New Orleans is a Spooky Place

After our last show with Psychostick we ended up at a truck stop.  I took my first ever truck stop shower!  It felt sooooooo good!  For those of you who have never had a truck stop shower, don’t worry, you get the Snork, behind the scenes tour.

Each shower is kind of like a small, motel bathroom, set up in a long closet. It’s divided into 3 sections, the first area has a sink, the second a toilet, and the third is the actual shower. They provide you with a towel, a wash cloth (Kim let me borrow one of hers because she said the truck stop ones can be super detergent-y), and a bathmat.  There’s also soap in the shower in a little dispenser like hand soap in a bathroom. I brought my own shower stuff in though.

Toilet and Shower from the Sink area

Sink from the shower

Snork and Grumpy Cat aaaaaall clean!

Grumpy Cat got sprayed down with some of Kim’s alcohol & tea tree oil spray, then sat on the counter while I showered to steam clean. Now Grumpy Cat and I are all clean smelling :) At least until the next small, super smokey club :(

Next, it was off to NEW ORLEANS!!! And a day off!  We got the ok to park in the lot of the venue we were playing at the next night and went exploring down the road. Sadly all of the cool antique and clothing stores had already closed for the night.  We did have some epic N’awlin food at a place called Jacques Imos. 

Praying Mantis and Barbie on the side of a building

Walking back we passed one of those “Free Library” boxes, which was cool.  There was also a sewing studio with a Tardis inside.  On a related note, one of the coffee shops Kim and I stopped into the next day had “Bad Wolf” on their sandwich board outside and a Dr Who companions chart inside.

Giant pipe/dead body chute. Kimberly for scale.

That night we headed down to the French quarter. Despite being stuffed, we managed to eat some beignets and coffee.

White powder everywhere!

Afterwards we stopped into one of Jr’s favorite jazz bars, Fritzel's. We listened to a set there, then wandered down Bourbon Street. Bourbon street at night is a constant, overwhelming barrage of neon lights, loud music coming out of clubs, bars, alcohol to go booths, and gift shops selling the exact same things. It can be a lot to try to take in. Even though the shops are super touristy, I managed to spend too much money. Shops full of tutus, rainbow colored tops, masks and other fun stuff is dangerous for a Snork. 

The next morning Damian got up early and headed to a coffee shop to work while the rest of us drove to the post office.  They’ve had a few orders since heading out on tour, one of which was for an upcoming birthday. Quick note to all fans, though those that need to know this probably aren’t the ones that will read it.  Kim is the one that fulfills all the orders.  When you order something, she grabs what you want, packages it up, usually throws in a few personalized goodies, and mails it herself.  Unlike a lot of bands, there’s not an outside source doing it. She put a disclaimer on the site that says it can take a month for delivery. But once in a while, like this tour, someone doesn’t understand that, and orders something with a little message about how they need it soon.  Kim never wants to disappoint anyone, so we cross our fingers that we’re not sold out, scramble to find it in the trailer, try to find a post office that’s open on our schedule (which is the hardest part), and mail things out. Please keep that in mind.

Anyways... After our post office run, we got back to the venue to see that Josh was there!  Josh has been our VIP so many times this tour and in previous tours, and he’s going to be our VIP from now on until Austin!  There were also a couple of other fans there already.  Unfortunately for them, Kim and I really wanted to check out those shops that were closed the day before, so we ditched all of them and went back down the road. Kim is a terrible influence on me, and I spent way too much money again. Kim got a few things too. Most of what we got was from GLUE Clothing Exchange (they’re also on facebook). They were super nice and had some really cool stuff.

We also found some REALLY awesome dresses at a place called Retro Active One was a vintage cream colored dress that Kim really liked, but it cost $250. Another, that I really liked, was a red and black stripped dress that I think was from the 80’s. It was in the same price range. We met back up with Jr, and I asked him if I was really the boss and got whatever I wanted (which he’s always telling me) and he said yes.  So I told him Kim and I needed several hundred dollars for dresses.  He said that was ok.  Unfortunately, it was a bit after 6 by then, and the store closed at 6 :(  Boooooo! :( Plus, other than the cream dress Kim really liked, I don’t know if we really could have rationalized spending that much on those dresses.  There was SO much awesome stuff there though.

Right when we had gotten back to the venue the first time, it did this weird raining even though it was super sunny out, thing. Luckily it held off the entire time we were out, and I think for the rest of the night. Unfortunately Kim and I spent so much time shopping that we got back to the venue a bit late, and I was still setting up when doors opened.  It’s awkward setting up with everyone sitting around watching you and waiting to buy stuff.  I really don’t want to start selling until I have everything out because I want people to know everything we have.  Say you only have $20 and you buy a shirt, because that’s all I have up.  But for $20 you could have gotten a CD, patch AND poster, which you didn’t know I had yet. So in the future, if I seem like I’m being rude and ignoring you, just know that I’m frantically trying to get set up so that I can fully serve all your merch needs :)

Once again, this show was supposed to be all ages, but apparently they changed it or there was some sort of miscommunication. Some fans came to buy shirts and mentioned their 16 year old sister was there, but the bar wouldn’t let her in, so they were wondering if Kim could come out to the car and say Hi to her. That didn’t seem good enough, so I flagged down Jr and explained the situation to him.  He gave the 16yo a badge, talked to the promoter, and they let her come in as long as she hung out by the merch table.  So everyone got to enjoy the show! :D YAY!!!

Now that Psychostick is gone, it’s back to headlining!  We’re not done with equipment malfunctions though :( Kim had a string break in the middle of a song.

Professional Dance instructors. I have a video of their signature moves,
but stopped recording before Kim did the sprinkler :(

The audience was also out of tune, so Kim let them tune up while she tuned her guitar. She taught them how to remember what note they’re tuning the strings to by using Every (though she was tuning to drop D so it’s Devery) American Digs Ganga But Elvis. Or, as Damian learned, Every (Devery) Acid Dealer Gets  Busted Eventually.

Kim played Battle On this show and she actually stopped in the middle of the song because the audience wasn’t battling, as she had instructed them to do.  They seemed to do it for a bit, but then kind of petered out, so Vaughn got into the audience and started shoving people around.

Klaus showed up again!!!

Klaus stung me in this finger!

After Vaughn fixed her hat

I’ve also had another first.  I’ve now heard Kim preform her a cappella song “New Orleans” at the VIP acoustic shows on this tour, but that night, for the first time, I saw her perform it on stage.  She set her guitar down, took the mic off the stand, and sang it.  I had been proof reading the last blog during their set (well, trying too, the show was too much fun and I kept getting distracted), but as soon as she set the guitar down I shut my computer and sat and listened. It was awesome.  Kim is a truly talented singer. I think I forgot to mention in the last blog, but our VIP Jackson in Jacksonville, FL had asked Kim if she was classically trained.  She’s actually not trained at all, just insanely talented apparently.

At the end of the set, Kim was doing her whole “I’ve been deceiving you, I’m not who you think I am” bit, and someone yelled “Obama!” She started cracking up and ended up going off on this whole bit about not being Obama, and her whole performance was her Obama impression, etc. :)

After the show, after the fans left (except for our only VIP, Josh) the guys from the venue brought us food! They had cooked some jambalaya, made these little slider things with pork belly or something on them, and threw together a salad.  I obviously only had salad, but it was good and very much appreciated.  When one of the guys found out I was a vegetarian he grabbed some bread and jam for me :)  Josh got the super special-hang out and eat real New Orleans jambalaya with us-VIP party.

They also had a shower back in the green room that Jr took advantage of.  They were so great to us.  Definitely some Southern Hospitality. The sound guy was also super cool.  Not only was he a GREAT sound guy, but it sounds like he’s worked with a lot of bigger names, but wasn’t super arrogant because of it. He also really enjoyed OED’s set. I couldn’t see him, but I guess everyone else from the crew saw him back in his sound booth rocking out to the songs. He’s definitely on the list of people they’d like to work with again.

Sign from the women's restroom

Another fun bathroom sign