So now what?

Since we're home from the road for awhile (forever, if we don't get a good tour soon...) I've decided to turn this into a blog about guitars and/or photography, whichever occurs on any given day.

In Canada I picked up a 1980s Japanese hollowbody, sort of a Gibson ES knockoff EXCEPT it is completely hollow instead of having a block running down the center. It sounds amazing, but it feeds back at anything above low volume. Apparently that is why Gibson made the first ES-335.

It plays great, has a rosewood neck and a Bigsby style bridge that somebody filled in with resin and a tiny metallic crest of a snake and the initials "WS". So far I've played it through three amps, and a little Princeton 12" sounded the best, turned up loud.

Trying it out in Detroit (before this show Jason nicknamed it "Kamikaze" for obvious reasons. He was on-point. I'm also wearing a hat.)


After my tuners exploded in Chicago I traded the cheap and awful Planet Waves tuner for another Boss TU-2. My last TU-2 exploded but at least it lasted a year.

I'm also thinking about a few other changes... namely swapping my 410 Deville for something like a 15" Deluxe or a 2x12" Dual Reverb, as well as finding a different overdrive pedal. Maybe the Ibanez Tube Screamer that everyone always talks about.

Experimenting is expensive!

2,016 miles in 3 days.

I didn't have a chance to update this the last few days. We left Detroit and briefly got lost; during which time we saw the real bad parts of the city. It was sad. Big old brick homes overgrown with weeds, some condemned and falling down, battered old cars parked haphazardly.

We drove to Chicago, which was a much bigger city than I remember. The show was a nightmare. I broke a string on the opening song which led to one malfunction after another, the new tuner I'd bought to replace my broken TU-2 broke, guitars were falling out of tune left and right. It was bad. We sacrificed Mustachio to Chicago after the show and left him in the alley. It was sad but it was time.

We started driving immediately after the show and made it across the Mississippi to Iowa. Napped in a gas station parking lot and drove all the way across Nebraska and halfway through the Rockies. The mountains were snowy and lit up by a giant full moon, but the only weather we hit was a light rain. Stayed at a motel, then woke up and drove the remaining 900 miles to LA. Tour #1 complete.

The numbers: 5,964 miles driven. 5,700 miles flown. 14 performances. $0.00 made.

The cities (in order) where we played: Denver CO, Omaha NE, Rock Island IL, Indianapolis IN, Newport KY, New York NY, Los Angeles CA, New York again, Boston MA, Toronto ON, Detroit MI, Chicago IL.

The final photos:

Jason the Cider Pirate (Detroit):

Me & a cider donut:

The cider mill:



This cat cursed our Chicago show:

The opening band playing for the bartender:


Driving into Denver:


Did you know they still sell candy cigarettes?


Jason finding a clean spot to relax

Utah Canyonlands:


Driving out of Vegas:


We started the tour at Mad Greek with Josh. We ended it there with Jason.



When we arrived back in LA, everyone was wearing Halloween costumes and getting ready to go to Saturday night parties. We all went to sleep.