From Mitchell Lee:

Texas and Florida are done.

Firstly, let me state that the picture from the BBQ restaurant in Dallas is a bird’s eye view of a field.  In the field is a couple getting “romantic” in the grass next to a parked car. They must’ve thought no one was looking, but apparently they were wrong. Moving on…

Texas has always been great to us. The crowds are always good and getting to hang with our southern friends is a treat. Texas also seems to be big on Vinyl.  It’s always cool to see people who prefer to own tangible forms of music and artwork, although I must admit, digital is the future. Love vinyl but hate its lack of mobility? Vinyl with downloads cards are the way to go, you get the best of both worlds. We always try to get download cards included in our records and encourage other bands to do the same.

In Austin, we played the brand new Emo’s East. We were told we were the 7th or 8th show to happen there since it opened. It’s a pretty huge venue that’s been updated and modernized but it’s on a road surrounded by strip malls (gross). The old Emo’s was located in downtown Austin. We also got to hang with some old tour mates in Pompeii and Benji from Bad Rabbits (Bad Rabbits had played Emo’s the night before on the Taking Back Sunday tour).  Apologies to anybody that wanted to see us and missed our set. There was a big mixup with the show start time and we were pretty bummed to hear that a bunch of people showed up to the show after our set.

This tour is the first time we’ve ever played club shows in Florida. Florida is such a lush and green state but it seemed like the entire time we were there, it was either raining like hell or it was just blistering hot and humid.  There’s nothing worse than unloading gear in a tropical storm and playing in soaked socks and shoes.  We also had a chance to hang with our Warped bus buddies and Florida natives, There For Tomorrow.

I’ve been getting this annoying buzz out of my bass amp at a few of the venues.  I think I need to upgrade my bass head.  Right now I’m playing out of an Ampeg B2RE and I’m thinking about buying an Ampeg SVT, Orange AD200B, or an Ashdown head.  I think Vass from La Dispute plays an Ampeg SVT Classic and Eddie from Thrice plays an Ampeg SVT-VR Vintage Reissue.  Will investigate further.  I just want a bass head that’s built like a tank.  One that won’t crap out on stage.

On a final note, middle aged men love to come up to us in our van when we’re parked and sing show tunes to us or play conservative talk radio out of a hand held radio set.