EURO TRASH.

so a few weeks ago we did a tour in europe. we mostly played festivals, including the full ponty in wales, download in england, and ROCK AM RING & ROCK IM PARK in germany. the rest of the shows were mostly in smaller german b-markets, with our friends today forever. when i wasn't getting sick, complaining about the food, or struggling with my sleep patterns, i took a couple photos that i thought i should post up.

hanging out on the bus in belgium, featuring european photograph phenom, and all around swell gal, cindy frey









day off in berlin.














new fred perry polo. stoked.



shane logging late night internerd hours at the alex hotel in berlin.



ROCK IM PARK - held in nuremberg germany, on the grounds of the historical nuremberg rallies




kevin and sean loading up in munster.



graffiti in munster.




end of tour photos & farewell salutations with today forever.





making faces.




bus antics.

ATL.

a beautiful, warm wednesday in atlanta georgia found us (for the 8th or 9th time) back at masquerade venue complex. as soon as i woke up, i decided to get on the whip and head out in search for vegan delights. the night before i had done my research on happy cow and got directions to the soul veg and whole foods that are both within a half mile of the venue. the masquerade happens to be surrounded by hills, and seeing as i didn't exactly copy down or print off the directions the night before, i did a lot of riding in circles, up and down some pretty treacherous slopes. i eventually arrived at my first destination, atlanta soul veg #2.







i decided upon a tofu sandwhich, with onion rings, and a mint chocolate chip shake to boot.




after some more riding in circles trying to get my barings on my non existant directions, i arrived at destination number 2, whole foods! i picked up a light load of juices, popsicles, tofurkey slices and some pomagrant green tea which i packed into my bag, and cut through the kroger parking lot to make it back in time for soundcheck.





when heading up the stairwell into the venue, i noticed that the atlanta hardcore scene rides in style when i saw these fine fixed gear machines locked up out front.




all in all, the show was pretty lame. the masquerade is a pretty shitty venue, and we've played there so many times in the past. the crowd was pretty dead as well, and is most certainly going to end up the smallest show on the tour. i did however bust a couple nice stage dives during the CBK set, which is always a good time.

today we have a day off in myrtle beach, and so far i'm just relaxing. i put in a call to IRO to ensure my bike would make it to NYC by wednesday, to which tony, the fellow i spoke to, was kind enough to offer to send the bike out asap with loaner cranks, as they are waiting for the ones i ordered to come in. looks like the bag, and some grips i ordered should make it to KB's with perfect timing.

WOAH!

i got caught in talking about the photos that i uploaded, and forgot about a bunch of really amazing stuff that happen in the past couple days!

i ordered a new bike from IRO cycle, which i plan to customize with a bunch of obey decals. i've been looking at the bike for a little while now, and was really discouraged by the $300 it was going to cost me to ship it to canada, but when i found out that i could ship it to the new york city canadian consulate at 154 attorney street (katiebrown and aileens place) for like, $15, i jumped and ordered it. so the bike should get there this week, and i will be tearing up the tough streets of NYC in a week! i found this photo on velospace of the bike i ordered with similar components (i didn't get the bullhorn bars, and i'm pretty sure my rims won't be as deep)



in lieu of the new bike, and the flight i'm going to have to take home from the last day of this tour, i also bought some sort of a suitcase for my bike, which should be super useful for bringing my bike on tour all the time.



in other news, i put in a call to tom renshaw about trying to get a sit with him for a portrait peice of my grandfather. he called me back right away, and said he is willing to work with my schedule and time off, even though he's booked up for like a year. check out his website, your mind will be blown!

DIDNEYLAND! / COOKIE KARMA

our orlando show was at the legendary house of blues in downtown disney. the one thing that's not so cool about this venue, is that aside from AMC theatres, virgin megastore, and a ton of rainforest cafe type overpriced restaurants, there really isn't much to do. it's pretty far away from the actual disney world park, as well as downtown orlando. we got picked up by a van that took us to do a signing at a ron jon surf shop. when we got back to the bus, i whipped around the parking lot a bit, but didn't really do much. a bunch of our good friends from the orlando area (chris gainesville, trent & shannon) came early to hang out.





headed inside where i found sean palmer drinking beer and watching rise against, then headed up to take some photos in the dressing room, where i ran into some of the comeback kids.








kevin (and carly?) and i in the back lounge.



made myself some vegan bbq sloppy joes!



chris gainesville shows off his authentic gainesville beard.



the night before in st petersburg, i had put some friends of my good pal brad gilboe on the guestlist. after the show, joe brought me a bag of coookies that the girls baked for me in gratitude of the tickets to the show. i spent at least an hour trying to get ahold of brad and the girl to find out if the cookies were vegan (which they were not) and ended up holding off on diving into the delicious smelling bag. the next day, when i actually found out that the cookies were in fact, not vegan, i seemed to be graced upon by "cookie karma", because some sort of cookie ferry (actually a fan of our band and her mom) brought me a bag of uncle eddies vegan cookies (yum!)



when we recieved plastic bottles of beer on the rider, kevin came up with, in his eyes, the most briliant invention tis universe has ever seen....sports bottle beer tops!



the back lounge started to get crazy.



kenna decided to get a buzz cut, which now makes him look 8 as opposed to 13.



joe fosters friend had a real neat hat on too, and apparently this is her fail safe "cute pose".