8 hours in st. louis

We made it to St. Louis yesterday and our first stop was a tour of the Anheuser-Busch factory.

We saw the giant Clydesdales, learned about the unique brewing process and even watched the factory bottle and label thousands upon thousands of beers (the best fact of the day was that their storage unit that holds 500,000 cases of beer is kept with only 200,000 cases. However, if they were to stock up and fill the hold to capacity it would only last......16 HOURS). Mid-westerners drink a LOT of Budweiser. More to follow on the factory tour once Avi compiles the Budweiser movie montage.

The best part of the tour was the end...FREE BEER..and pretzels for all tour attendees. It was an awesome time but we were all completely FLOORED by the fact that the whole thing was free. Free to get in. Free to drink. We just walked right in and were entertained...for FREE. amazing.

After the brewery we went into town to find something to eat and were greeted by some hilarious St. Louis bums. After parking at a 15 minute only meter and making friends with a meter man and convincing him NOT to ticket us, wandering men kept coming to the van telling us we were going to get a ticket, that we should trade CDs with them, and that we should give them money. After entertaining the ideas for a moment and deciding they weren't in our best interest we locked up the van (and taking out ANYTHING we thought was valuable) we headed towards the restaurant and behind us this funny bum said..."ooooooh i HATE people from Pennsylvania". undeserved abuse. undeserved.

Regardless, we enjoyed dinner and then went to starbucks so Cory could re-string his guitar in the air-conditioning instead of the sweltering 105 degree st. louis weather. In starbucks we ruined their scissors, relaxed for a half an hour, and then made our way to the venue.

The venue we played was a really really cool, I might even be inclined to say...swanky, place but was not in such a great neighborhood. Everything BUT this bar and venue was either closed down, or behind bulletproof glass...EVERYTHING. The bums on this side of town must have been co-conspirators with the bums from downtown because they sucked too. We asked for a place they would recommend to eat and the guy gave us a look and said, "I'm not telling you"...nice. Very nice.

Anyways, we were a bit surprised by the other bands we played with on account of they were all classic punk rock...a bit out of our genre. Regardless, it was a great show, we were solid on stage, the bar gave us some delicious pizza, and I had some wonderful friends come to see us (thanks so much Sharol and Rob!!!).

While we weren't so thrilled with our experiences in st. louis (mainly those HARSH harassing bums) we were Pisssssssed when we couldn't get out! At around 12:45 am we ATTEMPTED to leave, but miraculously every highway we tried was closed. Our GPS freaked out, got very upset with us, and we just kept trying to follow absurdly confusing detours. Finally we stopped at a gas station for directions and were on our way. Avi sang counting crows at the top of his lungs while we all slept and when that didn't work to keep him awake John took the wheel and threw on some Reggae to get us the rest of way to Columbia.

Finally in Columbia at 3:45 am we unloaded our stuff into my friend Jordan's house and fell asleep pretty quickly after a bit of TV and bad movies.

This morning we woke up late (ranging between 1-3 pm) and went out to breakfast at an awesome place on Mizzou's campus. Tonight we'll being playing @ Mojo's with some local acts. Bigger acts like Tapes 'n Tapes, Girl Talk, Mountain Goats, and Cold War Kids have played this stage so we're pretty pumped.

We did not make it to Millennium park as we promised readers. We spent our day in Chicago around Andersonville. Started with a highly recommended diner for breakfast called the Golden House...Delishhh. Lots of eggs and french toast and waffles and coffee. After we set up an impromptu practice space in Mike's living room to tighten up some of the set.

We left for the venue pretty early and when we finally loaded out realized there were 3 flights of stairs we had to carry our gear up. Needless to say, all of our muscles are HUGE....huge. We played the Subterranean (think club Laga combined with Mr. Smalls). It was an AWESOME show with some awesome bands, check out my favorite of the night...fatbook.

we played a really great set, this is chicago....in chicago...epic. It was a great night and while I went back to the apartment we were staying at and passed out John and Cory took an adventure to the beach.



Today was a sad day because we had to leave our favorite place so far. We went to another breakfast at Golden House and got locked out of the apartment building. Avi and I took a walk to the beach while John, Cory and Max broke into the building using their excellent lock picking/paperclip maneuvering skills. When we got back we packed our things and headed out of town (but not before sitting in about 2 hours of rush hour/plain old Chicago traffic).

Now we're staying somewhere in the middle of Illinois relaxing for a night off with some cartoons and a bottle of wine. Tomorrow we'll head into St. Louis for a big Friday night show, then onto Columbia, MO. Forecast is saying high nineties for the middle of the country....we hope there's air conditioning.....

Vids

Avi's started a bit of a video documentary...

Enjoy!

Chi-town

We left Lafayettte early yesterday morning with the hopes of beating Chicago traffic. We LOVED the drive into Chicago around lake-shore drive and you'll probably see some video of it (we taped the whole thing we loved it so much).

Once in Chicago we found our host's place in Andersonville, a neighborhood of Chicago in the North side of town. While waiting for our host to get off work we parked the van and explored a bit of the North Side for lunch. As I'm sure it is where all of you are right now, Chicago is HOT, really HOT so after about 2 hours of meandering around the North Side we sat in the shade by the van and tried to cool off for a bit.

We met our host Mike, a good friend of Avi's from high school and bassist in the band Cobalt and the Hired Guns (check them out on myspace and come see us play with them at our hometown show @ Club Cafe July 10). He's got a really cool place with some nice friends and we enjoyed the cool air for a while until we went to dinner in Wrigleyville for my birthday.

After dinner Mike took us to Cobalt's practice space, the Guitarists REALLY REALLY cool house, they treated us to a few songs and gave us directions to get down town by way of the "L" and we were on our way.

Once down town we headed to the Hancock center observatory to ride the 96 floors up to the top and check out the scenes of Chicago. It was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking, while I'm a little afraid of heights (and John is a LOT afraid of heights) it was an awesome experience. We tried without success to barter with the woman who was selling tourist photos and get her down from $22 to $6 for a picture that was already printed that she would end up throwing away. After a while we saw that she was NOT going to budge and took a picture of the picture to capture the moment of the 5 of us (plus one asian tourist friend we picked up) on the top of the Hancock center.

Exhausted, we headed back to Andersonville by train, but not before the BEST TOUR GUIDE EVER stopped us on the streets and gave us a tour to our "L" stop. This bum was probably one of the best salesmen I have ever met. He gave us each a postcard, gave us facts and stories about the sights we were seeing and then when we arrived at our destination DEMANDED money for the "homeless fund", we gave him a few dollars, took the postcards and were on our way.

Today we'll go check out Millennium park, and prep for what should be an awesome show tonight.

Lafayette

We (sadly) left fort wayne this morning and drove the 2 hours or so westwards to Lafayette, IN, the home of Purdue University. We first stopped to unload a bit at John Davey's house (one of our openers, and our host for the evening). John is one of thirteen children and the family has seen over dozens of bands come through Lafayette. The Daveys are REALLY warm and generous people and made us a wonderful home-cooked meal (which we all were definitely craving--goldfish for lunch was a poor choice).

We played Starlight Coffee house which was a nice change of scenery for all of the bars we've been playing and all of the debauchery we've been partaking in. John opened for us. Go check out his stuff, he's really a phenomenal young musician. www.myspace.com/johndaveymusic and then Rick DeSutter and the Clutter rounded out the evening.

It's VERY hot here in Indiana, and loading the trailer back up was painstakingly sweaty and slow but after we finally finished we took a stroll through Lafayette with John and his sister Maria and their friends to a local hotspot, XXX Root Beer. It's a 24/7 old soda shop and we ordered milkshakes and root beer floats...delicious.

Now back at the Davey's house we're relaxing, editing movies, playing some guitar and just hanging around.


Next stop, Chi-town early in the am.

Turning 21 on the road

Yesterday we hung out around Fort Wayne for the day. In the morning we all swam in the apartment complex's pool, it was REALLY nice to sit in the sun for a while. The boys ran their errands to Best Buy and Guitar Center while Leah and I stayed at Kat's place and did the laundry and flipped between the Red Sox game and Grease (thank you abc family).

The boys came back and surprised me with a huge wonderful birthday cake and we sat around eating cake and hanging out until it was time to get ready for the show.

We played a restaurant and bar called CS3 in downtown Fort Wayne.

We played with a radiohead-esque band and a solo hippie looping act + harp. I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't really paying much attention after our set because I was a little busy turning 21 and drinking (sorry mom...) to my birth (but thanks mom!)

Loading up was a little difficult to say the least but we did it and we left CS3 with miraculously all of our equipment.

Today we pack up and head out of ft. wayne (we'll miss you Kat) and onto Lafayette, IN where we'll play on Purdue University's campus.

More to follow!

rockstardom

Much to our dismay we had to leave Ann Arbor quickly because we realized load-in was coming up in a few hours and we still had the drive from Ann Arbor to Michigan Center ahead of us. We packed up, said goodbye to Hannah, Bailey and their friends and struggled for about 20 minutes to get out of their driveway.

John again, came through in the clutch with his excellent van driving/trailer hauling skills (which he practiced hours in his backyard to perfect), and we were able to get on the road.

Although it's still the beginning of the tour, it got to be the first time all of us felt really worn out. So we napped while Max drove and he and John talked about land fills and the demise of America (this became the soundtrack to a very strange dream).

we decided to grab a pizza before heading to Fort Wayne for the rest of the evening. At the pizza shop In the rush to get out the door the workers of the pizza shop were super helpful and gave us some extra food for free!

We ran back to the van to get some CDs to give them and when we gave them the CDs they asked for our autographs.... Definitely the first rockstar moment of the tour.

we're staying with Leah's sister Kat in Ft. Wayne and tomorrow we'll get to know the area, promote our show a bit, and hopefully have an awesome night on stage.

All in a day's work right?

Half an elk sandwich a day keeps the doctor away?

We spent the evening trying to explore a bit of Flint but found only a very dirty river, a large park and jazz trio playing in the grand opening of a parking garage (John, Cory and Max jumped an embankment and followed the music they heard until they BUSTED into this parking lot grand opening/black tie affair in their rain-soaked shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. I can't believe I missed it, probably quite the site).

We loaded into the venue, tried to grab some dinner at a dive bar where the waitress was making all the food (we ran out of time and had to skip out on the fine dining of the "Torch Bar and Grill") and set up out gear. In the mean time...

It was POURING the skies over Flint exploded in rain and made load in and load out a huge mess. Additionally there were the booms of huge fireworks to add to the noise and bright lights of the thunder and lightening.

After we finally set up I went to change my clothes/wash my face in the bathroom and I must have looked like a total mess with my hair in a giant bun and my clothes in a bag on the floor and this woman put her hand on my shoulder and SO kindly said, "Do you need a place to stay tonight?" and my hands were soapy and I was totally confused and I said, no I'm okay and she said....get ready for this....

"Are you sure? IT REALLY SUCKS TO BE HOMELESS, I WAS HOMELESS ONCE"

I assured here I was not homeless, or on drugs, and that I was just in the band and it had been raining and I just really needed a nap and shower.

We played an awesome 35 minute set in front of around 150 people and were even asked to play an encore. The crowd was VERY demanding and we sort of just looked at each other in disbelief. We pulled a song out of our pockets in the clutch. Vindell style.

Taste This, the band we opened for was an electronica/power-pop-punk band. Everyone had a blast dancing and drinking with the crowds.

We drove an hour south from Flint to Ann Arbor to stay with childhood friends of John's for the night, but it wouldn't be a tour with out some adventure....

About five minutes from out destination in Ann Arbor we came across some detours and began praising the GPS for being able to take us another way....praising...until...we ended up in what we deemed to be NARNIA.

Our first clue should have been the "no outlet sign" our second should have been the end of the paved road... BUT the nice British woman in the GPS kept taking us forward. Forward through the doors of the wardrobe, PAST the lion, PAST the witch until we got to a total dead end at a house, in the middle of the woods. Confused we sat in silence for a second until she enlightened us with the now VERY familiar..... recalculating....

Fail.

John swiftly pushed Cory out of the drivers seat and did a 4000 point turn into some trees to turn the van and trailer around.

We got to Bailey and Hannah's house at around 3 am. Hung out with them and their friends and set up our makeshift beds on their floor.

Long day. Good thing they ate elk.

We woke up pretty late this morning and took our hosts out to a wonderful breakfast in downtown Ann Arbor. Now we've set up a practice space in their living room and we'll stay here until we have to head out for our show in Michigan Center, MI (about an hour or so away).

After tonight we'll drive to stay Leah's sister Kat in Ft. Wayne. More updates to come!!

onto Michigan

Today we woke up in Clyde, OH and shared a free continental breakfast at the hotel. I'm not much of a complainer but this was HANDS DOWN the weakest continental breakfast I have ever experienced. It's okay though, it didn't hamper the tour/morning in any manner. We packed our stuff up and headed towards Flint, MI looking for interesting places to stop on the way (we were about 2 hours away and need to kill about 9).

We stopped at Best Buy near Toledo for a while to buy Avi the camcorder of his dreams. We also just walked around and watch John Mayer's DVD on all the giant TVs.

After another hour or so on the road again (and now into Michigan) we stopped at Outdoors Superstore Cabela's one of John's fond childhood memories...

It was totally RIDICULOUS. Next to the fishing rods there was a legit room of aquariums with giant cat fish and carp. A total crossbreed between EMS/REI (pick your poison), PGH zoo/aquarium and the Museum of Natural History...This wasn't even the best part....

In the center of the superstore (about the square footage of the first 3 floors of the Cathedral of Learning to give you an accurate picture of the shear SIZE of this place) was an obnoxiously large mountain display. The "mountain" (stretching about 3-4 all the way up to the ceiling) had a fake but true to life version of all kinds of animals you (if you were a burly michigan hunter) might want to mount on your wall (which you could do with the help of all of this store's guns, ammunition, camo-gear, and "head mounting" gear.

Animals included: bison, elk (remember this for later), polar bears, dear, wolves, beavers, raccoons etc. (Max also just reminded me that, "All of them were confrontational") The mountain scene had these fake animals fighting all the way up the sides of the cliff. Cougars viciously attacking rams and a moose on the ground being attacked by wolves and polar bears. It was almost like a natural history museum except the museum would have had a true to life display with blood and guts behind glass. Cabela's was blood free and classy.

Maybe we'll put some pictures up to justify the magnificence and absurdity of this place when we get some better internet access.

To top it all off, Max, John and Cory ate big game sandwiches (Cory and John had Elk on Wheat and Max had Ostrich....healthy..)

But, after about 2 hours in the store we had seen enough of the central Michigan hunter's Mecca and decided to load back into the van.

Now we're in Flint. And we're still 4 hours early for our set. And a scary man with blue eyes asked us for 35 cents and we gave him a Chewy bar instead.

Show tonight sounds like it will be a good one, we're teaming up with local Flint band, "Taste This" and we hear the bar is the hot spot about town!

We'll check back later and tell you how it goes!

Clyde, OH....

Where are we?

Clyde, OH, here's some nice facts for the kids...

-population 6,068
-96% white
-Clyde is known for having served as the setting for Sherwood Anderson's 1919 collection of short stories Winesburg, OH
-Clyde is the home of a large Whirlpool Corporation plant, at which top load washing machines are manufactured.

...riveting.

we're outta here.

Real Talk

So we're off....

This morning was total and complete chaotic nonsense. We ran errands, Avi lost his keys, we drove back and forth from Crafton to Squirrel Hill, we made keys and we loaded the van and trailer with a tremendous amount of STUFF. food, blankets, air mattresses etc.

When we FINALLY got on the road around 3:00 (around 2 hours post planned departure time) John was the first driver. With Max as his co-captain he steered us through the twists and hills of Western Pennsylvania and on into Ohio where he got us safe and sound (and a half an hour early) to the Barking Spider, our venue for the evening.

They pushed back our show and we promoted through the streets of Cleveland along Case Western's campus.

After a meal outside in downtown Cleveland we packed up the van again and started the journey towards Michigan. I drove a few hours and at Midnight we decided to stop and find a hotel for the evening.

Tomorrow morning we'll go through Toledo then onto Flint MI for a hopefully spectacular show @ the Loft.

That's all for now

Ps. Highlights of the day include:

-man on GIANT bike with EXTRAORDINARY handlebars in squirrel hill
-Real Talk
-John's phone fell onto the airmattress pump while John and Max were sleeping in the back of the van. It made a loud vacuum noise and jolted Max and John from their nice evening naps.

How to Prep?

How do you prepare for 4 weeks on the road in a Econoline 150 with 5 passengers and lots of musical instruments?

Trips to target, costco, lowes, john's house and back etc etc etc. Thousands upon THOUSANDS of emails to family, friends, venues, bands, and strangers alike.

We leave tomorrow for a riveting and ridiculous 24 day tour of the midwest and east coast to promote our independently recorded and produced album "Get Up! Get Up!" We played our last hometown show at Best in the Burgh's Battle of the Bands ROUND 1 on Sunday and came away with a WIN to move on to the finals on August 2nd @ D'vine wine bar. Never been to D'vine in Wexford? I highly suggest it, great food, good drinks, nice people and rock and roll regalia to match, definitely a win to top our win.

So with that we say goodbye to Pittsburgh and around mid-day tomorrow we'll load up the trailer and hop in our GIANT PURPLE VAN (imagine this with a hue more similar to Barney Dinosaur's flesh) which max has aptly named "The KING", and brace our selves for the tour of a life time.

Check back with us soon, and visit www.vindell.com to see when we could possibly be in a town near YOU.

Adios fans and friends,

Nikki