Day 3: Meridian, Houston, TX

Wednesday, October 3rd 2007, Houston TX

Day 2: Emo's, Austin, TX

Tuesday, October 2nd 2007, Austin TX

Day 1: White Rabbit, San Antonio, TX

So, yes, this blog may never have really happened, but I still have all these photo from the IR mini-tour. So, even though it's been way too many months now and I can't remember anything from it, I can at least post my pictures from each day. Here's San Antonio. Enjoy!

Monday, October 1st 2007, San Antonio TX

No, It's Not Dead After All

Well, this blog never really happened, now did it. The tour was over before I even had a chance to write about it. But no point in letting this all go to waste. So, I'll do my best to remember what happened.

Ok, so I finally flew out to Phoenix on Friday, Sept 28th. Nick from Imperative Reaction came a picked me up at the airport and I stayed with him for the next couple days. He introduces me to his two huge dogs. Their names escape me now... but the black one was practically bigger than Nick. On Saturday, he showed me around Tonto National Park (yes Kimosabe, that's not a joke, it's actually called "Tonto") and a cool local CD store (and we all know how much I love CD shops). I found a CD in the clearance metal section of a band called "Mindfield". So for 3 bucks I had to know what a metal band that stole my band name has to sound like. The answer: Like a German version of Megadeth. Nick and I hit a liquor store an the way back and stocked up on Hoegaarden. Dinner that night was huge steaks and beer. Nick invited a few friends over, including Steve from the band The Azoic.

Somewhere around 11pm that night, Ted, Gabriel and Szanett show up. They've been driving from Los Angeles and been on the road for hours now. Ted takes a quick nap while Gabriel and Nick pack up the drum kit we're borrowing. In the past, Imperative reaction has always used an electronic drum kit. This tour will be the first we've used acoustic drums live. An hour later, we've some how managed to pack the drum kit, 2 keyboards, and keyboard stand, a small rack mount, several boxes of merch, all our luggage and 4 adults into a mini van. Yay, another mini van tour again! hehehe.

Ted insists on doing all the driving and as it turns out Gabriel insists on doing all the distracting of the driver, due to boredom. I had no idea I'd be fearing for my life yet having such a great time at the same time. It's seriously an amusing ride to San Antonio to say the least. Yeah, driving from Los Angeles to San Antonio... that's a hell of a drive. Glad I jumped on in Phoenix.

Hmmmmm, now I'll need to try and remember what happened in San Antonio.

Flying... Not My Favorite Form Of Transportation

This tour is already developing problems. It was originally suppose to run from Sept 26 to October 10th. When Ted discovered that the rest of IR couldn't do all the shows, the booking agent found a replacement band for the 2nd half of the dates. He worked out a plan to have myself and Jon from Combichrist do part of the remaining 5 shows and then fly the other Gabriel out to replace Jon on drums for the other dates. That plan was all set until the singer from Tiger Army got sick and canceled the Phoenix and Albuquerque dates. Those were the only 2 show Jon could do, so now Ted had to try and get a refund on the plane tickets which didn't work completely. This now changed the day I was suppose to fly out from Wednesday to Sunday. However, my ticket just increased by $400 more, so my flight was changed to Thursday and I'd fly into Phoenix anyway. There I'd stay with Nick (who did keyboards for IR on the Combichrist tour) and Ted would drive out, pick me up, and we'd then drive to San Antonio for the first of the 3 dates that are left of this "tour".

That was all good and fine except for one fact... and I'll get to that in a minute. Ted called me Wednesday night to make sure I was all set to leave the next day. So Thursday I walk a mile in the afternoon heat to the subway, took the train to the airport shuttle station, took the wrong shuttle by mistake, had to walk from one end of the airport to the correct airline, wait in line, finally check-in... only to find they have no reservation for me. Awesome!

Turns out, Ted got the wrong day. My flight was scheduled for Friday, not Thursday. So, I turned around and did my whole adventure in reverse and went home. The next day I did all that yet again (though I got the correct airport shuttle this time) and flew out of Boston finally. Though both my flight and connecting flight were both late. My connecting flight was at 7:30 and we landed at 7:26... and of course, it was on the opposite side of the airport, in a completely different building. Since it was delayed, I actually made my flight. Only to have one of the bumpiest flights of my life. Out of the 5 hours in the air, 4 of those were plagued with turbulence. Did I mention I hate flying in the first place?

Yup, off to a great start. Hahaha

Here We Go Again

Well, that didn't take long. No sooner do I get home from the Combichrist tour than Ted from Imperative Reaction (www.imperativereaction.net) calls me up and asks for my help. He says IR is set to open for Tiger Army (yes, the "psychobilly" band. www.tigerarmy.com) for a week or so. I have no idea how Ted got on this tour, but he needs a keyboardist for it and Nick can't do it. Gabriel is busy with VNV Nation for some of the time, so Jon from Combichrist will be on drums for part of this tour. I'm really looking forward to working with him again as well as Ted.

I had just enough time for a quick 4 day vacation in Bar Harbor, Maine before the tour. It was beautiful! Anyway, I fly out of Boston this Wednesday and meet up with everyone in Phoenix. Should be fun! I'll post more once things kick off.