Ok, so I am way behind....Playing Catch UP...AKA this is a long one!

BROOKLYN, Luna Lounge, PHILADELPHIA, World Cafe, BROOKLYN, Rubalad Underground Party, BOSTON HONK FEST!, (& RocketBar), NYC Knitting Factory....DAY OFF...Asbury Lanes, NJ, Kennedy Center, DC! WHEW!

Where do I start? Well, I guess I'll start where I left off.

We played a place in Brooklyn called the Luna Lounge with a band with guys from Portland in it (transplanted to Brooklyn) called Skidmore Fountain. It was an Indie club so there wasn't a huge draw for us, but it was a good show.

Unfortunately, our bus was dead when we were finished so we commondered (sp?) the help of a cab driver to jump us. It took a while to charge the 4 battery bank, but we got it done & were on our way to the Rubulad. The Rubulad is a seedy, humid, chaotically decorated space. Every time they throw a them party, they decorate the space, and they never take anything down. If something falls down, they just tack it back up. You get the idea. It is a very notorious party space in Brooklyn that has mad underground parties. Most of it smelled completely like urine & not a very hospitable sleeping space. Needless to say, a lot of people slept on the bus. Or on the roof. It was very humid & hot that night, & topher & I barely fit in the bunk together, so it was not a very good nights sleep, and I woke up in a panic attack like I was in a coffin & I couldn't breathe. Topher likes to smash me up against the window & I get wrapped up in the sleeping bag like a chinese finger cuff & I can't move. Sweet.

After shaking the crust out of my eyes & throwing the aches out of my bones, we walked to some great mexican food for breakfast & then high-tailed it out to Philly for our show @ the World Cafe with Balkan Beat Box. SO FUN! The World Cafe often Live Broadcast thier shows out, so the sound on stage was very good. We had a pretty good crowd by the time our show was up & running & we got em up out of thier comfy dinner seats by the end of the set. Balkan Beat Box came on after us & RIPPED it. It felt so great to dance to incredible music that we weren't playing! I worked all the kinks & krunks out of my bus bed back & we had a blast with the Balkan Beat Box after the show in the green room. We convinced them to come to Portland & play with us at the Crystal Ballroom, promised our undying love & eternal fanship, and we all got autographed t-shirts & shared stories & laughs into the night.

After the show, we drove back to Ethan's Gramma's in Delaware. A dance party was in order this time around, unfortunately, the contents of most of which are not for mass consumption, and so only a token g rated photo will be posted. Let's just say Topher made a rule for the party in the "green room" that you couldn't pass through the back portion of the bus to the bathroom if you were wearing a shirt. I know what you are all thinking, but it was actually all very platonic & sweet in nature, and was a generally amazing bonding experience for everyone involved. Especially the accountant appreciation ritual. Thanks Dick Whiskey!

In the morning, we awoke to bagels & lox provided by our host, Yetta, Ethan's Gramma, & lovingly prepared by Ethan. In return, we played a short show in the driveway for her & all the neighbors. I think we definitely made her day. After the show, we had a rehearsal so we could add some much needed new material to our set list. After the rehearsal we cleaned the bus & headed back to Brooklyn to play at the Rubulad Underground party at midnight.

I think the band was inspired by our newfound closeness from the previous evenings events, and we all decided we would finally live out our dream of playing a show in our underwear. All the musicians, at least, were really good sports, and in a show of solidarity, even Ethan busted out in his tidy whities. It was actually a blessing in disguise because the Rubulad was so packed & hot & sweaty that if we had worn our uniforms we might have melted them, and/or they would have disintigrated from the amount of sweat that poured out of us during that show. Definitely the sweatiest set I've every played, even hotter than the set we played at the anarchist squat in E. Berlin @ the Raw Temple.

We had a short turn time on this gig, though, and had to get out of there by 2 am in order to drive all night to Boston. HOWEVER, the cops busted the party just as we were getting ready to leave & about 10 M4 members got stuck in the lock down. I don't think they were bummed out at all, but we wound up getting out about 2 hours later than we wanted.

Most people slept on the way to Boston, while a few of us stayed up all night to keep our driver, Kevin, company. We made coffee, told jokes & generally rabble roused until the morning crew relieved us at about 6:30 am as we rolled into the outskirts of Boston.

Once again I found myself passed out on the humid, stuffy bus with about 10 others, clinging desperately to any sleep we can eek out of our day. I remember waking up in a confused daze to find a note taped to the front of the bus with directions for our hosts lodging. I followed the directions but little did I know there were TWO 45 Shea Drives right next to each other. I stood on the porch of the apparently wrong 45 Shea Drive for about 15 minutes knocking before I gave up, walked back to the bus, and decided it must not be time for me to get out of bed yet. By the time I woke back up, there was another note on the bus detailing where the REAL lodging was, apparently, others had the same experience I had.

I was happy to find our true lodging & have a shower & some personal bathroom time. At this point in the tour, if I can get about 10 minutes to myself in the morning, I'm good to go. That is very precious time indeed. Then, Sabrina, Andy's wife, arrived with meat & veggie pies & salad & we had "breakfast" at about 2 pm. Then it was time to put those stinky, but thankfully not Rubuladded uniforms, back on & play two back to back sets at the HONK! festival in Cambridge& then drive to downtown Boston to the "rocketbar" for quite possibly the most unbearable gig we've ever played.

The gigs that evening at the HONK were great, we drew quite a crowd as we marched into our staging area, and there were a lot of fans from other bands enjoying our show as well. We took a 20 minute break after about an hour, and we lost some of the crowd, but still had a great 2nd set. In fact, I wish we would have recorded that session because it was quite possibly the best version of Sabrosa ever played. A few of the other ones, TNG & Dynomite were really great too. I think the band is hitting its stride, getting really tight, and listening & playing really well. It feels great good to play, and the days when we don't play, I feel a loss, like I'm missing a part of my heart.

This is the story of M4 these days. We have amazing gigs like that & then we go to a place like the ROCKETBAR in Boston where they don't even have our name right on the marquee....it read: "December 4th". They 86'd Jenny for bringing in her water bottle, and were generally put out by us. We played our 45 min set & got out of there before any fights broke out on the street. This is the kind of area in Boston where if you look like a "fag" and you cross paths with the wrong red sox fan, you gonna get your buttwhooped. So the rollercoaster of music presents herself in full effect. SHE is your most loving muse or most torturous mistress.

T & I stayed the night with Sabrina & Andy @ her sister's place nearby in cambridge. We had to be up & at em early (we got to the house @ 2:30 am) & were in our fourthy digs @ 9:30 am for a full day of music. Jordi's husband was so sweet & cooked us an amazing omelette that may have saved our lives. By 11:30 am we were lined up with all the other marching bands at HONK! in our places for the 3 mile parade from the Dilboy to Harvard square. I think everyone was pretty cranky & hadn't had thier proper chemical dose for the morning because the march was like a fight from beginning to end. It was pretty funny. Everyone was yelling at everyone. I was about to call the Wahhmbulance when we arrived at the big crowd by Harvard Square, the rockstar in us all turned on & the smiles replaced the schrinches.

At the square there was a huge marching band jam session with about 10 different marching band amalgamations. The sound was huge, energetic & frenetic. The streets were filled with alternatively dressed marching band members, fans & freaks. We definitely had found a home away from home.

We had a few hours to chill out before our evening set on the main stage, so a few of us headed down to a dank, dark, warm & cozy bar for some food & drinks. We were serenaded by some members of "What Cheer?" during our meal. They played some familiar eastern european standards & some polka tunes.

Before you could get your check it was time to head over to the main stage to get ready for our big set. Quite the crowd was gathered, I would say 2000 maybe, and we totally rocked it. We were all over the stage, the sound was fantastic, and we ended our set just as 3 other marching bands joined in & we marched the frantic crowed away from the square in a massive version of "st. james infirmary". Once we reached a park some 5 blocks away, it turned into a giant jam with no rules. I had that huge feeling of being a part of something indescribably great & epic as I played with all the other drummers & horn players from all over the world & the country. It was a fantastic moment in my life, in all our lives. Thanks Boston! & THanks HONK!!!!!

NO REST FOR THE WICKED!!!! 10 am bus call & off to NYC for our Knitting Factory show. I didn't really have any expectations for a show in NYC on a monday night, and was pleasantly surprised to see quite a crowd for our show! We marched in, played our rock n roll set, and had the audience in the palm of our hands. I even broke my head! Either that or Cymbal Dan broke it with his cymbal at the end of Getcha Now! I can't tell, but it was pretty rock n roll. A lot of newbies to the tour joined us in NYC so the bus is getting really packed now, and the new energy started a whole new kind of party on the bus from SOHO to our digs in the upper west side. We slept on the roof that night of our new 5 story home where our host, Mark & his wife Jennifer made us right at home.

THE NEXT DAY WE HAD THE DAY OFF!!!!!! WOOOOHOOO!!! Haven't had a day of no traveling & no playing music for I don't remember when. Our host, Mark gave us the tourist treatment & led a walking/subwaying tour of the city from St. John's Catherdral, to Central Park, to Washington Square Park, to shopping in St. Marks & Lower east side. Then we all met at 8 pm at a chinese restaurant called "Oriental Food" off Canal St. where a friend of ours', Ben Pink's Dad, treated the entire Band & various guests for a Chinese Banquet of epic proportions. Thanks Andrew!!! My old friend Justin Pate showed up & I got to see lots of pics of his new baby & his life in Amsterdam. Course after course after course came, and the waitstaff seemed to want to feed us too much & too quickly so we would leave. After a few waiters took a few group photos, Cymbal Dan reports that the waiter handed his camera back to him & said "Go Home." Guess they were ready for us to leave!

After dinner, Justin drove us down to Ground Zero which wasn't far away & then back up to the upper west side. On the way back up, he told us stories of Gogol Bordello playing thier first gig in his loft, and all the old party times in the late - mid ninetys. It was so great to see Justin, he remains one of my very great friends after all this time & distance.

Andrew invited the entire band over to his place after dinner, which wasn't far away from the pad. Topher & I decided to take advantage of an empty room for a few hours for some "alone time". YAY! We were awoken at 3 am by the canoodling of 6 or 7 M4thers as they nestled into thier various sleeping positions on the floor. Silly Gypsies!

In the morning, those that didn't have terrible hangovers joined a group of 8 or 9 & went to breakfast at the very famous Tom's Diner where the interior shots for Seinfeld were filmed. The service was just how you would expect it. Very efficient, very swift & very no nonsense.

We packed up while some jammed out on the piano & various instruments Mark has at his house, and hit the road to Asbury Park NJ & Abury Lanes. Who knew bowling & MarchFourth could be such a succinct pair? I got in some decent balls before the gig, but after the set, I hit my stride & could bowl no wrong. Everyone @ Asbury was super stoked to have us there, and were very hospitable. We had a really fun crowd & definitely hope to be back.

That night we stayed with a friend of a friend (yvonne from Portland) of ours, Caroline who had a huge & great house on the river. She not only cooked us a great spaghetti dinner before the gig, rode the bus with us, but also partied way into the night. A bunch of us took full advantage of the ample hot tub on the deck, overlooking the river, and soaked our sore muscles & bones. T & I pitched our tent in the yard and fell asleep in the wee a.m. to the sound of chirping crickets.

We left early next a.m. for D.C. and I took a nap for a few hours until we reached a potty dump station where a girl from NPR met us with her recording equipment. A few of us dumped & pumped the WORST dump of the whole trip. It seems the more people we get on the bus, the faster it fills & the nastier it gets. So, hopefully, the morning edition interview on NPR will have more content than just the dump station. She escorted & interviewed on the bus on the way to D.C., and also recorded some of the songs we played at the Kennedy Center yesterday.

WHAT A VENUE! The stage was located in a large Hall-like space outside of the main opera house. Red carpets, elegant chandeliers, great sound. And the place was Packed! Our sound guy, Mike, says they have a show there every day of the year, 365 days, and he works 6 of those days a week for 4 years, and he said ours was one of the most entertaining! We'll take it!
Also, a fan that saw us in Bloomington showed up, and during our standing ovation as soon as we played our final note & took our bow, he unfurled this huge sign that read, " JOY NOW, BITCH!" It was a strange & welcomed random event in the middle of the stuffy, ordered environs of the Kennedy Center.

After, there was a whole lot of hullaballoo because Billy Crystal was there & receiving an award. Some people in the band got to see him, but I was a little late. I was busy bussing my table down in the crew cafeteria where we ate food that came on styrofoam plates, bowls, cups & TRAYS! All things styrofoam. It was a little sad to think that this outdated form of packaging is the favorite choice in our nation's capital. WAKE UP PEOPLE! RECYCLE ALREADY! We ate, packed up our gear & drove to somewhere in North Carolina where Ethan's mom lives. We got there sometime in the night, I was passed out. I continued to sleep until someone came on the bus & told us that breakfast was served. THANKS ETHAN"S MOM! We had French toast & bacon & got back on the road& we are still on the road somewhere on our way to Atlanta GA where we will be for the next 3 days for the ECHO festival.