Some Texas shows, and a day off in New Orleans

After the last blog, we were back in Houston at Scout Bar. I started a blog last tour about how bored I got hanging out in the RV outside the venue, but that’s the one that never got finished. This time I knew that there was cool stuff in a little complex next to the venue. Erik and I went to the cool little thrift shop that donates money to a local women’s shelter. Not only that, but that day dresses and some other things were 50% off, and it was Wacky Wednesday so you got to pick a mystery coupon from the basket. I ended up getting 2 dresses for about $10 and Erik picked up a sweet shirt you’ll see in later pictures and a curtain to replace our broken blinds.

We were going to go to this awesome Murder by Chocolate coffee shop I never got to write about last tour, but after everyone got up we ended up eating at this Ramen place then it was load-in time.

Scout Bar has always been amazing to us. They also have an amazing sound guy.  During sound check Kim didn’t even have to tell him to adjust anything because it was perfect! Only bad thing about sound check was Kim changed the words “She must die” for Black in the Rye to “Melinda must die” O.O She was just giving me a shout out though :)

Lots of friends at this show!  Paul and Liz were there helping out and being crew for the day. Matt and Patricia were there again, with presents :)  

Liz and I. I couldn't decide which I like better...

So I posted both!

Snork and Frog Patricia and Matt made us

Matt, enjoying the VIP after party, with Patricia's permission

Klaus (aka Jeff) made it back again, as well as so many people, I can’t remember them all.  There was a girl from Austin last tour, Eric, Dennis the photographer who took the photo of Kim in the red hat on the blue autograph card (I made him sign one for me).  Um…  Nikki  AHH!!!  I there were so many.  Sorry if I forgot you.  You’re still awesome.

Nikki

The drummer for the first opening band had to be their own drum tech.  During one of their songs I looked over and he was adjusting his bass pedal WHILE he was playing!  Nice! Second band was Carmecí. They were different and really cool.  They both did vocals, she had the floor toms, high hat, a tambourine. He played guitar, had the snare and kick drum, and controlled any backing tracks.  They were so cool to watch.

I stole this one from Facebook. She's such an adorable little pixie!

Random things from the night, I had a girl walk by the merch table and ask if we sold cigarettes.  A fan (I think it was Eric) asked about Vaughn. He remembered him being a cool guy and was sad he wasn’t with us.

About One-Eyed Doll’s show.  Kim’s guitar cable broke or something and had to be changed out.  I think it threw Kim off :( They almost forgot to play Black in the Rye.  They crowd was so into the show though, especially for a Wednesday night.  Someone said it was Spring Break, but we’ve been having great crowds this whole tour. This crowd sang along to New Orleans. During the “choose your religion” part of Be My Friend, Kim let them choose between Unicorns or Dragons, but someone yelled out Kimberly, so Kimberly became a third option.

Kick

Kim, jumping into the crowd

I love being set up next to the stage at this venue because it’s so much fun to watch Kim thrash around on stage.  Apparently she even got to crowd surf a bit!  I missed that somehow, probably selling something to someone :P

Backbend

Using Junior as a footrest

Paul butterfly teching

Security guard being a butterfly.  He yelled at a guy for swearing in front of a lady

Next, we had a day off.  We were going to head down to Austin, but we found out Jeff works for NASA and he wanted to take us on a tour.  We started out the day by finally going to Murder by Chocolate - http://murderbychocolate.net

I can’t remember who won super tic tac toe, but I definitely beat Erik at checkers.

 Someone somehow knew Kim and I were going to be walking by.

NASA was pretty sweet! I have about 60 photos, and I don’t remember what some of the things were, so I’m only going to post a few really cool ones.

Megalodon Jaw, and Erik's wearing his sweet new shirt 

That's the building from Armageddon behind Kim

Saturn V

We also had a group picture taken a couple of times and they photoshopped us in as astronauts.  Kim has those so I’ll have to steal them and post them later. At one point we were doing a tour through the training center when a family recognized Kim and asked if we were One-Eyed Doll (probably helped that half of us were wearing OED shirts/hoodies). I guess their nephew is a fan, so they took a picture with Kim and I think she signed a sticker for him. Also, Billy said a little kid at the gift shop asked if we were with OED.

Kim posted a bunch of photos from our day at NASA and the Apollo twitter account liked a bunch of them and commented on one!

Thank you again Jeff for the amazing day off at NASA!!!!  Afterwards we grabbed some dinner with Jeff, and he got some Witches sneak peaks :)

That night we finally headed out to Austin. When we got in the next day we attempted to finally pick up the Witches CDs that were sent to FedEx in Austin. They told Junior that they were still on the truck, and it wouldn’t be unloaded until Monday. Well he happened to look over and see his name on some boxes sitting behind the counter. Turns out, lucky for us, the CDs WERE unloaded, and after giving Junior a hard time, they finally let him pick them up.

Next we heading to Affordable Sound And Printing.  They had to stop by for something, and wanted to get a few posters printed while they were there. Junior said it wouldn’t take long, so I just hung out in the bus.  It took FOREVER!  I made food, watched some Adventure Time with Erik, and finally tried to get a hold of former roadie Mike to come pick us up so we could hang (he was also with Paulo and Crystal who drove to Austin to hang out with all of us). As soon as I made plans with Mike, suddenly Junior wants me to come in for a bit, then we’re ready to go. It worked out because we ended up meeting all of them at a Chinese restaurant for dinner.

Afterwards we were supposed to regroup at Mike’s house. Erik, Paulo and I road with Mike and got there first.

There's a picture of Lumpy Space Princess on the wall behind Mike, but I forgot to get a picture.

After waiting for an hour for Junior and the rest to show up, we finally decided to just go down to SXSW because it was getting late, and have them meet up with us down there. As soon as we backed out of the driveway, the bus was there blocking the path.  Junior has great timing. We wouldn’t all fit in Mike’s car, so we still went ahead and just headed down.  We had to park a few blocks away and walk to SXSW.  It was crazy super crowded, so we just stayed on the outskirts. Eventually we got a message from Junior says they were in the middle of SXSW checking out the area they were going to be playing at the next night, so we went and met up with them. It was a mad house packed full of people.  We ended up finding them, hanging out for a bit, then heading back to Mike’s house for the night. I got to sleep inside on a couch that night, and he was nice enough to let us all take showers :)

I'm being abducted...?

The next day Crystal had some people she wanted to meet up with, so she took of early in the morning.  Mike and Paulo were starving, so they woke me up and we headed off to get some breakfast.  Again, Junior’s perfect timing happened.  We were almost all the way to the restaurant when he called. So we had to go aaaaaall the way back to pick them up. But we got to have breakfast all together, which was nice :)

Afterwards we headed back to the bus to do a big merch re-stock in order to prepare for Rockfest, then headed down early to scout things out.  

We got there and pulled into a coned off area near the parking lot we were playing in. Jason talked to the guards there, worked his magic, bribed them with coffee, and got us a permit to park there for 15 minutes while we unloaded, and a permit to park the RV nearby during the show.

Rockfest was kind of weird because it had been going on all day, so I was setting up while fans and random people were hanging around.  It had also been raining all day, but luckily stopped before we got there.

So many fans from all over came out for the show.  We had fans who saw us in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, and even all the way from Colorado! Of course Mike, Paulo and Crystal were there :)

Me, Erik and Liz

One-Eyed Dolls set was short but awesome.  They even had their friend John Moyer, bassist for Adrenaline Mob and Disturbed, come out and play bass for them on Black in the Rye!

 Joel had me sign his head, then Kimberly wrote all over it

I hadn’t really eaten all night, so after I tore down, Junior gave me $40 and sent me to wait in line to get crepes. The one I had was SOOOO good!  There was one guy working there all by himself with a huge line, and on top of that he was deaf which probably made dealing with the drunk people there even harder. If you ever go to Rockfest and there’s a crepe stand, go there!  Hopefully it’s the same guy.

I ended up missing the VIP because there were so many drunk and obnoxious people around I had to hide on the bus and eat.  Sorry guys :(

After Rockfest we heading to New Orleans!!!!  Vaughn was supposed to meet us in Austin to replace Kenny, but he ended up missing his flight, so he flew into New Orleans instead. He was waiting for us at the venue when we got there!

Once again, I don’t have the opening bands names. Apparently Billy has been better at keeping track of them.  I can't figure out how to direct link to it, but if you go to http://undergroundpulse.net and scroll down, you'll see "Live Reviews" on the right side, and some titled "On Tour with Big Amish."  The first band was something like “Rick Flavored Arsenal.” They had a lot of energy and were fun to listen to. The next band had 2 basses, drums, and no 6 string.  The drummer came up to me before the show and was telling me about the band.  They were different and a lot of fun as well. The last opener had this cool green theme going on, which glowed under the venue’s black lights. Again, another cool band.

The venue had their own light girl for the house lights, who apparently was not really into working with Erik and coordinating what the 2 of them were doing.  Despite that, there was an epic lights/fog plume beginning to the show! The sound guy at this venue is awesome as well!

During the introductions, Kim introduced herself as Junior, and Junior as Kimberly :) During the “Choose your religion” section of “Be My Friend” Kim added a third religion, “Melinda.” *embarrassed not amused face* :P Then instead of “choir girl’s skin” she said “Melinda’s skin” :P

While Kim was switching guitars she had Junior do a drum solo.  Then the audience was taught for to drum.  They were so good at it Kim made the audience the new drummer and made Junior my merch assistant. Then she tuned her guitar and taught the audience how to tune a guitar. They were so good at that, that she became my 2nd merch assistant.

The audience may have been small compared to the room we were in, but that didn;t make them any less enthusiastic. There were a few of them mashing during Fight and Monster. Kim gave her shout outs to the opening bands and crew, as always. And she did her long, embarrassing shout out to me, as always.  Difference this time was a drunk girl came up and gave me 2 big, wet, sloppy kisses on me cheek ***O.o*** *awkward*

The band sicksicksick came to this show!  I don’t think I finished the blog about them last tour.  They opened for OED in Lafayette, LA last tour.  They had this 80’s goth rock look going that I can’t even fully explain.  Their set was so much fun and so entertaining.  Like OED, they make it a performance, not just getting on stage and playing music. I really hope they play with us again. They couldn’t play this show since they’re technically not local, but all the venues around them are closing :(  Guess they’ll just have to do their own touring :)

The next day we had a day off in New Orleans!!!!!! Crystal and Paulo drove all the way to New Orleans to see the show and hang out with us on our day off. Crystal got a fancy hotel room to spoil us, so the crew stayed there that night. Unfortunately, Kim and Junior had work they needed to do, and they wanted to keep an eye on the bus, so they stayed behind :(

Crystal and I lounging in our robes and slippers on our giant beds

Yes, that's a phone next to the toilet

Grumpy Cat being a Diva

Crystal and I looking pretty :)

Me, losing to Erik at connect 4

The church next door.

Private areas you can reserve

After we checked out we headed into the city for some New Orleans cuisine. We found a place that had Vegetarian Gumbo!  After lunch Crystal had to go move her car so we lost her for a bit.  Vaughn, Paulo and Billy went off in a group, and Erik and I did some shopping and hung out on Bourbon Street doing touristy things.  Once again, New Orleans stole all my money.  I bought 2 new tutus though, a pretty dress, a cool art piece by a local artist, and some gifts.

Erik, having a beer on the street just for the novelty of it.

We then all met up at Cafe Du Monde for beignets. Junior found some RV parking near by and met up with us.  Kim stayed at the RV to finish working and catch up on sleep. I’m surprised Junior let Kim stay there by herself because when he got out of the RV a guy attempted to mug him.  You can watch the recreation on Adventure Couch but here’s what happened:

Junior got out of the RV and a guy came up to him shaking his finger inside of his shirt.  He said something in a really heavy N’awlins accent. Junior couldn’t figure out what he was asking him for.  He thought he was begging for money or something. He kept asking him to repeat himself before the guy finally said “Man, you got a booger in your nose” and stormed off.  As he was leaving, it finally processed in Junior head that the guy had been saying “Give me everything!” and “I want it all” while trying to make hi finger look like a gun. 

After beignets Crystal and Paulo went to check on Kim at the bus and hang out with her for a bit. The rest of us attempted to go see one of the cool Cemeteries. Unfortunately it apparently closes early :( I got a few cool pictures from outside the gates.

We also passed a church with some cool statues.

Eventually we all met up again for dinner before Crystal and Paulo had to head back to Dallas. Vaughn pointed out that the waitress had a Founder’s sticker on the bottom of her clipboard. Founder’s is a super amazing brewery in Grand Rapids, Michigan that hasn’t made it’s way to California yet :(

Lavender Champagne

After dinner, the rest of us wandered back to Bourbon street.  We wanted to see a set at Junior's favorite jazz club again, but they were packed. Plus there was a 1 drink minimum and we didn't all want to drink. We wandered around Bourbon Street, and were about to just go back to the bus, when we discovered this awesome little Irish Pub off the main street. There was no cover, no drink minimum, it wasn't so loud you couldn't have a conversation, and they had good beer on tap for a reasonable price! If you're looking to hang out in New Orleans, but don't want to deal with the usual touristy-ness, I recommend this place! Mollys On Toulouse