| DATE | VENUE | BANDS | COMMENTS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 12 2008 | SUNY Purchase NY | Sole | Really cool space -- a giant warehouse-type room with arcade games, pool and ping-pong tables, skate ramps, and a big stage and PA. Unfortunately it was under-attended, most likely due to the one-two punch of college kid apathy and brutal weather. We were playing a bunch of new songs for the first time and were a little rough. |
| Feb 13 2008 | Silk City Philadelphia PA | Gang | Nice little bar with friendly staff and a new sound system. We played pretty well. |
| Feb 14 2008 | Cake Shop NYC | These Are Powers Knyfe Hyts Mixel Pixel | Our second time at Cake Shop was as fun as the first. Lots of friendly faces in the audience and we felt like we were warmed up by this point. These Are Powers were excellent and deafening. |
| Feb 15 2008 | Harper's Ferry Boston MA | Sole Telephone Jim Jesus Gavin somebody | Big, fancy bar/club. Kind of a different vibe for us, more of a college/jam type atmosphere. Show went fine, though. |
| Feb 16 2008 | Living Room Providence RI | Sole Skyrider Band Telephone Jim Jesus Prolyphic | Apes sandwiched in a hip-hop bill in a classic hardcore club. Weird. Sound was fantastic, though, both onstage and from the crowd. |
| Feb 17 2008 | Monkey Bar Burlington VT | Lendway Company Nosebleed Island | At first this seemed grim. Tiny bar/coffeehouse-type place, only a handful of mellow college types in attendance. We decided to just try and kill it and the show ended up being awesome, with windows steaming up almost instantly and kids dancing. Any show where the kids dance is pretty much automatically a good one. The room sounded good, too (vocal PA only). |
| Feb 19 2008 | Bug Jar Rochester NY | Tiger Cried Beef Company | Fun show at the ol' Bug Jar, where we've been playing since our first tour in 2001. The place has been fancied up a bit but is still a good, small, stripped down room with a high but shallow stage and very nice people working there. |
| Feb 20 2008 | Soundlab Buffalo NY | A Hotel Nourishing Bev Beverly | Cool club in the basement of a fancy law building. Great sound. We played pretty well and got a good response. Props to the people of Buffalo who show up to weeknight shows when it's 10 degrees out (not including windchill). |
| Feb 21 2008 | Porphyria Southfield MI | Robot Cowboy Larom Lab | Weird show held in a guy named Guy's nice house outside Detroit, as the original location (Scrummage University) had been shut down. We had trouble getting any momentum because my hi-hat broke on the first song, requiring a five-minute stretch of dead air while I fixed it when the song ended. Erick's bass was also unusually quiet. People were still pretty enthusiastic. |
| Feb 22 2008 | Abbey Pub Chicago IL | Sole Apoc | Great venue -- not too big, not too small, excellent sound onstage and in the house. We were warmed up and played well. Crowd really seemed to enjoy it. |
| Feb 23 2008 | Bourbon St Columbus OH | Necropolis Hills Hugs & Kisses | Classic little rock club/bar. Surprisingly good sound for such a small place, and very good (and unusual) pizzas. Hugs & Kisses were amazing, essentially a mini-musical about Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and a girl who was (literally) an ass. Definitely see them if you ever have the chance. Unfortunately, we were kind of flat at this show and never felt like we really got going. It didn't help that Erick's bass was out for the whole first |
| Feb 29 2008 | Black Cat Washington DC | Food for Animals Kid Congo Powers | Fantastic show. Our first time headlining the main stage at Black Cat. A good crowd turned out, and I think we played our longest set ever (12 songs, which is a lot for us). People seemed to enjoy it, though some blogs have said the show was "unbearably loud". Waaah! |
| Mar 7 2008 | The Camel Richmond VA | An Albatross Amoeba Men | Nice cafe/art space to start the tour. |
| Mar 8 2008 | Slim's Downtown Raleigh NC | An Albatross | Long, narrow bar. Good sound. Weak turn-out, possibly because the show was moved at the last minute and there was some big basketball game on (we had to wait until it was over before playing). We and An Albatross both cranked out good sets. |
| Mar 9 2008 | Newland Ballrooom Columbia SC | An Albatross Thank God | Really good crowd, even not taking into account that it was Sunday night. Very good sound, people seemed into the bands and everyone sold lots of merch. The club shows horror movies at midnight every Sunday, so after we played we got to see some of Undead (cool New Zealand horror/scifi/comedy). |
| Mar 10 2008 | Caledonia Lounge Athens GA | An Albatross Smokedog Backtalk | Great sound at a good club, but the turnout -- Monday night during Spring Break in a college town -- was abysmal. Oh well. |
| Mar 11 2008 | J.J.'s Bohemia Chattanooga TN | An Albatross Coral Castles Forest Magic | Our first show ever in Chattanooga and it was awesome. Full house, enthusiastic people, a great time for all. An Albatross really killed it at this show. |
| Mar 13 2008 | GRAB Houston TX | An Albatross Kayodots American Sharks | Yet another awful show in Houston, a city we keep intending to cross off the list but keep ending up in. |
| Mar 14 2008 | American Apparel Austin TX | The Teeth | Surprisingly fun show in the middle of the floor at the American Apparel store, in front of a glass box housing an indoor pond of some sort. |
| Mar 14 2008 | Flamingo Cantina Austin TX | HEALTH Mika Miko Mae Shi Old Time Relijun RTX Clipd Beaks | Another fantastic Panache/Lovepump showcase at SxSW. Unfortunately for me, this was the first of a long string of shows where I was sick and could barely make it through the set. |
| Mar 15 2008 | Typewriter Museum Austin TX | Shellshag Monotonix million other bands | Our first time playing Fuck-By-Fuck-You. Kind of weird playing in the sun, and I was snotting and coughing all over the place. Not one of our better performances. |
| Mar 15 2008 | University of Texas @ Austin Austin TX | O'Death bunch of other bands | Goofy evening show for the campus radio station, KVRX. We played pretty poorly. O'Death were excellent. |
| Mar 16 2008 | Rubber Gloves Austin TX | An Albatross Eat Avery's Bones Listening Project | I thought this was the best we'd played on this tour. Small crowd but a really good time. I liked all the bands, which is a rarity beyond comprehension. |
| Mar 17 2008 | Record Bar Kansas City MO | Rattle & Hum Old Time Relijun | Very bizarre show. A St. Patrick's day party at Record Bar, with bands both inside the club and (in our case) in a giant tent in the parking lot. Weather was awful. Soundman was drunk out of his mind and had us do two 100% identical soundchecks, including all the exact same comments each time ("Rack tom...floor tom...I said floor tom. You only have one tom? Okay, guitar. Guitar! No guitar? Crazy.") Rattle & Hum are a U2 cover band who, honestly, sounded amazing. |
| Mar 18 2008 | 2 Cents Plain St Louis MO | An Albatross Genghis Tron Coliseum Underwater Bear | Our first good show in St. Louis since our very first show there with Les Savy Fav about a hundred years ago. Cool club, cool people, fun show. |
| Mar 19 2008 | Uptown Minneapolis MN | An Albatross Vampire Hands Superhopper | Old school venue taking up half of a diner. Fresh off the St.Louis pleasant surprise, we end up having our first good show in Minneapolis. Good sound, fantastic job by the guy doing lights (lighting, believe it or not, really makes a difference in how exciting a band appears on stage), and great music. Vampire Hands played the Stooge's "Fun House" in its entirety, and Superhopper played great, melodic rock. |
| Mar 21 2008 | Musica Akron OH | Trouble Books | Ultra-nice club. Clean, comfortable, spacious, good sound, everything you could want. Our set was a little weird, this being the first one since Amanda broke her ankle in Minneapolis. |
| Mar 22 2008 | Cafe Metropolis Wilkes-Barre PA | An Albatross Swims Ends With Disaster | An Albatross's hometown crowd turned up to make a fun show. Sound was weird, though. |
| Mar 23 2008 | Bard College Annandale-on-Hudson NY | An Albatross Satanized | We weren't super-psyched going into this show; college shows are always kind of hit-and-miss, mid-terms were going on, Amanda had the broken ankle, I was sick again, and the wheel had just fallen off our van. Show ended up being really fun, though, with a very enthusiastic crowd. We blew one of the PA speakers and An Albatross drove their car into the venue (it's a converted garage), so you know it was a good time. |
| Apr 4 2008 | Velvet Lounge Washington DC | HEALTH True Womanhood | The first Apes show ever was here, back in 1999. It's been seven years since our last show at the Velvet. They've re-arranged the space some, but it was still a great, cramped, sweaty show. |
| Apr 5 2008 | Georgetown University Washington DC | Marnie Stern Aa | Another good college show; our luck is improving. Good turnout + lots of dancing and smiles = success. |
| May 10 2008 | Don Pedro's Brooklyn NY | CPC Gangbang Golden Error It Lives | Fun show at a NY venue we hadn't played before. Weird, shallow stage. |
| Jun 13 2008 | Magic Stick Detroit MI | Lee Marvin Computer Arm Child Bite Beard of Bees Terrible Twos | New songs and new equipment made for unsurprising technical problems. Set seemed okay at best. |
| Jun 27 2008 | 9.30 Club Washington DC | Butthole Surfers | Always a pleasure to play at the 9.30 Club, and the stellar sound (on-stage and out front) always makes us step up our game. Butthole Surfers were accompanied by the School of Rock kids. |
| Jul 4 2008 | The Yard Brooklyn NY | Ponytail Marnie Stern Double Dagger Power Douglas Indian Jewelry 80's Hardcore | Kind of goofy show. Outdoors by a smelly river. Sound was surprisingly good for an outdoor show, but playing still felt a little off. |
| Jul 5 2008 | B.A.M. Skate Park Brooklyn NY | Janelle Monae Millstead | Playing a show run by Matthew Morgan (Afropunk) really makes it clear how poorly run most other indie shows are. This was a pretty big event, running 9 days in the outdoors with 5-6 bands per day, pro skate and BMX demos, etc, and yet everything was totally pro and smooth. I had a good time playing, and for the first time a borrowed drum kit didn't cause problems. Unfortunately, Amanda's keyboard kept going out, so it wasn't our best performance. |
| Jul 17 2008 | Fort Reno Park Washington DC | Police & Thieves We Were Pirates | We finally manage to have a great show at Fort Reno. Really good crowd, no rain, no technical problems to speak of. |
| Aug 8 2008 | Comet Pizza & Ping-Pong Washington DC | Fiasco Double Dagger | Really fun show. Everyone put on a great show and people seemed to dig it. |
| Aug 14 2008 | The Milestone Charlotte NC | Planet Piss Venomous Snacks Nothing But Net | Typical rough start to a few days' worth of shows. Erick had amp problems and we just didn't seem to get it together. |
| Aug 15 2008 | 40 Watt Club Athens GA | Boyracer Faintest Ideas Cryptacize Ruby Isle Lolligags Secret History | Long day of bands. Lots of good stuff, but the one that stood out to me the most was Cryptacize. We were pretty bad, and only got it together for the last song or two. |
| Aug 16 2008 | The Triple Richmond VA | Amoeba Men _derek | Great show. Like most Richmond shows, it involved playing on the floor in a small room with basically a vocal PA, which sometimes ends up being really fun and sometimes is depressing. This time it was really fun. |
| Aug 23 2008 | Black Cat Washington DC | Oneida Dirty Faces | Great show in the small room at Black Cat. A reunion of the same bill from Wesleyan a few years ago. Good crowd and all the performances were excellent. |