EDIT: Disclaimer, Laromlab’s music is all stolen. Read here.

It looked like the Eugene OR show was going to fall through, so we decided to hit the road to Seattle early.

We drove all day up through the valley in central CA, past MT. Shasta, into OR (where we saw gas at 3.79 in the mountains), and on to a rest stop just past Portland in WA.

Oh, did you know its illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon? I got chided by the pump lady whose job I was taking … I guess they REALLY don’t want people driving off without paying.

EDIT: Disclaimer, Laromlab’s music is all stolen. Read here.

This is Brandon’s CD release party from Mushpot Recrods, which is based out of Davis, and there was a large crowd present. He finally picked up his new cds and sold 20 of them that night.

The show was at Delta of Venus a coffee/cafe place right next to the UC Davis campus. I was able to correct and reglue some small problems with my helmet before the show as well as finish screen printing the remaining t-shirts we have.

We played with two local Mushpot Bands: Chief Briggum and Please Quiet Ourselves. Chief Briggum is a one man band built through live sampling and layering. Please Quiet Ourselves calls themselves a “mini modest mouse” but with 8 people and heavy melodic pop. Both great performances.

Our acts went down quite well. All of my gear and songs worked except for MartianPlain which, again, exhibited a weird feedback problem. Laromlab laid it down quite hard and I danced, but was cornered buy a group of gyrating girls. The power cord to our setups was stepped on 3 – 4 times and kept cutting out the music, but we kept on going. Brandon ended out the night with an impromptu dj set that kept everyone moving.

After the show, we adjourned to an after party. I had a few beers, drew on a chalkboard, and slept a bit in the van. Later on I moved back into the house when everyone else was gone.

Here’s a video from the show:

EDIT: Disclaimer, Laromlab’s music is all stolen. Read here.

Somewhere this night, I lost my jacket. It was one of the few jackets I’ve had that fits well and it has two pins with sentimental value. Damn.

We also picked up Brandon’s fiance, Nichole, who had flown in from Kentucky for the cd release party in Davis, CA.

There were two shows in San Fran: House of Shields and 222 Club. Both are in downtown.

The House of Shields is a high, wood panelled bar with a small upstairs loft for musical acts that looks down on bar patrons and the street. There is even a security camera whose vision is projected on the wall above the bar so those downstairs can see what is going on upstairs. Needless to say, I clowned with that quite a bit while playing.

We played with a Mushpot Records band, Brandon’s label, called Buildings Breeding who played good, tight indie rock. This was another good show where all of my stuff worked and Brandon’s set was bouncing. I had a few small problems with the helmet, a small piece had fallen out and the goggles would not stay on my eyes (but thus is usual). Anywayanyway, from the audience perspective it was great.

Afterwards, we split to the 222 club and joined in on the electro dance night called Lights Down Low. I didn’t play but instead danced for Brandon/Laromlab and we blew away the local kiddoes. They loved it and we got a bunch of gas money. There’s some pictures on flickr by Parker Day.

We finally crashed at Jeff and Becca’s in San Francisco’s Mission Hill.

EDIT: Disclaimer, Laromlab’s music is all stolen. Read here.

This was a day off. We showered, watched Helvetica in the UCSB library, and I loaded some new audio books and NPR Radio Lab on the iPod.

Ted and crew decided to throw a crazy dance party at the house that night, so we ended up djing and I brought out both helmets and ran visuals on their tv. We were planning on making an appearance on a radio show, but that fell through due to two bands ahead of us … we decided to head back to the party and rock it.

EDIT: Disclaimer, Laromlab’s music is all stolen. Read here.

We drove from LA to Santa Barbara on Pacific Coast Highway and stopped at a beach to catch the sunset and dip our hands in the Pacific. That makes two on the tour counting the Atlantic in St. Augustine … we missed the Gulf in LA, TX.

Isla Vista is basically on campus at UCSB (University of California at Santa Barbara) and seems to be a large apartment / dorm area for students. There are lots of bikes and skateboards while very few parking spots … so many cars around. The show was in the garage at a co-op, student community house called the BI-KO, which is quite awesome.

We played with some local acts: Teddy, Wildman Steve, and MC Phatskillz. Teddy played sampling, electro-ambience; Wildman Steve hit us with his funky, gameboy destruction; and MC Phatskillz brought the electribal electrobump. Our sets went well and people were really into it .. in fact they were into everything at it was awesome. This was a great show, but no one asked for donations so it was a great show for free :P.

We stayed with Ted and crew and I had a super delicious burrito at the place right across from their house.

EDIT: Disclaimer, Laromlab’s music is all stolen. Read here.

After sleeping in the van in an Arizona rest stop, we were able to make it into LA around 1pm and avoid any rush hour traffic. We spent the afternoon at my brother’s house, relaxed, ate, and showered. Later on, we went to the Motion Lounge in downtown Los Angeles.

The venue, Motion Lounge, is basically a tall, long concrete room right in the middle of downtown and, in this case, was rented out for a private party by Alfredo and friends. There was a projector and large screen behind the stage, so I set up my laptop to run the visuals simultaneously with the wearable, as in Jacksonville. Alfredo played last as SXEZSKOZ and brought the bump to custom animations by .

Both of our sets went quite well … flawlessly I think. All of my gear and songs worked and I was able to use the visuals for my older songs (when I’m not dancing with the monitor): RunningMan, Velocipede, and ArpeggiateNow. The crowd was into it, even though they stayed back from me … I guess they weren’t sure what was going on. Brother, his wife, and friends came out to witness our performance and I think they made favorable reports to ma and pa. There was some dancing during Laromlab and also Brandon’s dj set.

Evene though everyone had a good time, the party broke even so no gas money this time. 😛

EDIT: Disclaimer, Laromlab’s music is all stolen. Read here.

After driving through some sleet and snow, we arrived early as usual in Phoenix. It was raining a bit. We had troubling finding a wifi spot and stayed at a cafe that didn’t have power sockets until our laptop batteries ran out.

The venue, The Trunk Space, is a great art/gallery/coffee/performance space with wifi and even a large skeleton sculpture hanging from the ceiling. A local stray cat came by for some food and a scratch as well.

We played with WidgetPhreak and The Coitus. WidgetPhreak jams on multiple gameboys, layering his songs back and forth. The Coitus is an amalgam of circuit bent toys, custom noisemakers, retro computers/consoles, and analog synths. We both got Coitus t shirts. Both of our sets went well. I tried a basic improv song with the guitar but the mix was bad, also my sound was too low, so I had a hard time hearing myself.

It was a good show and the people that were there were into it. We were told that since it had rained (which never happens in Phoenix) and it was cold (50’s), not as many people would come out.

We decided to hit the road to LA and sleep in the van so as to avoid the rush hour traffic the next day.

EDIT: Disclaimer, Laromlab’s music is all stolen. Read here.

We didn’t know we had this show booked until Brandon randomly found it on Friday the 1st. He called the guy who wasn’t sure if it would be worth it on Superbowl Sunday, but he never said no so we decided to give it a try. A local act was found and some myspace bulletins were sent out.

After driving on small highways for 6 hours, we made it to El Paso early and grabbed some wifi from a closed Quiznos. When our batteries died, we found a small cafe but their wireless router was down. Instead we watched the end of the superbowl and ordered a pizza, which took about an hour to make … we later received 2 pizzas for free, so free food.

The venue, Zeppelins Underground, is a decent enough place which seems to have live shows fairly often. The owner, his girl friend, and a friend were there so we set up our gear and waited. The friend played his unique renditions of Elton John, etc on piano. About this time is when we found out the venue does not usually have Sunday shows … ok, strike one. Then we found out the opening band/djs had bailed on use … strike two.

The owner gave us until 10:15, if no one comes, then the show is cancelled. It was about 10:05 when a group of people came, but were turned back … strike three. The show was now cancelled, although I’m not sure why when there was a group of people. I guess they did not want to make any money that night. There was some talk of having us play at some other place or house, but there were no PAs around and by then we just didn’t feel like it.

I think it would have worked out, but with more time. If we had known they don;t do Sun shows regularly, then we would not have done the show. Oh well, we tried against the super bowl.

We jumped back in the van and drove through New Mexico to the Arizona border and slept in the van.

EDIT: Disclaimer, Laromlab’s music is all stolen. Read here.
Jake’s Back Room is a huge place with a large stage and sound system. It’s the second half of Jake’s Sports Bar which is full of televisions. This is another one of those places where the people that work their do not care who is playing. We played with Right On Red and Panda Can Party!. Right On Red is some Lubbock high school band who brought a whole lot of people, then encouraged them to go to another show they were playing that night. They played first then bailed with the audience, mostly polite friends and family … who paid the cover charge. I was told later that there was some sort of record company scout present for their performance. I hope he gives them plenty of room because that was a pretty rough and uninteresting set. They called the other acts “electronica” in a patronizing sort of way. More annoying stereotyping from other bands. Jerome, Panda Can Party!, came out next with his laptop and broke out the beats for his friends. He had them going quite well with dancing and singing. I came next and was avoided by everyone in the place. This was the first time where “experimental” was equated to “bad music” and even the spectacle of my gear and performance did not overcome their disinterest. Needless to say, this has been the most embarrasing and infuriating show for me and I cut some of the songs short just to get through it. Brandon came next and had some people dancing. My helmet and visuals worked and a few people seemed interested, but the place was largely empty. At the end, the AC power block for my computer worked its way off of the belt and the computer ran out of power. At a gas station in Texas (on the road to Ft Worth I think) we found these “Texas-sized” 32 oz beer cans. Brandon broke one out during his set and was told by a bouncer that he would “be going to jail for that open beer can”. We weren’t sure what that was about … is it illegal to drink beer in a bar? Brandon and Jerome laid down a dj set and the 3 of us bumped, annoying anyone else in the bar because we could. We got most of the door money from the people who came for the first band so, even though we played for just a few people, the payout was the best so far. Jerome offered his floor and fouton to us and we crashed at his house a little outside El Paso.

EDIT: Disclaimer, Laromlab’s music is all stolen. Read here.

It turns out that my brother Charlie and his wife Carrie are in Dallas this weekend for business! We hooked up with them after spending some time online at a Starbucks in down town and grabbed some dinner and lively conversation at Carrie’s brother Colin’s house in Frisco.

Just what we needed on a day off: a good place to stay, a shower, some food, wifi, and sleep. Thanks all!