SAINT LOUIS, MO 7/1/05

STL ARCH, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

So we woke up at Kevins house. I forgot to mention the name of the
band that he is in, they are the monitors (like if the monolators and
the mormons combined band names or something). They are putting
finishing touches on completing their album and I can’t wait to hear
it. We seem to have a particular affinity for bands that start with
the letter M. I dont know... midway... the list goes on......

We all made amends within the 11 person traveling freak show thats on
this tour and were able to take showers and update the last two days of
the tour journal shit. Joe, the bass player of the monitors came by
and made us all a huge ass spaghetti breakfast. The poor guy looked
beat and hung over, plus his leg was all chewed up from sliding into
home plate from the grand slam he hit in a coed softball game. Those
guys are the nicest. When we got here we never heard of warrensburg.
When we left we’ll never forget it.

We finished up the things we had to do and left them an honorary lot
lizard sticker for their kindness. The weather has cooled down a bit
and we took a leisurely drive across Missouri down highway 70. I must
admit that being from chicago, i’m not too hip to st. louis. Thats one
of those cities that you are kind of grown up to have animosity towards
cause of their sports teams. I have made it my mission to take some
pictures of the stadium that the St. Louis Rams play at for my homies
Steve and Misha. Hell, Misha has a rams sticker on his bass for
fucksake. He has been posting info about us on Rams message boards for
a couple of years now so its the least we could do...

Its now been an a complete week of being on the road and we have been
drinking hard the whole way. The mormons (sans jimmy) made a point of
getting fucked up last night. We are killing ourselves on this trip
but we all somehow feel really good and are ready to the cycle of
alcohol abuse all over again.

Mormons in the van, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The tour van is equipped with a tv, vcr, a playstation for games and
DVD’s, an old school NES, and a mac laptop. we haven’t really played
games or watched movies. The NES is pretty much useless if we are
moving. Its hard enough to get that shit to work even when its stable.
We were lucky enough to pick up and Daniel Clowes graphic novel
“David Boring” for $10. Pretty much everyone has read it now. Its aw-ight
but its no ghost world.

STADIUM, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We got to the club around 8 pm and it wasn’t open. We asked the guy at
the tattoo shop what the deal was and he said that the club opens
whenever Bob gets there. Its usually no later 9:30.

We had to repair the passenger side window of the 8-bit space pod so we
got that done while waiting for the club to open. We drank what few
beers we had and did general maintenance. St’ Louis a real cool
looking city but there are tons of burned out or abanodoned buildings.
Its a shame too cause they are beautiful historic buildings.

Andy & Vic fixing the van, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The club finally opened and we met Bob. If you ever saw the movie “A
Mighty Wind”, he looked just like that Joe Isuzu guy that says, ‘Waaa
Haappen’. We met his wife and she was really great. They needed a keg
to be brought up from the basement so Robo-T and Anti-log volunteered.
They were reward with large shots of whiskey for their efforts.

The Way Out Club is amazing inside. It kinda reminds me of CIA in LA
except its much bigger, has good draft beer, and a cat named Angus that
serves as their mascot. A nice and friendly gato with looks like a
dairy cow.

Angus, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

keg, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The show started and 8-bit went first. The crowd that was there was
there for the local band and they didn’t seem like they cared too much
for the robots or music in general... The robots managed to get drunk
and play a reasonably funny show.

pouring beer, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The Mormons brought a gang of energy with them and managed to get some
people off their asses and check out the show. There was much drinking
straight from pitchers and a quality show was had for people that didnt
really seem like they wanted to be out of their homes.

mormons, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The venue was great and the owners and sound guy were really cool. It
would be an amazing place to play if they could figure out how to get
people to go to shows.

We said fuck it and decided to drive straight to West Lafayette,
Indiana. The 8-bitches have a big group of old friends there so it was
the obvious place to head to shower and sleep before the show in
indianapolis. On the way to indiana the birds were suicidal. The two
vans accidently killed three birds.

We stopped in town at Triple X and ate some Drew Brees breakfast
specials. Spacey-k called up his buddies and they were nice enough to
get up at 7am and let us all in. We proceeded to get good sleeps and
showers. The lucky streak is running strong. 5 days in a row of
places to crash. Good fortune is smiling upon us like mad.

mo, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

WARRENSBURG, MO 6/30/05

Patrick, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Today, the greatest thing happened EVER!!! I’ll get to that later.

The dregs woke up at the crack of noon and finished showering and
whatever else needed to be done. Sure enough, John was gone so we left
him CD’s, shirts, and a thank you note. That guy is so fucking cool.
We wish everyone was like John.

We eventually loaded the vans and headed out of town. Everyone was
hung over and hungry so we stopped at a diner off of highway 2
fittingly called ‘Highway diner’. We got some pretty good grub in the
semi-50’s themed place and people were nice enough to wish Anti-log a
happy birthday. awww...

HI-Way Diner, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Hi-Way Diner Breakfast, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

A guy came out from the kitchen in a confederate flag doo-rag and told
us we can’t smoke in the diner, but we could eat and smoke in the bus.
The bus??? Sure enough, there was a city bus parked in the parking lot
that was set up with little tables and you could smoke in the shade in
the bus.

Smoking Bus, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The confederate flag doo-rag guy actually turned out to be really cool.
He told us he was a skin-head and we all backed off from that one.
What the fuck? Turns out in his mind a ‘skin-head’ is a person that
follows the band Lynyrd Skynyrd much like a ‘dead head’ is a person
that follows the greatful dead. We breathed a sigh of relief and he
told us how nebraskans will base all of their years travelling around
attending as many Skynyrd shows as possible. In the midwest, when a
heckler is shouting out ‘Freebird’, they aren’t fucking joking.

The cook, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

After a night of drinking, some breakfast, coffee, and cigarettes, you
have no choice but to have to take a hurried dump. We were completely
stoked on the diner until we saw what some idiot wrote on the entrance
of the stall. Take a look at this shit.

Hanging sign, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Goddamn. I guess living in LA, racism seems like a nonsensical thing
that happened in some far distant past. Not saying that you don’t
encounter racism everyday in LA, its just not something that would be
so obvious. I don’t want to get bummed out about something one
isolated idiot may have written. Hell, it could have been written by
someone with an ironic sense of humor critiquing the area. It just
kinda sucks that we are half way through 2005 and you see confederate
flags everywhere and stupid shit like that. I guess Skynyrd maybe
states their opinion best when some musician wants to state their opion
about where someone else lives, ‘I hope Neil young will remember, a
southern man don’t need him around, anyhow’.

I guess the same goes from a more metropolitan point of view. Blue
states could do without people from red states and vice-versa. People
are people, us robots want all humans to die anyway so we are doing our
best not to care about any of that and help people kill eatch other.

We cut through the tip of iowa and went into missouri. Anti-log got
the best birthday present ever. The no-lot-lizards sticker was
aquired!!!!

no lot lizards, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We want to put the lot lizard stickers on the vans but we don’t want to
scare them away. Hopefully on this trip we will get actual pictures
and footage of truck-stop hookers. We don’t want to fuck up our
chances of getting you all a window into the weird world of turck-stop
sex. hell, with being on the a road for a month, we may wind up
needing their services.

So we wound up in this weird ass town in Missouri and we were scared
that the show was going to suck. We couldnt have been more wrong.
Holy shit!!! Every band on earth should play in Warrensburg. This
town is the best!!!!

The Mormons are better every time they play. The crowd was supercool
and really into the show. There were camera flashes going off like mad
and people were having a good time. immediately we knew this was the
best show of tour so far.

Mormons at the Set List, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Josh broke a string and the mormons sang happy birthday to Anti-log
while he restrung, with a twist. It turned out to be ‘Happy Birth-day
Fuck-you’, you get the jist, right? It was good times and the crowd
was going wild for the mormons. This has been the show we have all
been waiting for.

Mormons @ The Set List, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

8-bit was about to play but asked the crowd to get on stage as a
birthday present. Most of the place complied and it was soo fucking
fun. The weirdest thing was that we are in Missouri and everyone on
stage was singing along to the songs!! Holy shit!!! It was amazing.
Warrensburg people are down to have a good time and are great people.

Anti-log on stage, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

8-bit @ The Set List, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The final band to play was the Monitors. Goddamn that band is good. We
gotta get them to LA!! They were a good mix of experimental music
combined with Devo hooks. They are the best band we’ve played with
thus far ((all offense intended to some of the shitty bands we’ve
played with, (not all were bad though))

The Monitors, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The Monitors invited us to their house and were were able to hang out and
get drunk. Some stupid ass people from the Airforce tagged along with
us to the house. They started some shit with the guys that lived there
so they got bounced the fuck out of there.

Vic the merch guy started fights with Le-Frost, Bodie (the documentary
guy), and anti-log. He fucking kicked Anti-log for asking him
questions on film?? Hopefully Vic gets off his period and we can go
have fun for the rest of the trip without casualties. People turn into
apes on the road.

So the moral of the story for this day is that you shouldn’t judge a
town just cause you haven’t heard of it. If every show was like the
Warrensburg show we would want to play 6 shows a day.

Oh yeah, one last thing. Robo-t threw up again tonight.

LINCOLN, NE 6/29/05

Free 12 pack, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We drove through the night and found a park in Lincoln. Some people
crashed in the vans and some people crashed in the grass. Robo-t and
Anti-log woke up to two of Lincolns finest police kicking them (softly
and politely) in the legs telling them to get up and get back in the
van. It turned out what we thought was a park was actually a
construction site complete with cranes and big industrial machinery.

cops in park, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We woke up and headed to the college. Anti-log can’t drive in nebraska cause he has an old warrant for his arrest there. Le-Frost stepped up
and captained the taco truck tour vehicle. Robo-t was pretty knocked
out cause he was taking sleeping pills and drinking the previous night
in Topeka.

We stopped so the mormons could work on their van a little bit. This
is a good time to mention how proud we are of Josh from the mormons.
The guy has been driving more than anyone, he has been creating all of
these journal page thingies, and he hasn’t missed a beat playing shows
with his severely fucked up hand. That guy is nails! We wish there
was a little bit of josh in everyone.

While the mormons were fixing their van, Spacey-k was stealing clothes
from the Good-will. Yeah, I know you shouldn’t steal from goodwill,
you should steal from wal-mart (which spacey-k has been doing at every
stop) but we are poor and stinky. You gotta do what you gotta do.

There is a really good Nebraska radio station here 90.3fm so we called
them and said thanks for playing good music. We asked him to plug our
show at the 9th st. basement and he did, twice.

So we did some laundry and took care of the typical email bullshit
(that you are reading now), got some clothes washed, ate some
whitey-kinda mexican food, and took shits and things. We were running
short on time cause we were supposed to play at 6pm so we bought a big
bottle of Jim Beam and hit the whiskey hard.

Laundry, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We got to the venue and it was pretty nice. They had a good sound system and it was semi-air conditioned so we didn’t completely die in
the 100+ degree weather. We met a band called Flurry from Omaha that
knows Bang Sugar Band and the Dollyrots. They were cool guys and we
talked about them coming to LA someday to play shows. maybe they will???

8 bitchs, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

So pretty much no one was at the show so the robots just got trashed and started talking shit. We pretty much just made fun of the people
that were there over the mike and drank like mad. We finished the show
and the manager of the club was really cool. He said that if we gave
him two cd’s and a signed shirt, we could drink whatever we want for free!!!

9th st basement bathroom, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Of course we hit that shit hard and were completely wasted while the
mormons were playing. The mormons, again played a great show and
didn’t give a damn that practically no one was there to see it. I
gotta say that the road, complete with bad sleep and too much drinking,
will really test friendships. If you gotta wake up in Lincoln Nebraska
after getting kicked by police and 100 degree weather you wanna make
sure you really like the people you are with. We are less than 1/4
done with tour but we drove over 3000 miles. I gotta give it to the
mormons. Super cool guys and no bullshit.

Tony, Andy & Jimmy, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The show ended and Anti-log passed out on the sidewalk in front of the
club. It started raining real hard and everyone went into the club
leaving anti-log to get waterlogged on the sidewalk. When he woke up
he was completely soaked through and disoriented. What a bunch of
bastards. That why i’m so fond of everyone on this tour.

Andy passed out, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We got some chicago style pizza and took advantage of the free booze with rows and rows of shots. It was a liquor frenzy at the bar and we
met some really cool local people. Lincoln has a ban on smoking in
bars so we had to take it outside. Liquor claimed its second victim of
the day when Spacey-k passed out on the sidewalk in front of the club.

Kelly passed out, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We got to meet two really cool brothers, John and Tom. John is a
stocky wrestler guy and had a big tattoo of the old school nintendo
characters on his calf. The older brother John said he was going to
pick up a big sack of weed and invited all 11 of us to his house to
crash, shower, and continue to get loaded. We got to the house and he
came through with all of his offers.

John & Tom and a big sack, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Tom had the quote of the night. We were watching something on TV and
he said in a kinda disgusted voice, ‘That ain’t porn...’ We have been
saying ‘that aint porn’ to everything we have seen or done. If someone
is buying cigarettes, someone else will say, ‘that ain’t porn’. Its
become our nebraska catch phrase.

John is interested in LA with the hopes of becoming a porn star. As
his friends confirmed with a smile, John has a giant donkey dick.
Reminds me of the Shellack song about the porn guy with a ‘cock like a
stallion’. Someday John may be a neighbor proudly displaying his
elephant trunk of a penis.

I talked to some girl that said she had a friend that was a stripper in
LA. She said she went and visited her friend recently and was suprised
that she only dated black guys. I guess her friend is really into
rappers and athletes and particularly fond of black guys with gold
teeth. The nebraska girl said she was worried about her friend
because, ‘Black guys have AIDS’. What a stupid, stupid bitch.
Goddamn. The girl works in the medical field and she is so ignorant
she made a point of specifically saying, ‘Black guys have AIDS’. If
there is any justice in the world, she will contract AIDS from a good
clean white boy. ugghhh..

In lighter hearted news, we are also fascinated with two nebraska bugs:
chiggers and no-see-ums. I’ve heard of chiggers. They are some bug
that hangs out in tall grass and they bite you and burrow under your
skin. They are supposed to be a pain in the ass if you get bit.
No-see-ums aren’t bugs at all. its a phrase used for any bite that you
get but didn’t see what bit you. The bug spray here will say, ‘for
mosquitos, chiggers, and no-see-um’s.’ weird.

We drank a bunch of Keystone light and watched Aquateen Hunger force
while continuing to get loaded. Some of the people that were at the
club showed up and drinking continued until 8am. We all took showers
and got to sleep in a clean air-conditioned house. More importantly we
met some of the nicest and most generous people we ever met.

John had to get out for work at 7:30 am and he let us stay in his house
unsupervised until we woke up and were ready to hit the road again. It
was unbelievable. John should be nominated for sainthood. Again, it
goes to show that a few people can make or break an entire city or
state. nebraska gets a huge thumbs up from both the Mormons and 8-bit!!!

John's house, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.