Seattle, WA, Vancouver, BC and Portland OR

when we woke up at the motel I went to check my e-mails whilst Mike and Hoppie started up a conversation with a fella named Gary, when i returned we asked what he was doing up in small town Oregan, it turned out he and his wife went on a road trip and left their pistols at the motel. We asked if we could see his guns so he took us over to his car and showed us a gun wrapped very poorly in celephane and then we asked to take a picture with it (by the way the gun was loaded) when the cameras came out the guy grabbed my hand and put the gun to his head for the photo and then did the same with Mike. After that odd experiance from Coos Bay we drove up to Seattle it was another long drive but we got there in the end once we got in we checked some e-mails and had a listen to one of the demo songs proposed for the 2nd album and figured out what to do with it we then went our seperate ways Mike and Darkus went to get some clothes Mike got a flashy shirt with golden buttons and a tweed jacket and Darkus got some salmon coloured slacks whilst I went to the Record store up the road to try and get some North West indie rock LP's which i failed at I couldnt find any Bratmobile or Halo Benders but did find a cool Elliott Smith 7-inch and considered buying the Nirvana/Jesus Lizard split single which I thought would be too cliche in Seattle and it was also $30. By the time I got back everyone was watching Seinfeld in the car so I joined in, Seinfeld is the best programme ever! we went inside and saw a bit of the first band Steel Tigers Of Death who were a bunch of middle aged naked guys who sounded a bit like Green Day pretty fun. we played and it was good though mikes bass fucked up on the first song but it was no biggy we are professionals. we stayed with some university students Xavier and Amanda and watched the early 90's film Hocus Pocus which was awesome, and then crashed out.

Off we popped over the border to Vancouver, BC and talked to a man at the currency exchange shop and he told us about how Iron Maiden came through and how nice they were. we drove on through beautiful Canada to Vancouver which was very different than what I imagined, I thought it was going to have loads of waterfalls and kind of look like a little swiss town from the 20s, This was completely incorrect we were playing in Chinatown and the water falls were replaced by guys shooting up on the streets and the whole swiss feel was replaced by some very unconvincing transvestites. we hung out and went to a bar in Gastown and watched a busker play Neil Young covers which was nice, then went back to the venue. we soundchecked and tried a new song For My Mother out. then sat around and waited to play the show went pretty badly in our eyes but people fucking loved it we always like playing in Canada. after the show Me, Mike and Merch Man Ben sat and played Junkie Watch in the car which was good fun and gave the security guard, who had to look out for the cars getting robbed, some cookies we ended up deciding to get a motel that night back in the states vancouver diddnt seem to safe. but when we packed up it seemed Hoppie had lost his Passport we looked for ages but still couldnt find it, and decided to go for the border anyway. Once we got there hoppie was fine to go through but Merch Man Ben had trouble as he diddnt have the right Visa to be selling merch, but we got him through anyway. we got to the motel in washington and slept like we had never slept before.

Portland was the last show of this tour leg. We got down to Music Fest North West to pick up some free Nike shit they wanted us to have to be honest it was shit but we got to see our friends Male Bonding and the good guys of Trash Talk said hello too. the good part of the clothes stuff was that you could get things embroided on the jackets i wanted J. Stalin but diddnt have the balls. We had to get back to the venue to meet some Canadian guys for like a video session and i readid the merch sign and stuff and restring my guitar pretty boring stuff really. then we went to meet Hoppies mother and old flatmate for pizza and beer and hung out for a while until we had to get back for the show. The show was pretty busy and i was looking forward to playing aparently our friend Joanna from Quasi and the Jicks was there unfortunatly I diddn't get to see her but Mike and Darkus said hi we went on and it started from the word go pretty badly the micraphone wwas electrcuting me we couldnt hear anything right Mike's vocals were louder than mine it just went on and on and we got pretty darn angry, which actually seemed to make people really enjoy the show i dunno how that happened but I'm cool with it. me and Mike still all pissed off decided to go watch Seinfeld and calm down and we talked to some LW fans round the back who were very nice. we were shattered so after everything was packed and done we decided to just go to sleep as we had an early flight in the morning.

We are playing Chapel Hill tonight with Elf Power at the Nightlight a venue that kicked me out last time i was there so it should be good fun come down they are showing a film about the awesome Elephant 6 Collective before we go on.

see you
-LW