Notes

Twin Cities Love

We have spent almost all of our time in St. Paul at the intersection of University and Snelling. We played a show there. We bought drumsticks at the drum shop there. We had coffee there. We had our air conditioning line repaired there. We had an oil change there. We went through the car wash there. Sam Nice had dinner there. We just hung out there while waiting for these other things to happen. We must really like it there.

Of course, come to find out, that’s the most murderous intersection in St. Paul…

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Permalink / 18 Sep. '07 / Tagged: minneapolis stpaul fernie ghost bootsy van bessie coffee

Shaking Hands with Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Before I report on the news, how about this: Our new friend Tim (DJ Co-Op) has confirmed our theory from a couple of days ago. Fernie is indeed a haunted town. He’s played at the Royal Hotel and can confirm all of our ghostly suspicions. He had a very similar experience and added a few key details, including the link above. If you have your own experiences of haunted Fernie, send them to missfairchild@gmail.com and I’ll post some up here.

We arrived in Winnipeg a little late and met the aforementioned Tim at Pyramid Cabaret, whose owner Dave is huge Red Sox and Patriots fan. Fortunately, the Sox beat the Yanks yesterday, so I can mention that with some amount of comfort. Dave was already a fan of ours, being that he likes Boston so much, so we didn’t even have to play well to stay in his good graces!

(Kidding.)

(We probably didn’t have to play at all to stay in his good graces.)

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Permalink / 17 Sep. '07 / Tagged: canada winnipeg border fans

The Regina Monologues

While in Calgary, we took Bessie to a Minute Muffler to have the tires rotated and the front end aligned. Justin, our man there, was as straight up and forthcoming as we’ve ever encountered in a mechanic, telling us what we don’t need and charging us for the minimum work. He was able to squeeze us into a hectic day despite our being very late for the appointment and even gave some tips on how to fix another problem that we’ve been having for what could end up being ten dollars. He represented you well, Canadian mechanics!

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Permalink / 16 Sep. '07 / Tagged: tour regina canada video bessie van

Make Me So Happy, I Wanna Slap My Daddy

Calgary, Alberta was described to us by some Canadians as “The Armpit of The World.” We’re not feeling that. Sure, we’ve only been here for fifteen hours, but I couldn’t be more impressed by the people we’ve met. The HiFi Club is a really nice spot in downtown with a deep stage and a spacious dance floor. Many of the posters were made by our old friend Joshua Ruckstuhl, who, as you all know by now did the artwork for Ooh La La, Sha Sha…

(Wait, how could you not know that? Have you forgotten to pick up a copy? We’re trying to outsell Kanye and 50, people. We can’t do it without you.)

Anyhow, we finally got to meet the guy. Couldn’t have been nicer. Thanks again, Josh, for your incredible work. We also met a bunch of other great people, like Anthony, Sarmad, Wax Romeo, DJ Day and our old friend Huggs, who is best known for putting on “Soul Power” when we needed it most a couple years ago. Thanks to all of these people for making a fantastic night. We didn’t meet Pete and Mike, but they deserve a loud shout, too.

Okay, how fantastic was it? Well, it was potentially the best show we’ve ever had in a place we’ve never played before. (Say that ten times fast.) People came out, people sang and people danced. People supported our tour by buying records. Calgary, in short, is the bee’s knees, impossible not love after that experience…

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Permalink / 15 Sep. '07 / Tagged: tour canada calgary video

Fernie: Ghost Town (But not in that way)

Fernie, British Columbia is one of those places where you walk outside (or look out the window, for that matter) and say, “Wow.” The mountains are all around us and beautiful; the town is very cozy and nestled right in the middle of them. We arrived to much fanfare (parades, the presentation of the key to the city, a champagne reception. You know, the usual) and without too much Bessie trouble. We have forsaken the air conditioning completely and we’re not loosing too much coolant. We filled up what we had lost, including the reservoir, which Jiffy-Lube filled with washer fluid instead of anti-freeze, by the way. Perhaps we should have been watching them instead of getting our hippie on with the hacky-sack…

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Permalink / 14 Sep. '07 / Tagged: tour live oohLaLaShaSha fernie ghost bessie van hacky-sack canada

Karaoke, Coffee Bars and Cars

Billings, MT was a pretty foreboding place to enter at night. First, there were the typical city lights on the horizon, followed by an absolutely disgusting smell. Then we saw something that may have been a slaughterhouse, which explained part of the smell. Then, some oddly lit smoke stacks and enormous storage tanks appeared, looking like something out of the original Transformers movie. According to Daddy Wrall: that’s where the Autobots live. When we left, this morning, we discovered another refinery on the western edge of town; that’s where the Go-Bots live. They meet in the middle of town to battle meth-dealing Decepticons and whoever the bad guys in the Go-Bots were. I was going to do some research to confirm out what these places actually are, but I think I prefer this good/evil transforming robots explanation. Maybe I’ll do the research to see who the bad guys in the Go-Bots were instead.

The reason we were unable to secure a gig in Billings (and I’m not ashamed to admit this) is that the club with which we had contact has a very successful karaoke night on the only night that we could come play here. As you all can imagine, that wasn’t going to stop us from hijacking the joint. We rolled into town at around 11 PM and headed straight to the Rail Yard. We entered a modern looking smoky bar with five or six karaoke screens scattered on the walls, a caged stage area that was not the preferred singing location and an enormous karaoke station with a computer, a large mixing board, wireless microphones and two middle-aged MCs. Including them, us and the servers, there were about twenty people there. Everybody, as you must know by now, was nice. Really nice. Stupid nice. Hospitable, welcoming, nice, nice, nice. Sam’s family, basically. I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but allegedly this is a very successful night. I’m not sure if that was what is meant by “successful” or if it was a slow night. Either way, the energy in the place, despite the poor head count, was palpable. Almost everyone there was chain smoking and participating in the singing. It’s certainly possible that it was more of an early night for the bar and that there had been people there earlier. The “evidence” on the front steps was a potential confirmation of this…

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Permalink / 13 Sep. '07 / Tagged: karaoke van bessie montana coffee

Explaining the Cracker Barrel Clap

Much of van time is spent listing our 10,000 things, and though we are all supremely confident that there are, indeed, 10,000 of these things, our list has not reached the higher numbers yet. I neglected to share any things in the last entry, so I’ll make up for it now:

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Permalink / 12 Sep. '07 / Tagged: oohLaLaShaSha tour minnesota montana 10000things northdakota crackerbarrel

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