Stop, rock and roll. We rolled into Ashland late last night, where we were well-received by the very generous Brenes family, who fed us pasta and provided us with a warm place to sleep. Josh used to work for John Brenes a long time ago at The Music Coop, which has since relocated to Ashland, and looks more and more delightful each time we come through the area. Oregon-dwellers who value a great selection of music should definitely go there and check out the cool lighting while they're at it. John also showed us our super-cool full-page Slowdance ad in the Nail Distribution catalog. We're REAL rock stars now, so take that, Ed MacMahon!! We'll never play your stupid tv show again!

Always striving to be the first ones to any venue we play, we showed up to "the gig" promptly at 3:30pm. We figured that way the rest of the bands wouldn't know that we're following them. We hung around for two hours listening to Asian kids sing bad karaoke. I sung along to End of the Road by Boys II Men, because that was the only song I recognized. At 5:45, our "label rep" Ezra showed up to save us from the cacophony and to take us to dinner, which was provided by the campus. Using "power terms" such as "label rep" and "power terms" makes me feel important. Ezra is an all-around great guy and is the one responsible for booking the entire tour, along with fellow Slowdancer Mike Cancel. I guess that's two. Thanks, guys! Dinner was good, but something that I had eaten during the day was starting a protest rally in my stomach, and was threatening to start disasembling my intenstines. I decided to purge my system and try to ignore the problem for the time being. We met the other bands, who were all very nice people ... actually we didn't meet Elizabeth Elmore, because we had taken care of that when we played with her in San Diego at The Casbah, but we said, "Hi, it's nice to see you again."

My uncle and cousin showed up. A few other people did too and that was all she wrote. While setting up our stuff, my riot had decided that its protests were not enough and that now it was taking action. Whatever it had done, it was taking effect and was starting to kick inside my head. My humble offerings of Tums tablets had obviously not been enough to bribe the bastards away. We began playing a short set to impotent microphone stands, quiet monitors and a small crowd in a big room. The riot which had turned into a kicking, turned into a tiny unborn infant who was trying desperately to scramble out of my head. And then suddenly, when all was looking hopeless, in my delirium I somehow managed to psychically set off the fire alarm, ending our set two songs short and summoning fire trucks.

While listening to the other bands' sets, my mood became brighter as I realized that onstage was the only bad sound and that out in the audience, it actually came across pretty well. Both bands were great and I'm looking forward to playing with them again tomorrow. My "brainchild" of sorts is temporarily lying dormant, so my head should be in better spirits as well. Tonight we're camped out at Ezra's house and I'm looking forward to some well deserved rest.

Nighty-night,
Judah