I know I know, I said that there wouldn't be much non-solo info on this site, but I can make a few exceptions can't I?

So this is a very general, sloppy, rambling, and quite possibly completely uninteresting account of what happened on Pinback's six week tour of Europe. I've removed most of the overtly personal parts- some were too personal, some were too boring. The underlined words are links to pictures. Welcome to the glamorous world of touring!

8/24/00

We're in Belgium. Strange, but I'm still not too excited. I'm still me, just in a different place. The plane ride was okay. Zach and Donny's screens on their seats didn't work so I traded with Zach half way through so he could watch a movie. Well my eyes don't want to stay open any more, since I've only gotten about 4 hours of mostly not-so-good sleep in the last two nights. Tired. So I will sleep now.

9/02/00

It is 3:15 a.m. in Hamburg, Germany. Wow. I'm in Deusthland or however it's spelled. Europe is good.

9/04/00

Okay, now we're in Brighton, England. So far we've been in Belgium; Holland (Groningen, Amsterdam, and Eindhoven); Germany (Hamburg and Münster); and now here. It seems like about half of the bands have asked to use our equipment so far. I don't know if that's something that bands commonly do over here or what, but it sure is fucking irritating. I got fed up tonight and said no. If we can carry all our stuff around the continent, they can surely manage to bring their stuff from home to the club.

Anyway, things have been pretty cool so far. Last night sucked ass because they made us get there at 3:00 or 2:30 or something to soundcheck, but they weren't ready until like 4:00, so we got our stuff set up and were about to play a song and the guy says "sorry, we're out of time, we have to soundcheck the other band". Which, by the way, was a guy doing Flemish spoken word with a chicken mask on. Then we "have to get there by 6:30 for dinner", so we get there a few minutes early and end up getting dicked around until 7:30. Meanwhile, "it'll just be 10 minutes" over and over again. Rob asks "do you have any coffee mugs?" "No, we just have the plastic cups." So we find some mugs in the other room and wash them. They had a coffee and a hot water machine. What the fuck? Then the monitor guy was HORRIBLE. Fucked up just about as bad as you could. The first song was basically me, Donny, and Zach playing and Rob getting more and more pissed, yelling at the guy to put only his voice in his monitors, while the guy insisted that's how it was. And Zach couldn't hear himself for the piano songs and the guy just gave him attitude and told him that the volume was all the way up. Pretty ridiculous. But I've been having a good time overall.

I've come to the mostly open-ended conclusion that Holland sucks, Belgium's really nice, and Germany's cool. Just as far as our shows have been. Everyone told us about how Germany was so bad for shows and nobody comes and all that but our Germany shows have been great.

I've yet to come across a good metal record store, or any kind of metal record store at that. I did find the Yattering cd I was looking for at the Virgin Megastore in Brussels of all places. And I got a Meshuggah cd. Kinda' cool but basically a one-trick pony to the extreme. Oh yeah, got a Pixies Surfer Rosa and Come on Pilgrim on one disc. But no Bathory or Darkthrone yet. I have come across some Sodom but I'm not sure which one to buy so I think I'll hold off on that until I get home and can research it.

Our driver, Yves, smokes like a fucking chimney, as does everyone here, and makes bad sex references every chance he gets and is basically clueless and slams on the brakes for no reason.

So that's that so far; 13 days into the tour.

9/05/00

I am now sitting in a dressing/cleaning room in the club in Nottingham, England. Today was a pretty good day. Got here rather early (around 2:30) after getting 7 hours of sleep at Yves' friend's house. Then walked around until 5:00 when the promoter guy got here. England is fucking expensive. Got a veggie whopper(!) at Burger King on the way here for £4.60 or something, which is about $8. Of course, that's with medium onion rings and a medium drink (Fanta orange soda): value meal. Spent way too much money today. Bought a soccer ball for us for £4.99 . I wanted to invite the girl who sold it to me to the show but I couldn't remember the name of the place. I swear, the average looking girl suddenly becomes really attractive the moment she opens her mouth and speaks with a British accent.

Then I bought a razor and then some new headphones because mine got stepped on and they were pretty crappy anyway. Before that though, I found the first Failure album in a record store for 50p, which is about 75¢. Score. It was the only good thing in the store that I found and the cheapest.

Then we loaded and had vegan chili and bread which was superb. Now I'm drinking free beer and waiting to play after a couple other bands.

Oh yeah, Donny fixed the disabled cigarette lighter somehow so it'll work with the adapter we have, which means we can use the laptop and stuff. Hope the show goes a little better than last night, which ended in us playing to about 4 people, mostly Yves' friends.

9/06/00

"Tour diary" entry #4 or so... I have a feeling this'll have to be edited if I'm going to put it up on my site. In Glasgow, Scotland right now. I like it so far. The accents are awesome and we got good food. I'd really like to have a shower but I'll have to wait until after the show. At least the guy has one. We stayed with a really cool guy in England last night but he didn't have a shower. Weird, since we've been in the UK people haven't had showers a lot of the time. Just baths. This guy does though.

I had a really good amber ale called Teltons or something like that. Gotta remember what it's called and look for it in the States.

We're still gay.

Tennant's Ember. That's what it's called. I'm having another right now. This place has good music playing. Not sure if it's a juke box or what.

People in the UK seem to not smoke quite as much as they do in the rest of Europe. Or maybe it's that they roll their own "fags" and they usually roll them quite thin. Either way, it's a welcome change. I was thinking I had strep throat, and I still think I might, but perhaps it was just from all the fucking smoke. It's ridiculous. I've probably been secondhand smoking approximately half a pack a day. I've had a permanently sore throat for about 5 days now.

It's been surprisingly easy to get vegetarian and even vegan food here in the UK. We were expecting the opposite.

9/08/00

Dundee, Scotland was last night. Donny and I had absinthe. It was the weaker kind. We were trying to decide whether to have some at the very end and we were talking to the employees at the bar about it. One girl said we shouldn't because she got so "nackered" she passed out after one shot. But then the owner guy started making two shots. He cooked raw sugar in a spoon and poured it in, then poured the absinthe in, then put a little bit of water I think. It didn't taste very good and I'm not sure how much it affected me. Yves said you can go blind from it. Donny and I had both had four beers and two of these weak irish cream and syrup shots. I don't know how I'm all of the sudden able to drink so much. I guess I've built up some tolerance throughout the tour.

25 more days left... Leeds, England tonight.

9/10/00

Last night was quite the adventure. London. People were going crazy. Singing along and cheering for everything we did. "He's tuning" "Yeah! Yaaay!!!!" fuckin' nuts.

9/14/00

Bonjour. Je dans Geneva. Switzerland. People speak French here. I've been able a little bit to communicate and it's really cool when I can. The fucking girls here are amazing. More so than Germany even. everywhere. It's quite a mental strain after a while to try to speak a language that you barely know. Got really drunk last night.

I bought Nate and Mia each a swiss army knife. They were only like $10 or $11, which I guess is much better than in the States; which makes sense.

9/22/00

It's been a while kind of. We played a show in Brussels last night which was packed. Something like 800 people? It was really good. Switzerland wasn't too great. Expensive and boring. Germany's Germany. Whatever that means. Um, some shows were good, some weren't. Donny's getting stoned with Jan right now. He and I are sick. We leave tomorrow for France. 8 days. We'll be back in San Diego in approximately 9. Looking forward to seeing Kalleen in Paris. We have a whole day off there so I'm lucky to be able to hang out with her for a whole day after the show. Mia wrote me an email and the last sentence was "Try not to make out with Kalleen". Don't know why she'd say that. ?

9/25/00

6 more days to go! Not that I'm in a big hurry to get home or anything, but I suppose it might be nice to not be on the road for a while. We can't do this forever. So we're in Paris right now. We're playing on a boat called Le Batofar or something to that effect. Possibly the most ridiculous loading scenario yet. Donny and I are almost not sick any more and Zach, Rob, and J.P. are in the middle of it I think; but theirs aren't as bad as Donny and mine were. Tours was fun last night. I was trying not to drink very much because I told Kalleen that we'd get drunk here. But I somehow ended up drinking a few glasses of wine with dinner, then a white russian while we played, then 4 or 5 beers after that. We went to this after hours dance club thing and danced and took some pictures, which Donny and I just looked at. There were some really nice people there last night. The place was packed. There was this extremely drunk French guy there who talked to me and spat on me for a very long time.

9/26/00

I'm sitting on a lawn by the eiffel tower. Pretty cool lookin' I suppose. Touristy of course. It's only 62 francs to go to the very top, which is cheaper than I thought it would be. About $9. I was suppose to meet the other guys minus JP here at 6-6:30 but it didn't happen. I got here at 6:40 so they might have come and left or they might have just lagged so much that they figured I wouldn't be here any more. They know I have Kalleen to hang out with tonight. It's 7:30 now. I'll call Kalleen in a few minutes.

9/28/00

Weirdness. We're in Bordeaux. The show last night was weird. First we were supposed to be by ourselves, then we were opening for Elliot Smith, then we were opening for Elliot Smith and Oranger. And I don't know exactly where it came from, but somewhere down the line somebody in or involved with one or both of the other bands complained and made our soundcheck and set shorter. Something like "Oranger only plays for 30 minutes so since you're opening you can't play longer than them". So our 35 minute set was shortened to 30. The crowd was good though. I'm learning more and more that opening for popular bands isn't actually a good thing a lot of the time. Fucking rock stars.

10/01/00

Two hours until we're back home in San Diego. How strange. It doesn't seem like we were gone for six weeks. I'm sure it does for the other guys though. They have girlfriends. It's weird and kind of unsettling to be going home and not be too excited about it. My guess is that it'll be nice for a couple days and then it'll feel just as stale as it did when we left. Doesn't help that Brent and Nate are gone. Seeing Mia will be good... who else? I can't think of anybody else. Hmm, oh well. It was a very good tour in my opinion. Not all of the shows were great or even good, but I had a great time despite all the hassles and complaining and everything else.

This is an account of our shorter western U.S. tour. I tried to make this one a little more concise and entertaining but I guess we'll see if it worked. Hope you enjoy.

10/11/00

Phoenix, AZ. First show was not so good. Stuff kept breaking, like Zach's battery in his bass, the PA, Rob's voice, etc. And Tom's fucking drum set is like an alien; I don't know how he plays that thing. It sound great but it's so awkward.

We almost got killed by a semi today. He was trying not to let me pass and he got super mad when I did. He wouldn't pull into the slow lane until the very last minute before it turned into one lane. [note: I forgot to say that when I tried to pass him he sped up and wouldn't let me so I was actually driving in the wrong lane for a few seconds after the passing lane ended] So he rode my ass and shined his brights and I slowed down and that pissed him off even more. And the next passing lane that came I stayed in the fast lane so he tried to pass me on the right but I got side by side with the truck in front of me so he couldn't. But I was a little behind the truck because it was turning into a one lane thing again and the semi got right up next to me and wouldn't budge so he was practically right next to me when the passing lane ended. Then when it was one lane he was still almost trying to pass me on the right. Then he put on his spotlight and rode my ass for a while. It was scary. [another note: I finally passed the truck in front of me and let him deal with it for a while]

10/12/00

Woo-hoo! New pen! I lost my beloved theatre pen- no, I just left it at home, so I bought a couple good pens at Walmart today. Yesterday I had to use a regular not-so-good pen.

Anyway, we're in Albuquerque, NM. Drove lots today. Donny and I got separated from Zach and Rob because we thought they wanted to go to the Meteor Crater so we did. But for some reason they didn't. But we just finally got through to Zach on his cell phone and apparently they're a mile or so away from out hotel.

So we had our second near-death-experience-due-to-a-large-commercial-vehicle. This one was a bus. He cut me off by pulling in front of me in the fast lane right when I was about to pass someone. So I flashed him a few times. Then he wouldn't pass the person so I flashed him a few more times. Then he slowed way down and I just put my brights on and left them. Then... there was a small opening in the slow lane where someone else had just passed him so I tried to pass him on the right. So I was about half way past him and he swerved out into my lane so much that I had to swerve off the road and luckily there was an exit right there so I went off on the exit. We caught up to him and got his license plate # but I don't know if we're actually going to get around to calling anyone.

Other than that is was a pretty uneventful day. Long drive tomorrow to Denver. No show tonight, just drive and hotel.

10/13/00

I think I'm using the other new pen now. They came in a two pack. Very nice pens they are. Pilot "Precise" V5 extra fine rolling ball. Long name for a pen, eh?
Tonight is/was Denver, CO. The show was, surprisingly, packed and although there was a ridiculous amount of stopping and starting and fucking up going on I though it went pretty well. The crowd was into it.

It's 3:30 a.m. We didn't get to start until 12:45. I'm tired. Luckily we didn't get attacked by anybody on the road today. Our streak was happily broken. Ate at the Waffle House and it was extremely sub-par. Fount out that I like grits though, so I guess it was worth it. I had a bite of Donny's. Or a lump rather- a few bites. Also had vanilla vodka at the club tonight. Yummy. Vanilla vodka and orange juice. I had it once at some college party that Erin took me to and I loved it but Ralphs doesn't have it and for some strange reason I never think of ordering it in bars. I didn't want beer tonight though and I saw it on the shelf so I got it. Okay, tired. Goodnight. Oh yeah, wait- we've been making lots of $ so far. Pretty cool. I hope the trend continues. They said last time they played at this place in Denver there were only about 5 people there.

10/17/00

+3  +1

-4  -1  = -33

+1  +1    you worm, you dog, you rabbit

+1  +2

-3                  

+1      My worth according to Matt Groening

-9

-7

+2

-2

-5

-6

-5

+3

-3

-3

10/18/00

In Canada. We're on a ferry from Victoria to Vancouver. Last night was a decent show but we only made like $200 or so and minus the cost for the ferry there and back and gas and hotel, we pretty much played for free. Oh well. The sound guy disappeared after a couple songs so Zach had to fix the monitor mix. Bad bands, good beer and food. Too bad I left my leftovers somewhere. Darn.

Salt Lake City was pretty good. Seattle was good. We made lots of $ and there were lots of people there and we got to hang out with Matt and Randy a bit. Vicki met us in Salt Lake City and has been with us since.

On the way out of Utah we stopped to get gas. About 10 minutes after that Donny calls us on the walky-talky thing and says they have to get gas. 30 seconds later they ran out and we had to take the gas can and get them some gas. They pulled the classic "I though you pumped it." "No, I thought you pumped it."

The Donny/Zach combo proved golden again when we got off the freeway to eat that night and, in an attempt to get to the Denny's(unfortunately) they got back on the freeway going the wrong way.

My moment of glory came the morning after. My shorts were still wet from the hotel swimming pool and jacuzzi, which by the way was probably the highlight of the tour so far. So I had them hanging out the window to dry. And I said to Donny, "I know I'm gonna forget and roll down the window and lose these shorts." So we drove for about 20 minutes and, due to a certain smell in the cab which had suddenly made itself apparent, I rolled down the window as fast as I could and my shorts disappeared forever.

In order to make it into Canada as a band, you have to convince the border that you're not going to make any money in their country, therefore not play any shows. So the usual thing is to get a letter saying that you're recording at a Canadian studio. It's always a bit nerve racking but as long as you don't look or act like a freak and you don't have a criminal record, it's usually fine.

So Rob and Zach, being mr. and mr. paranoid, were going way overboard. Like stopping us and giving us a recording magazine to put on our dash when we go through the border and calling us every couple minutes to tell us some more details about our "recording".

10/22/00

Well we got to the Brickyard in Vancouver and, lucky us, they tell us we're not playing. They had no idea who we were. I guess the guy who booked the show quit a couple weeks ago and some asshole decided to rebook all of his shows and not tell anybody. So we drove back to Randy's and had pizza and beer, which was good.

Then it was Portland. We got treated very well at the Medicine Hat except for one thing at the end. They gave us lots of food and candy and toys and even a couple '50's porn mags. And we played and the audience was great. We sold the place out. At least that's what the two door people and one of the waiters said. There was a line of people outside the whole time- waiting for other people to leave so they could be let in. The door girl told me they were way over capacity, which was 350.

So the end of the night rolls around and we're in a hurry to leave because we have to drive to San Francisco for the next night. The booker gives Zach the $, which was supposed to be 55% of the door. They charged $7. She tells him that there were 220 people there. So we basically made about ½ of what we should have. I don't know if it was intentional or what but it really sucks and it's enough to make me hesitant to play there again. I didn't find out until after we had left.

S.F. was really good, as expected. I always have lots of fun there. And we set a new merchandise record.

L.A. was another fuck up. We were way behind schedule on the way down and it looked like we were going to get there a few minutes after we were supposed to play. But a couple hours away from the place Zach got a flat and we had to get him towed to a place where he could buy a new tire. So sorry to anyone who came to that show or the Vancouver one. It sucks missing shows when you know people are expecting to see you there.

We're home as of around 4:00 a.m. last night. Good tour other than a few really big fuck ups. We still have a Koo's Cafe show in Santa Anna and a Casbah show here in S.D. Then we'll really be done for a while.