beer, but even the promoter of the show and the bartenders at the club were stoked with how things went. When the guy paid me, he was totally psyched (that never happens). He was so happy, I should probably have hit him up for more money. The staff ended up letting us stay in the bar and party really, really hard. Wes was the first to crash out, at around 2am. I went out to the van to sleep at about 5am, and I think Mike and Rob finally made it out at 7:30am or so. Rob in particular was over-Jagermeistered. He passed out practically on top of Wes, and despite me trying feebly to pick him up, he wasn't budging. Wes wasn't exactly pleased with this development, and finally shoved him off, before leaving to get some food as people around the neighborhood (the club is near a lot of industrial type businesses) were arriving at work. As soon as Wes returned, we headed for Portland. Like I said last time, I am so incredibly thankful we had Dylan to drive on this tour, because we had all been reduced to oblithereens the night before. After we got on the freeway, out of nowhere, Rob stood up in the van, obviously still blackout drunk, and began to mutter incomprehensibly. It looked like he was about to blow chunks all over the interior of the van, so we pulled over on the side of I-5 to let him do his thing. He got out, stumbled onto the grassy shoulder and proceeded to conspicuously piss in the general direction of heavy traffic. Then he turned around, walked a few paces the other way, and promptly laid down in the grass to sleep. Needless to say, this turn of events was not to our liking. We started yelling and throwing empty cups at him, Mike went out and nudged him with his foot, but he remained laying there like a giant, impassive sack of shit (and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible) on the side of the freeway, totally wasted at about 9:30 in the morning. Finally, Mike suggested that I pour a bottle of water on his face. This finally roused him, and we got him back in the van where he passed out immediately, with his face on the seat and his body on the Dorito and hair coated floor. Classy, but hilarious. The rest of the brief drive passed without incident, thankfully.

Once in Portland, we headed to the Relapse Portland office, and had lunch with Orion Landau, Relapse's amazing graphic designer (who painted the Dekapitator cover for us that I totally love) at a nearby bar that served literally the best Pastrami sandwich I have ever tasted. Holy shit, I wish I had ordered the Pastrami sandwich! At any rate, we were all drained and in pretty bad shape at this point. Rob was still a bit drunk, but finally losing steam, and the rest of us were quite the worse for wear. Really we just needed to sleep. It was uncharacteristically hot in Portland that day, in the 80s for sure, so sleeping in the van was impossible. We headed to the club in the hopes that they had a backstage area or someplace we could crash out or at least lay down. When we arrived there, it was still too early to get in, so we dejectedly headed back in the van and headed to a surplus store for some shopping. I found a cool pair of Ferris Bueller-style shades, but not much else. We headed back to the club, which was still closed, and finally passed out for about an hour and a half across the street in the parking lot of some office building. In hindsight, we should have just broken down and got a hotel, even though we couldn't stay in town long due to the 11-hour drive from Portland to San Francisco the following day. We all needed some sleep, myself in particular. When we finally got into the club, I was crestfallen to find that there was no real backstage area (just enough room for gear), no couches, and no AC. The floor was concrete, and the whole interior looked like it had just been purchased from home depot – all unfinished 2x4s. Ugh. There was a second bar area upstairs with a couple of couches, but the dudes running the club wouldn't let us sleep there, which was total bullshit. Luckily, we have a lot of friends in town (who were all at work during the day) who cheered us up. Ryan, Cole, Jason, and a bunch of other old friends were there, as well as Matt, Orion, John and Erica from Relapse. By the time we played, I was beyond fatigued and running on fumes. We got up and started playing, and after Mike made a weird flub in one of the songs (keep in mind, he stayed up even later than I did, so I'm sure his brain/body/psyche were totally fried too), I got unreasonably, super pissed off about it, and started strumming way too hard in petulant anger. I broke a string, which of course pissed me off even more. I grabbed my backup guitar, glared at Mike and yelled something shitty at him while the music was playing (which I honestly haven't done since high school) and continued the set. There was another flub in the next song, and I got really pissed off, strummed too hard again, and broke a string on my backup guitar. Wes Caley also doubles as our guitar tech, and obviously he was right there with me onstage, so it wasn't like my guitar was getting fixed while we were playing. I flipped out, threw my backup guitar into the stand and screamed at Rob and Mike on my way offstage, acting totally unprofessionally and just straight-up rude. I fixed the string hastily and angrily, and came out and finished the set. Of course, in my sleep-deprived, hungover for the past week mind, I thought everything was fucked and the band sounded awful, but people were stage-diving pretty much the whole show and the whole front of the room was a mass of pitting madness, so it couldn't have been that bad. Everyone I talked to after the show seemed to think it was killer, so hopefully they're right, haha! As soon as we wrapped up the last song, I apologized to Mike and the guys for being such an asshole and letting things get to me. I really just needed some rest. We loaded out and headed to Sizzle Pie, an awesome pizza place that's actually owned by Matt Jacobson, the president of Relapse. He hooked us up with a slew of killer metal and rock-themed specialty slices and pies and a great beer selection. By the end of the night, I was buzzed, full of pizza and contrite for my tantrum. At that point, sleeping in the van would be simple. I was so tired I could have slept standing up in the middle of a tambourine factory that was on fire.

By the time I woke up, we were well into California, and we stopped and got breakfast and filled up the tank. I was texting pretty much nonstop all day with former bandmates and old friends, and our guest list was filling up rapidly. Exhumed has always been identified as a bay area band, since we started out in San Jose (aka the Silicon Valley for you non-NHL fans) way back in 1991, when I was but a wee lad of 15. San Francisco was pretty much as close to a true hometown show as we get. That said, we've had many different incarnations of the band with different members from different areas, and no one in Exhumed even lives in the bay area at this point. I haven't lived there for about three years, and I haven't lived in San Jose for about seven. However, Mike and I are both originally from there, and I will always consider it my hometown. I miss the food, the culture, the bars, the proliferation of hot Asian chicks in the south bay, and of course my friends and family. To me, this show felt like there was a lot at stake, as my good friend Mike Sage would say. We would be playing and everyone that recorded “Gore Metal” would be there, and we had already planned to have ex-members Ross Sewage and Mike Beams join us on vocals and guitar respectively for the show closer, “Open The Abscess”. I really wanted the show to be a good one, I felt like kicking ass in our hometown would be a big piece of the “comeback” thing that we'd been doing throughout this year.

Here's the last song of the evening in San Francisco, where we were joined by Ross and Mike  for Open The Abscess.  For those of you wondering, yes, Mike Beams was super hammered here. Ross' "Rasputin the mad monk" look / vibe is also pretty awesome.

We cruised into town, picked up a bunch of much-needed gear at guitar center on Van Ness street (right down the street from my old work), grabbed an AMAZING burrito at Taqueria Cancun (one of my three favorite places to get the rightfully much-ballyhooed “Mission-style Burrito” that you should have heard heralded as the THE BEST FUCKING FOOD IN THE WORLD) and headed to Slim's. I was stoked to not only pick up more “All Guts, No Glory” CDs, but also to do a really fun radio interview with Ami Lawless of Voetsek (who are a great fucking band you should all check out) before the show. To give even a partial list of the old friends that showed up would be ridiculous, but the first thing Col Jones (our drummer from '91-'03, now drumming with Repulsion, Mortuous, and Cretin) remarked when he saw me that night was that he was irritated about “the long line trying to get in to see my own dumb band”. We had 20 guest list spots, used them all, as well as most of the empty spots on Macabre, Cephalic Carnage, and Withered's lists as well. San Francisco might have been the biggest show of the tour, with over 400 folks piled in. We were all feeling much, much better after Portland- rested, happy to be in our hometown (well, at least two of us), and excited about the last weekend of the tour. The show was one of the absolute highlights of the whole three-week excursion and it seemed like the kids really dug it. I got to catch up briefly with Will from Death Angel and talk about finally recording the slew of Scarecrow songs we'd written together, and Adi from Uphill Battle was in town on business and hung out with us for a little bit after the show. We decided to head to Reno that night as accommodations there would be waaaaaaay cheaper than in San Francisco, and it was a pretty long drive anyway. The night passed uneventfully and I woke up around 9:30 to find ourselves in beautiful Sparks, Nevada. *Editor's note- Since type can't convey tone of voice, I'll just chime in here and clarify that the word “beautiful” in the previous sentence was used facetiously. Thank you for your time* We checked into a Motel 6 that was indeed very affordable and headed into Reno itself to hit a buffet. The buffet was actually pretty decent and we were able to get some rest and clean up at the hotel. Of course, it was incredibly hot in Reno. The highlight of our morning was seeing a dude riding in a minivan with his family drinking a Steel Reserve 40 at about 11am. What can I say, Reno is a classy town.

I'm going to digress here for a minute. Planning a tour is a tough endeavor. Our original plan was to play Portland on Wednesday, take Thursday off, and hit San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Orange County on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively. For whatever reason, the show in OC never materialized, and we lost both the Friday and Saturday slots at the clubs in LA and San Francisco. Now, anyone that has ever been to a concert knows that Friday and Saturday are the absolutely most desirable nights for concerts (probably why the venues in SF and LA passed on our shows those nights in favor of something more lucrative / glamourous / sexy / quality / etc.) so having both of those nights as off nights would be ridiculous (see above on why we avoid having days off on tour). Hence adding Friday and Saturday shows in Sparks (which is basically Reno) and Las Vegas. We'd played Vegas a couple of times before, and it had always been at least decent, so I wasn't too worried about that show. Sparks, however, I didn't anticipate being that great of a gig. The only time we had played Reno (back in '97 I think?) a fight had broken out during our set and all 20 or so of the attendees had followed the fight outside, leaving us to finish the show in a literally empty room. Even the bartender was outside watching the fight. Ah, good times.

We relaxed next door to the venue at the Irish pub, watched some baseball, and halfheartedly flirted back at the waitress there. There were definitely a lot more than 30 people at the show, but it still felt underwhelming, especially after the energy of the previous night. The promoter ended up being a cool guy, but the folks at the club were kind of dicks. One of the bands on the tour, maybe Withered, I can't remember, ended up being really late to the show and he was flipping out about it. He also was complaining about our stage volume and wouldn't give us any bar privileges, which was totally weak. The promoter bought us some beer and we resigned ourselves to drinking outside in the van. Yeesh. Anyway, the show itself was pretty fun, low-key and more like a party than anything. The kids that showed up were appreciative, and we headed back to the motel feeling good.

The next day, it began to sink in that the drive from Sparks to Vegas was a bit more intense than we'd bargained for, especially with the heat. It was long, dry and boring. We got to the venue on the edge of town around 5pm, incredibly early for Vegas standards. The sound guy here was a bit uptight as well. He complained that we had our own sound guys for the tour, complained that we had too much gear for the stage, etc. etc. The bar owner wasn't much cooler, doling out an incredibly meager beer allotment for the night. Drinking would have been cheaper if we had just played nickel slots next to a blue-haired septuagenarian from Florida and waited for a tired, leather-skinned, was-probably-hot-in-1991 waitress named Jodi who was originally from Montana to eventually come around and bring us beers in some off-the-strip casino. On a more positive note, I was stoked to see Spun In Darkness, and Rhett (aka Thorgrimm of Gravehill fame) and his lovely lady, my “big sister” Lili were going to be in town as well, so we were gearing up for a fun night. There was a Savers in the same strip mall, and I bought a sweet blue denim jacket, which I figured I'd save for fall / winter, as Vegas in August was fucking roasting. The turnout was pretty decent, and kids were telling me how much better-attended our show was than other Death Metal tours that have rolled through have been, so we felt good about shit by the time we hit the stage. The show went over well, and as I am known to do, I went on a drunken tirade on stage about how disgustingly fake Vegas is (it's honestly one of my least favorite places in America) and how the underground should be diametrically opposed to all that Vegas represents. When I'm drunk and tired and in incredibly hot weather, I sometimes get a bit diatribe-y, which is undoubtedly annoying. So, sorry about that. After the show we went out for Mexican food and birthday cake with Rhett and Lili, but somehow I got a really gnarly stomachache (the food was actually delicious before I doubled over in pain) and went and passed out in the van flatulent and uncomfortable, without saying good night or anything to anyone.

The next day we were back in Los Angeles, which is pretty much our second hometown at this point. Wes, Danny, Leon, and Rob all call Southern California home (even though Wes doesn't live there anymore, he's still from there), and Mike and I are sort of in the middle of SF and LA, living in the San Luis Obispo area. At this point, I spend way more time in LA than I do in the bay area (in fact, the last time I went up to San Jose to visit friends and family, I got a DUI – thanks a lot, jerks!) so I've slowly, begrudingly come to feel quite at home there. I still enjoy detesting the Dodgers and Angels and continually finding things about the bay area that are better than LA (food, public transportation, air quality, weather, sports that aren't basketball, I could go on, but do I really need to?), but I honestly do love it there and feel truly at home in LA and Orange County. I was excited to finally headline the Key Club, where we had played a few different times as a support act. Again, this show felt like a lot was riding on it, not only because it was the last show of the tour, but because we had gotten a few different offers to play down there, and after playing numerous shows in the area with Gravehill, a lot of kids had approached me about wanting to see us play. If the show tanked, then my perception of the band was way off. Honestly, we had traditionally had better shows in LA than in the Bay Area for years before we broke up, so I was anticipating a good night. I know I should try and just keep an open mind and not expect anything in particular, but hey, I'm only human.

Ramblings from a sleep-deprived man in desperate need of a shower outside the Key Club in Los Angeles.

We picked up Dylan's friend from Delaware, Deanna, at LAX, dropped Wes off at his visiting girlfriend's hotel, and headed to Hollywood. I think we were the only band on the tour familiar enough with traffic from Vegas to LA, especially on a Sunday, to understand how fucked it can get. Why do I think that? Because we were the only band (aside from the locals, Enthraller) who were at the venue even close to on-time. In fact, not only did everyone else miss load-in and sound-check, we were the only band that was there when dinner was served later that afternoon. Everyone has a day when they run behind, but to my thinking, LA was going to be one of the bigger shows of the whole thing and having played at the Key Club before, I was well aware of what a tight, professional ship they run there, so I knew we needed to be on top of shit for the last show. To be fair, we totally blew it getting to Vancouver on time, so like Mike Abominator always says, shit happens when you party naked. I didn't even really watch the bands that night, I was busy socializing with everybody, knocking out a couple of interviews before the show, and just hanging out. The last night of tour is always bittersweet, kind of like the end of your junior year in high school. You're glad to get a break, but you're bummed to not see a lot of people for a while that you've worked together and bonded with. Over the three weeks, we had a blast getting to know all of our tour mates (except for Steve and Lenzig from Cephalic, we knew those dicks already) and playing, partying and puking together. We all agreed to meet up at the Rainbow to grab a drink to celebrate / say goodbye after the show and ran into even more old friends there. The show went over really well, we all had a blast, but of course, by the time we finished loading out and getting everything squared away, we got to the rainbow at last call. So the after-party, such as it was, ended up being a little anti-climactic. Luckily, we had already grabbed some beer from the store for later that night. Deedee's boyfriend Jerry came and picked her up, Rob took off, Wes headed off with his lady, leaving myself, Mike, Dylan and Deanna to head off to Rob's pad in Anaheim for a couple of beers and some well-earned rest.

"Through Cadaver Eyes" from the new album, like at the Key Club. 

In case you thought the last video was too melodic, here's some old shit for ya- Slaughtercult and Torso. 

Of course... the next day, Monday, all of us except Rob and Wes headed back up to San Luis Obispo, stopping in Ventura for Del Taco and to pay for the van rental. I was dropped off at my pad in Arroyo Grande at about 6pm to do some laundry, clean myself up, catch up with family, and get packed for our four-festivals-in-four-countries-in-four-days trip to Europe that weekend. And did I mention that we were leaving for this insane European trip the next day at 7am from Los Angeles? Mike dropped off the gear in San Luis at our rehearsal room, and took Dylan and Deanna to Dylan's pad. By midnight Tuesday morning (a mere six hours after we got home), Mike and I were back on the road in the van and Mike's truck, headed for LA. We dropped the van off at last in Ventura and continued south for our excruciatingly early flight to Prague where w would rendezvous with the always entertaining Leon del Muerte, who would be reassuming bass duties for these four shows, But that, my friends, is a blog for another day.

Thanks for reading, true believers!

Excelsior!
Harvey and the usual gang of idiots