Rock out with your cock out. If left to my own devices, I seem to wake up at 11:00 in the morning. It doesn't matter which time zone I'm in or how late I went to bed the night before. Today was no exception, and I rolled out of my air mattress at 11:00 and went upstairs to take a shower.

We were staying with Charlie, the fellow who had booked our show at the College Hill Sundries bar. His roommates had all left for work some time ago, so he was the only one home. I met the house mascot, Kazu (sp?), a tiny goldfish-like dog as eccentric as Ezra's mushy little pug Soon-Yi. He tried to make sweet love to my leg. When Josh appeared, he also received some fine sweet leg love.

We headed out for breakfast at Charlie's favorite greasy spoon. I had an omelette. I don't know, omelettes just seem to fill me up right. Like Campbell's new Chunky Beef Soup. Except my mom didn't show up to try to convince me to eat.

We then went to Charlie's record store, Gate City Noise, to work out some consignment stuff and look at music. I bought a Pinback cd. A few minutes later, we stopped at a used music store, where Josh bought tape after tape of eighties music, Judah grabbed some scary children's records, and I selected an album of Fraggle Rock songs, which was free since Josh and I had helped the store owner move a couch.

I have to admit that I had my preconceptions about South Carolina. The Southern accents were extremely thick, and very few people seemed to be wearing the time-honored clothing combination of simultaneous shirt and shoes. "So, what kind of music do you play?" is a difficult question to answer. Even more difficult to answer is the question, "Hay, whut kahnda music y'all play?" Forgive me, South!

The Lazy-i was a very tiny, musty record store/recording studio that smelled like a dead animal. There was a meager selection of used and new cds. In fact, it was the smallest record store I had ever seen. About the size of a large bathroom, the record store/entryway held perhaps a hundred cds or so, the bulk of which were in cardboard boxes on the floor marked "$1 Each, or 10 for $5!" and the like. There were only five people milling around the stuffy room. We met members of the first band, Lost Souls, as they were moving equipment. They asked us whut kahnda music we all played, and we found ourselves at a loss for words.

Since we were a bit early, we decided to go get food. In our search for suitably healthy fare, we accidentally found ourselves in an alternate universe of spaghetti-strap beach bunnies and beer-toting frat boys on their spring break, riding giant roller coasters and playing miniature golf. Luckily we were able to muscle our way through the maddening traffic to a small Chinese restaurant, which had fairly decent food.

Back at the club, someone poured beer down the back of Josh's pants, which put him in a bad mood.

Lost Souls were bad. I can't hold it against them, as they seemed pretty inexperienced as musicians and performers. I applaud their effort, but they needed a lot of work. With Lost Souls, what was ultimately presented was a few good friends who were mediocre on their instruments, throwing in extended "jam" sections in order to "impress" the "ladies" with their "chops," thereby "increasing" their "popularity" and bringing the "huge record deal" ever closer. They had a lead singer/songwriter who would write songs about the standard fare, black pits of despair, holes in his mind, stuff about setting you free, etc. I was impressed by the spastic wah-wah pedal action he put forth, though I'm pretty sure it wasn't erratic by choice. There was the other guitarist to "fill out the sound," and the bass player who wasn't really sure where the others were or how to play on time. The drummer was, admittedly, filling in because the band had no drummer. Consequently, there were a lot of backwards glances from the others to indicate changes in the "flavor," which the drummer wasn't quite able to interpret. I'm sure this band will be around for a long time in one form or another. Hopefully they will improve like all the other bands that do it for fun.

The show was turning out to be pretty bad, with the beer in the pants and the strange opening act.

The Forevergreen were tighter and had more variance in their repertoire. A guitar/bass/drums outfit, they played Pixies-inspired rock. They even played a Pixies cover. I was glad they were pretty cool. More people were showing up and some of them were even dancing.

By the time we started setting up, there were about four people in the room. I kind of just let it go and figured we were in for a lame show. When we started playing, however, the room filled with kids. Some of them even knew our songs! Not bad, not bad. We weren't going to get beaten up after all. The set went really well. Close to the end of the show, Josh put it to the audience that we needed a place to stay for the night. The store owner, an 18 or 19 year old guy named Michael, said we were going to stay at his place, where there would be an after party. He then sat in a chair and gave his condition: that somebody had to come over and give him a lap dance. Immediately, another guy rushed over and started gyrating in front of him to loud laughter and applause. This was funny enough, but when it was further stipulated that it had to be a naked lap dance, things got even funnier. The guy started taking off his clothes as we played. I figured, as pretty much everyone else did, that he would only go so far and then laugh and put his clothes back on. He got completely naked except for his socks and shoes. And he kept dancing. This was a first for the Velvet Teen. Things took another turn for the absurd when a couple of guys from the audience started whipping him with their belts and running around. This was all a bit much to handle, and Judah started laughing so hard he couldn't sing. After the song, Judah told the rest of the audience to get naked. One other guy actually obliged him momentarily by pulling his pants down and then running away. A couple of guys then took the opportunity to steal all of the naked guy's clothes, forcing him to streak out into the entryway, screaming "Give me back my clothes!" It turned out that the completely naked guy was named Dan, and he was the brother of Michael, the shop owner who had asked for the lap dance. Weird. South Carolina rocks. At that point in the tour, we needed a huge belly laugh or two.

Later, at Michael's house, Josh and I stayed up for a while. Dan was there, and I learned from him that he gets naked on a semi-regular basis at the club, in order to provide touring bands with stories and sometimes to shake up the people that seem unable to cope with male nudity. The whole evening seemed geared towards a casual attitude about the male body, as there was a huge dildo acting as the centerpiece on the kitchen table. It was rather old and disgustingly sticky from the remnants of duct tape wrapped around it. Feeling rather generous, Josh decided to cleanse the object in the sink and then toss it in the dishwasher. When the dishwasher heating element came on, it melted a plastic spoon and filled the house with acrid smoke and fumes. Josh couldn't provide me with a distinct answer when I asked him why he would bother to clean the dildo in the first place.

For the first time on this tour, I stayed up after even Josh had gone to bed. Before I fell asleep at 4:30 in the morning, I had a lengthy discussion with several very drunk people about Canadian television programs.

Logan