6.17.2007

AUSTIN TX.

so our second day of tour found us in beautiful austin texas. the one thing i have concluded about the south, after 5 years of steady touring, and numerous trips back to each city, is that all of the cool people in the south must have moved to austin. all of the cool culture and interesting people in south, seem to have abandonned their homes and set up shop in austin, which is why i love the city so much. for this reason, i was real excited to get to austin, get on the bike, and get to some of my favourite locations throughout the city. the venue we played was called 'stubbs bbq' which was right down the street from 'emos', where we have played 7 or 8 times now, so i knew the area pretty well.

paul decided to come along for the two wheeled adventure through austin, and joe woke up just in time to help us dig the bikes out of the trailer.





paul is loving his $150 full suspension walmart special. (which i advised him against)





we headed north on 6th street, first stop, jamba juice, where i ordered an original sized mango a go-go, sub plain sorbet and pineapple juice in for the pineapple sherbert, and added an energy boost for the voyage ahead.





a few blocks north brought us to the corner of 6th and lamar, at waterloo records. waterloo has always been a vinyl hotspot for me in the south, and usually come out with some good finds.





i managed to score the following records:
RYAN ADAMS: heartbreaker.
PETER BJORN AND JOHN: writers block.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO: s/t (reissue).
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE: something about airplanes (reissue?).
SILVERSUN PICKUPS: carnavas.
NADA SURF: karmic (reissue).
NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL: on avery island.





we then road across the street for lunch/groceries at the whole foods, where we locked up next to a bike fashioned with this ingenius slogan:



i stocked up on plenty of must have vegan treats for the bus, including bbq riblets, mock chicken patties, veganrella cheese, hummus, veganaise, tofu dogs, tofurkey slices, looza pear nectar, and some new found bbq and fajita flavoured mock beef, as well as some samosas, eggplant salad and local brewed strawberry lemonade to eat on the spot.





after riding back to the bus up and down some serious hills, with my messenger bag filled with records, and a brown paper grocery bag packed to the top hanging off my handle bars, i dropped paul off, and headed off on my own in search of more of austins fine urban culture and consumerism.

headed down red river to MLK JR. blvd, where i headed north to guadalupe, which proved to be a wise choice, as it provided a bike lane, en route to some fine fashion retailers.





here's a shot of my (somewhat) trusty steid.





on the way back to the bus, i stopped off at the texas state capital building.



found this fine statue of a true fixed gear urban cowboy.



the state capitol also offered some greenery surrounded paved trails, which i road until cut off by a family with a baby stroller.



headed back to stubbs just in time for the rise sound check.





began setting up our gear, caught some classic moments with the crew.







had a nice chat with casey, a kind spoken minneapolis minnesota veteran who's recently signed up as the new guitarist for winnipeg manitoba's finest, comeback kid.



a couple of humorous notes left with sharpie and gaff tape.





'stein merch world.



for dinner, shane and i road back over to guadalupe and 22nd for some vegan asian food. i ended up forgetting my camera on the bus, which lead me to think i dropped it somewhere on the ride, alas, jon found it sitting in the front lounge. the show went super well, aside from me doing something to my thumb that me hate my life whenever i tried to play hard, thus hitting it against anything on my bass. it kind of sucked. i'm really loving tour so far, and can't wait for the rest of the summer!

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