The Mormons & 8 Bit US Tour

PHOENIX, AZ - 7/22/05

2005-07-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

Phoenix moon, originally uploaded by mike jones 3000.

we got to our cousin dans house and were exhausted. most everyone crashed immediately but anti-log hopped in the pool with dan and had a great morning swim. it was 104 degrees at 10 am an the pool was like bath water. relaxing and well needed.

everyone crashed out except for vince. his girl rachel is a doll and she drove all the way from LA with her friend dominika just to see her man one day early. man, thats so nice of her....

we eventually woke up on various couches and carpet heaven well refreshed and feeling good. its the last show of tour and we were mustering up energy to play one last show. spacey-k was nice enough to buy everyone lunch and we had a group chow-down.

the cousins caught up on things and updated each other with various tales of drunkenness and debauchery. the last time le-frost saw dan was the infamous new years 2000 desert drug-a-thon. i wont go into too much detail but it involved, E, coke, weed, liquor, beer, fire, firearms, a person lit on fire, and cousin dan wandering 2 miles through the desert out of his mind and sleeping face down at the base of a mountain. we all had some really good laughs.

dans friend chris showed up and we all shot the shit while people were taking showers pretending they weren't masturbating in the bathrooms.

we got some beer and headed into phoenix proper to play the final show. it was raining but it felt great cause it was hot as a bitch. we found out that its ok cause phoenix has a dry rain.....

drinking, driving, singing along to bad songs on the radio. when we pulled up to the club it was packed with cars. no one ever heard of angelos but there were plenty of people there... we parked the shuttle craft and saw corey in the parking lot. we met corey on the last tour in phoenix and he took us to a party. it was really good to see him cause he's cool as hell.

we checked the place out and we found our zombies and pirates homie jackson. he was the person that organized the show and it was great to see him. he just finished a tour with a different band and now was in phoenix ready to play. we hung out and shot the shit and started in with the hard drinking.

The Orphan Line lead things off and were really good. anti-log had the same shirt on as one of the guys in the band so they talked a bit and hit the bar. the bar was leaking water right in front of the bands so they had buckets set up to catch the rain. the band wasnt fazed and the played a hell of a show.

The Orphan Line @ Angelo's in Phoenix, originally uploaded by mike jones 3000.

Dear Boss, the band jackson played in was up next. they played a good mix of tom waits-y kinda music with jazzy and punk interjections. jackson and his partner switched off on vocal detail and did a great job. it makes a big difference when you see a band thats not only good but that you can tell they are having fun while doing it. thats one more reason we love the mormons so much.

Dear Boss, originally uploaded by mike jones 3000.

8-bitches were up next and they werent about to be confined by buckets of rainwater and tables so we got rid of all that shit. we tore into the set and were climbing on top of people. one of the robots even bit the girl that books the club on her foot. it was slip and slide fun and we put whatever energy we had left in our weary bodies into having fun and playing a good show. the crowd was fun and responsive and it was a great ending show to tour.

8-bit, originally uploaded by mike jones 3000.

the mormons came up next as the final band of the final show of a month long roller coaster ride. they reached deep down and threw everything they had onto the table. a great, aggressive, high-energy set to close things out. people were dancing and slipping and sliding all over the place. vince made a special shout-out to everyone that survived the tour. he gave a short speech that summed up what everyone was thinking but not saying about the overall result of the breakneck tour. there were wounded screams from the survivors of the tour and they launched into the final song of tour. they knocked it out of the park to the appreciation of the crowd. it was a triumphant ending to this wild ass ride.

The Mormons, originally uploaded by mike jones 3000.

everyone hit the bar and hit it hard. the place was called angelos and we noticed the greek flag behind the bar. we asked the nice older lady behind the bar if she was greek and sho-nuff. the booker girl that got bit is also originally from chicago and is greek. there was much love and the lady (affectionately named Mama) got the ro-bros tanked..

The guys with Mama, originally uploaded by mike jones 3000.

vince wound up taking off with his girl. we gave big ass hugs and told him we'd see him tomorrow. jimmy, joey, patrick, and vic took off straight from the show to get home and sleep. many hugs and secret handshakes were distributed liberally.

the 8-bitches stole josh and had to drag cousin dan and chris away from kicking peoples asses at pool. we invited several people to dans for a drunken final pool party and we blasted to a liquor store. there were a total of 8 people rolling drunk as hell back to mesa.

we got back and were doing rock star drags off whiskey bottles. at one point, both of the ro-bros jumped out of the pool to vomit in the rocks. super-amazing le-frost was diving off of anti-logs shoulders like a circus performer. she also tackled spacey-k and the sound guy from the club into the pool fully clothed. there was a cell phone casualty and soaked i-deez but it was really fucking funny.

pool party, originally uploaded by mike jones 3000.

we swam till sunrise and skated off into a super drunk slumber.

we somehow survived tour!!!! jesus christ. we gotta do this all over again in september and we have a show on sunday.. we are sprinting toward rehab.

Off into the sunset., originally uploaded by mike jones 3000.

EL PASO, TX - 7/21/05

2005-07-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

New Mexico, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

we woke up and gathered our things. a couple people were able to take showers and organize some shit. when we were gathering things robo-t asked anti-log what the fuck was on the back of his leg. anti-log thought he meant something was stuck to his leg and took a look to find the biggest bruise that any of us had ever seen. the bruise started about the middle of his thigh and went down to his calf. there were bumps were you could physically see torn meat under the skin. needless to say, robo-t apologized for calling anti-log a pussy for the several previous days.

Anti-log's fucked up leg., originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

we said goodbye to deannette and headed back downtown to NYPD for free pizza!!! the food was great and the girl carrie was the coolest. if you are ever in Albaquerque, go to NPYD!! you can get two big ass slices and a beer for $6!! tell carrie that the mormons and 8-bit sent you...

The gang at NYPD Pizza., originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

we thanked carrie and we got some coffee next door to get on the road. we had a long hot drive ahead of us...

the 8-bit van had a small head start on the mormons van and we were both blazing through the blistering heat. we drove for several hours and the mormons could see the 8-bit shuttle craft on the horizon so they punched it and got things together to throw out the window at the robots. with about 50 feet to go before reaching the 8-bitches, the back right tire of the 8-bit van blew out like a motherfucker.

Tire, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

Fixing the tire, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

the mormons saw what happened and quickly slowed and pulled over to help the 8-bitches. man, its a good thing because the drunk ass robots didnt have a jack or tire-iron in their van. again we were blessed because the mormons van had everything needed to change the tire.

there were a bunch of gourds where the van was stopped and you may as well try and have some fun in anything you are doing. even if its changing a tire in 100 degree weather. we got a baseball bat out of the van and played a little gourd baseball on the side of the freeway.

joey pitched a gourd and anti-log hit it right back at him. luckily the gourd exploded on impact and joey was able to dodge the shrapnel.

gourd baseball, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

we changed the tire and were able to take a picture of a few tour homies standing in the middle of the freeway.

I 25, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

we didnt really know the shape of the spare because we just got the shuttle craft. the flat happened somewhere near a town called elephant butte and another town called truth or consequences. fuck it, lets go...

we drove for about half an hour and everything was going fine and then bam... another loud ass sound coming from the tire we just changed. both vans pulled over again and we inspected the damage. it was weird as hell cause the tire didn't pop, all of the tread just ripped off of it. we were only a mile away from the next exit so we drove slowly and hit some tiny little town.

it was now 6pm and there wasnt a single tire store open. we were fucked!!! we stopped at a gas station and asked around for any alternatives. they told us we'd have to stay the night in the shitty town and get a tire in the morning. we had a show in el paso in a few hours so we started exercising our options. one of them was to take off the mormons spare and try to put it on the 8-bit van and hope that it had the right lug dimensions.

as josh was trying to take off the mormons spare, robo-t started talking to some redneck guy with was spitting chew all over the place. robo-t told him about the problem and the guy said we were fucked in town but there was a guy 6 miles away that sells used tires out of his house??? fuck it, might as well try..

we drove the 6 miles through the new mexico desert on a tire that was held together by a prayer. the guy pulled into his trailer and pointed across the street to four ranchero mexican guys in a driveway. we parked and walked up to him and none of them spoke a word of english. thank god we live in southern california and are forced to speak some watered down version of spanish every day.

we got down to brass tax. he had a tire that would work and he could have charged us any amount of money. we were expecting to take it in the ass without lube and pay something crazy like $200 for a used tire.

cuanto?? cuanto??? cuanto dinero?? fuck, i dont know... the guy wouldnt answer and proceeded to jack up the van and put the tire on. what could we do? worst case scenario would be to jump in the van and take off if he was unreasonable. he had everything set and then he said a price that blew us away. 35 bucks. the guy had us, we were fucked, and yet he didn't gouge us and was really nice about everything. there are really good people in the US and we were so relieved to have a tire and to be able to get out of that town. whoever that guy was, man, you dont know how much you helped us.

Tire shop, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

we met back up with the mormons and hauled ass to el paso. the ro-bros have a 14 year old niece that was staying in el paso on a fluke and she called to let us know that she wanted to go to the show. the club is 18+ but i told her we'd do whatever we had to do to get her in.

we finally got to the club, the T lounge, and checked in. i told the door guy about our niece and he was really cool about everything. he said as long as we kept an eye on her and made sure she wasnt drinking then it would be fine. yeah!!!!

we went on a liquor run and our niece casey arrived at the club. the girl is an absolute sweetheart. we have been eating really shitty food on this trip and she felt bad for us. she made spaghetti and meatballs for everyone in both bands and even brought plates and forks!!! you cant get most girls in LA to not drink the last beer you saved from the night before. and cook??? shit. you cant get an LA girl to change a roll of toilet paper... at least the ones we know...... casey rules!!! if she weren't 14 years old and related i'd marry that girl.

casey picked out the entire set-list for the show and she forced us to play some songs we haven't played in a long ass time. 8-bit was up second so we made the list and proceeded to get really drunk. we felt bad cause we wanted to check out the first guy that was playing. it was his first show and he did electronic music so we wanted to support but instead we hung out with our niece around the corner drinking and talking. and NO mike and mary, casey wasn't drinking, we were.

8-bit rolled into the club and there were maybe 10 people there. there were two really cool guys there and we were shooting the shit and talking music for a while. i was too drunk to remember their names but here is a picture of them. hopefully they will read this and fill in the blanks in the comments area. hands down the coolest people we met in el paso.

8-bit started to play and and they werent impressed with the small turn out. there was one girl there in a white get-up with a really short skirt. she looked like she didnt want to be there cause she kept scribbling things down in a notepad. we figured we may as well have fun if the crowd was just going to sit there. during i-deez, spacey-k says, 'slappin bitches on the ass', and anti-log walked up and slapped her hard on the backside.

robots were getting off the stage and grinding on that girl. it was funny cause the robots were all focusing on that girl and climbing on her. one robot took her purse and dumped it out on the stage. it was this weird show that was completely interactive with one person in the crowd. i think it all stemmed from extreme sexual frustration. we are like sailors that have been out to sea for 6 months. we start hallucinating mermaids and wind up wanting to sleep with dolphins.

8-bit @ The T Lounge, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

some guys in the back bought a round of beers while the robots were playing and it was very much appreciated. maybe they wanted us to grind on them too???

we said goodbye to our niece and felt like jerks for our behavior that she witnessed. she has a better comprehension of things then most 'adults' we know so im sure she wont be scarred or affected in any way by the show. did i mention she rules for coming to see us in el paso???

Crystal behind the bar, and Tony @ The T Lounge, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

the mormons went up next and they were talking shit about the people in the crowd. one of the guys from the back bucked up and bought the mormons a round of drinks too. vince was capping on white people in the crowd and the people were joking back with him. they managed to have a fun and good show regardless of the minimal turn out. the light is at the end of the tunnel. only a show in phoenix and we get to go home!!!

The Mormons @ The T Lounge, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

we all went to the bar and got loaded. we talked to the blond girl in the short white dress and we asked what the hell she was writing. she said she was doing a review on the show. by sheer turn out we figured we would probably get a shitty review so we went on the offensive. she can write whatever she wants to but we one-uped her. check this out.

uh, how about robo-t grabbing her ass??

how about an upskirt picture??

Upskirt, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

not good enough? how about another upskirt picture???

Upskirt 2, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

if she writes a positive review of the show, sorry about all of this. if its negative, now it will seem like she is taking revenge on us for these pictures.. its a win/win, see??? it does suck because she was really nice and she was genuinely interested in our music. oh well, we are assholes. no hard feelings??

the bartender bought us shots and invited us to a goth club. we passed on the club but slurped down the shots. we were heading to phoenix directly because the ro-bros cousin lives there and said we could all crash and go swimming. plus it was going to be hot as a bitch in the daytime so we figured it would be a more palatable drive during the cooler evening.

driving driving driving.

one funny driving story is that we stopped at a rest area and somehow josh lost his glasses. he realized they were gone about a mile from the rest stop and he pulled the van over. the exits are few and far between in the desert so he decided he was just going to run back to the rest stop, get his glasses, and run back to the van.

he took off through the night and was almost out of sight then he turned around and ran back faster than when he left. he was about a 1/3rd of a mile down the road and some animal, pretty positive a coyote, came running after him. he got back to the van a bit winded and totally freaked out.

he didnt want to get attacked by coyotes or wolves so he drove in reverse the mile back to the rest stop and amazingly found his glasses in tact in the main roadway of the rest area. goddamn we are blessed....

we listed to a couple of hours of dostoevsky's notes from underground on CD. we were having fits of delirious laughter. its amazing how observant and clear that guy was. he approached literature somewhere between how a philosopher would prove an axiom and a guy talking shit about people at bar. we were out of our minds and pushed on to phoenix.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM 7/19-20/05

2005-07-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

we got up and talked a bit with our gracious host from OK. it was weird to play a show for 30 other musicians with a couple people there to actually see the show. he gave us tips on different clubs to play if we roll back through oklahoma city.

we had to blast out to make it to the next show in new mexico so we said goodbyes and hit the road. it was a pretty hot and not so exciting drive to albaquerque but we listened to some mike jones remixes that rich kicked us down with in austin and we had a good time rolling through.

we got to town and found the club pretty easily. the ro-bros remembered both clubs from when they were driving through to their west virginia for a funeral in august. the club we were slated to play is called burts tiki lounge. we loaded in and headed over to a pizza place called NYPD a couple of blocks away. the robots ate pizza and wandered around the city a bit.

we got back to the club and got to drinking. the bartender/booker was a cool girl and she set us up with whiskey shots and import beer. we stretched out and asked whatever stupid questions we might have had. she was polite and dealt with our relative stupidity with tact.

Atomic Cantina & Burt's Tiki Lounge, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

there was no show scheduled the following evening so josh walked next door to the atomic cantina and rapped with the bartender. the bartender called the booker and josh lined up a show the next night right next door to burts. we've had really good luck with filling in holes and managing to play a schedule that would make most bands fall apart. its the mantra, 'when out on tour, play play play'. we can rest when we're dead (6 months from now).

the 8-bitches went first and talked a lot of shit at the crowd.cause they were primarily parking their asses. some people finally got up and people came in from off the street after seeing some weirdo chrome people rapping and talking shit. little by little the crowd was won over and a guy was nice enough to buy everyone shots during the set. there is no better way to win over a robot (aside from back rubs and hot lovin) than by buying them drinks. the robots felt good about new mexico and finished the set on an up note.

8-bit @ Burt's Tiki Lounge, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

the mormons went up next and people were into them immediately. patrick wandered the crowd during the set with a garbage can collecting empty bottles and drinks. one guy even tucked a dollar into his elbow pad as a tip for his full service rock efforts. the crowd was nice enough and they bought the mormons a round of drinks while they were playing. now, this is something for LA people to make a point of paying attention to. when you are sweating your ass off playing music for people, its nice when people see the band members as fellow humans with concerns of dehydration....

The Mormons @ Burt's Tiki Lounge, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

after the set the mormons went outside and there were two drunk girls and one drunk guy asking them about the mormon religion and being generally shitty to them. joey jokingly told one of the girls that he was going to punch her in the face and the girl flipped out on them. she was swearing and acting like she was going to fight.

they eventually crossed the street and the guy started acting tough and talking shit. vince told him to come back across the street and say something. his loud and drunk girl friends were screaming shit too. it seemed like the guy was going to cross the street to go fight but he didnt realize that anti-log was right behind him pretending to be an interested bystander. things could have gotten really ugly.

turns out the guy didnt want any part of any of it but the drunk girls crossed the street as if to fight. what the fuck??? sometimes alcohol can bring out the worst in people and it was their night for the spinning bottle to stop at them. they yelled and huffed but wound up eventually shutting up and going to their car. the 'tough' guy yelled something out of his window as they peeled out past the club. oooohhhhh..

the final band was a local band called old bean. it was a four piece group that had a mix of rock songs and what could be described as crazy clown music. there were other local musicians in attendance that were nice enough to throw cups of beer in their faces and one punch. it was someones birthday and there were some wildly drunk people there.

Old Bean @ Burt's Tiki Lounge, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

the club didnt charge a cover but still paid the bands.. there is something seriously wrong with the clubs in LA. we aren't trying to be bitches or complainers but the music scene in LA is full of shit. bands SHOULD get drinks and bands SHOULD get some pay. fucking gas money at least... we are going to have a talk with John T when we get back......

willie, one of the guitar players/singers of old bean was nice enough to let everyone crash at his house. he just moved in and most of his stuff was in boxes but he had a full blown painting studio set up. it was nice to have a place to sleep and shower. it was also cool cause there was a mental health facility across the street so we got to howl and throw pebbles at the windows to stir up the crazies.

willie wound up sleeping at his girlfriends house so we had the house to ourselves. there was a party going on next door but we were too wiped to go crash it. instead we watched Teen Wolf Too and shot the shit until we went to sleep.

albaquirky day 2

we woke up in willies house and the mormons took off to go out for food. the 8-bitches eventually woke up and thanked willie for his hospitality. what a nice ass guy!!!

we were out of clean clothes so we went and did some laundry and had some greek food. we headed to a coffee shop and caught up on some email bullshit. we found out about some pretty rad offers that are coming through but i dont want to get into details cause i dont wanna jinx shit. if 1/10 of the things we hear came true we wouldn't have to suck dicks to pay rent when we get back. anyway, its some potentially really cool shit and if we get it, i'll let you know about it.

a friend of willies told us he worked at a hotel bar and we could all drink for free. you cant beat that so we headed to the hotel. we got there and it was like the guy didnt remember us from the pervious night. there was an awkward silence and we just said fuck it and left and went to a liquor store.

spacey-k is a fucking trip. he's been feeling run down so he was looking at those naked fruit drinks to look for some relief from over three weeks of straight hard drinking. he saw how much they cost and he said fuck it and bought gin instead. none of us can lie to or fool each other but occasionally we temporarily fool ourselves.

Vic taking a nap., originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

we got to the atomic cantina and their logo is pretty much the same as all of out tattoos. we came in and got drinks and listened to some funny songs on the jukie. we rounded out stories and shot some pool while we were waiting for people to get into the club. eventually people came inside so the 8-bitters got dressed on the street and filed in.

the atomic is pretty cool but it kinda sucks in that the room bands play in is kinda separated from the bar area. people didn't really care about seeing drunk robots so they parked their asses at the bar. we talked A LOT of shit at the crowd and then we went on the offensive.

the only way to take a leak in that bar is by crossing the room that the bands play in. there were a few people checking out the show but everyone that went to the bathroom got assaulted. we were jumping on and grinding on anyone that went by. one girl was real cool about it and she danced with the robots for a bit. she even went and bought a beer for her robot dancing partner...

the mormons came up next and more people filed into the room. who can touch patrick as far as a singer that you can't take your eyes off of?? the only other singer i've ever seen that was remotely similar in sheer magnetism would be john miner?? why isn't john in a band???? anyway, i digress. the mormons played a great show and the crowd was hypnotized by patrick. there were hoots and hollars and the show went well.

there was a third band but we were preoccupied by trying to find a place to crash for the night. there were a couple of offers and finally a really cool girl named deannette. with that being secured, we were able to get fucking trashed....

we ran into the girl that was dancing with us and she was really cool. we invited her to deannettes house but she couldnt go cause she had to be up early. i told her to call in sick but she said she couldnt because she was the owner. turns out she owns NYPD pizza and invited us all to come over for free pizza the next day before we left town. goddamn we have good fortune meeting awesome people!!!!

we rolled out of the club and headed to d's for some more heavy drinking. she poured tequila shots and handed out otter pops. le-frost got loaded and was a dancing machine. robo-t started busting skateboard tricks in the girls front room. she had a pitbull that bit anti-log twice but it was a puppy and no blood was drawn. anti-log was complaining about his leg hurtning again and robo-t told him to quit being a pussy. anti-log shut up and drank more liquor.

the people at the get together were nice and funny. deannette has really cool friends and the drinking kept going and going till people started passing out. eventually everyone spread out and crashed hard. it was another example of a night starting out shitty and ending up really fun.

Tour fuel., originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK 7/18/05

2005-07-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

Robo-T Wrote:
we woke up in the morning hung over as all get-out.
adam gave up and called in sick to work to recover.
the robots got to say goodbye to those incredible
motherfuckers and were sad to leave austin. austin is
such a cool city!!! if you live on the east coast or
midwest, keep an eye out for those peabodys playing in
your town. be sure to give them love and take care of
them because they took care of us like family.. we
love those peabodys!!!!

we sadly hit the road. on our way to oklahoma city
(still in texas) we all stopped at the olive garden
and got all you can eat soup and muthafuckin salad,
which was nice after a steady diet of liquor and fast
food. when we stopped for gas i went to take a pee to
find a drawing of a black stick figure being hanged in
the bathroom. when i stepped out of the bathroom
there was a black guy waiting to use the facilities.
Thats some fucked up redneckery in Texas. A few miles
ahead was the "President George Bush Turnpike." go
figure...

I crashed out in the car for the boring ass ride and
awoke to find 5 bands rigs in front of the venue.. We
find out there are 7 bands playing that night.. yay!

Vans of bands, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

We met up with the guys from the band Valley Arena who
jumped on the show since their Oklahoma City show was
cancelled. Their drummer had a good point, "Even if
no one shows up there will be about 35 people at the
venue, just band members alone." Fuck it, lets get
booze.

Oklahoma city is like a fucking ghost town. The city
was deserted, there were hardly even any cars .
Anti-log suggested that maybe the city had been
evacuated and we didn't hear about it. It really
looked like it. You can see why old Timmothy Mcvey
chose Oklahoma city.. shit if we had some fertalizer
we could have gotten away with blowing up whatever the
hell we wanted to!

Anyway, after driving around and thinking about
stealing another fuel man sign from a gas station, we
found heaven. it's a food for less sized liquor
store!
hundreds of varieties of beer, liquor, and wine. but
get this, nothing is cold and the bitches don't sell
ice. Spacey-k chose Gin, Anti-log Amstel light, while
Le-frost and myself opted for $5 bottles of Merlot.
Then we's gots some ice down the road.

Valley Arena kicked off the show by playing a good set
while the other bands sat on their hands. it's kinda
funny seeing a bunch of bands watching other bands
because all they care about is their own group, ya
know? Ah well, we thought they were cool. hey we
might even get a kickball game together with them in
their hometown of long beach,,, LBC vs. HLP bitch!

The Valley Arena, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

After they played Spacey-K and I got extra bored and
decided to cash this bottle of codine cough syrup that
our friend Tina hooked me up with for my vicious cold.
taking it all at once should make the cold go away
faster right?? next thing you know we're rapping mike
jones all screwed and chopped laying in the grass. Be
on the look out for some new screwed and chopped 8-bit
tracks.

We missed the next two bands and WHAT? it's time to
play! we peeled our corpses off the ground and
started playing, the codine made jumped in the gang
and crunked sound better than ever. On the last song,
suck ma dick, the sound got really quiet. Joey gave
the tip earlier on to tour to keep the volume about
1/2 on the laptop on stage, that way if the music is
too quiet i can just bump it up real quick. i used
that trick and bumped it up all the way loud again
and finished the set to find out the cops were outside
with a noise complaint, oooops! The show continued
though..

8-bit, The Mormons, & The Stiletto Formal chillin at The Showroom, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

Next up, The Mormons! who played a great tight set as
usual. Patrick found a big chair to crawl under and
invited people to sit on it. an asian girl finally
accepted, which is lucky for him considering the girth
of the corn fed white women roaming the plains of the
midwest. it'll be nice to see you california women
again ;1.

So yeah we leave to drink again and catch the last
group, The Stiletto Formal from Phoenix. They had a
good set and were nice people as well. Kinda mathy
with girls holding down the cello and
keyboards/percussion.

The Stiletto Formal rockin in Oklahoma, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

We were tore up and it was time to sleep. Joey hooked
up a place to stay with Brad from the band Streets of
Thieves, which I felt kinda bad for missing his band
and all. Anti-log was already passed out drunk in the
van. I was the designated crunk driver of the night.
we get to brads where i thrown up in the front yard.
many were due for a shower which hit the spot.
THANKS BRAD!

AUSTIN, TX 7/16-17/05

2005-07-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

Austin is awesome!!!!

Austin, TX, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

we woke up in super happy fun land and were shaken out
of bed by the owners scrambling to clean up because a
telemundo truck was out front ready to film?? they
were having a community forum regarding the minute men
that were volunteering their time to 'protect' the
mexico border. the camera crew were roaming around
getting footage of everything. i was wondering why
everyone was looking at me with strange expressions,
then joey was nice enough to tell me that i still had
a drawn on molest-ache, a uni-brow, and rosy cheeks.

we were waiting around frantically for an overnight
package that george sent us from LA. he sent the
fucked up spare helmet we had so that we would roll
into austin with complete robo-gear. the fucking
thing was supposed to be delivered the day before...

i called george and got the tracking number and
searched to find that they supposedly already
attempted to deliver it and had left a note on the
front door. neither of these things were true. i
called the local post office and lied that i was going
to get fired from my job (of unemployment??) if i
didnt get that package to austin tonight.

the guy battled with me for a while then finally got
off his ass and saw the package was sitting in the
next room. i got him to agree to send someone over
immediately and he did. the USPS is like pulling
teeth but once in a while you run into someone that
can actually be helpful and take initiative.

we blasted the fuck out to austin..

we made the drive through bush country and got to the
gem of texas. none of us are very big on texas.
houston was a pretty shitty city... lots of driving
and lots of nothing. then you get to austin and its
fucking amazing. brimming with creative and excited
people who are just out to get drunk and have fun
right now!!! too many people plan out having fun at
some future date for some occasion... lame lame
lame... austinites, austinians, whatever the hell
they are called are out to have a crazy night when
they leave their houses.

so its out first ever show in texas and we are playing
a saturday night at Emo's?? holy shit!!! our austin
homies from those peabodys set it up and they arrived
to the club. it was hugs all around and we knew fun
shit was going to go down. those guys are not only a
great band but they are the fucking nicest and coolest
guys.

Vic rockin the merch., originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

we first played with those peabodys at the silverlake
lounge (which we are no longer allowed to play at) and
the first words we ever exchanged were the 8-bitters
offering them pot brownies. that night we also played
with the penfifteen club and it was the first time
junko (the greatest person in japan) saw the robots
play.

those peabodys also played mr. t's at what we thought
was going to be our final show ever cause we were
disgusted with the election results. (we had plans to
move to holland) two days later those peabodys played
at all tomorrows parties in long beach on the queen
mary.

enough enough. get back to the show and emo's...

we got to see our homette from redlands, our swisha
house homie rich, mike (the DJ, not the peabody
drummer), and our fellow previous travel companion
homie INSERT THAT GUYS NAME

the mormons kicked things off and people were
trickling in. there were a group of guys there that
came specifically to see the mormons and they were
loving it!!! josh broke a string during the set and
didnt have a spare. the mormons are hustlers and they
dont slow down for anything so they kept going.

josh switched out guitars but didnt have a strap for
it so he said fuck it and played strapless. anti-log
tracked down a string and replaced the broken one and
josh swapped back out between songs.

they played a great set and the emo's sound system
really did well for them. the sound guy really did a
good job with the mormons sound and it was a great
show.

The Mormons @ Emo's, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

the next band to play was tia carerra. they are kind
of an improv jam band with what seemed like some
structured parts. a no vocal 3 piece. now the term
'jam band' for us could easily be changed to 'too lazy
to write a fucking song' but it wasnt the case at all
with tia carerra. they had an edge to their songs and
somehow weirdly reminded me of 400 Blows. both bands
have a large focus on the drummer keeping things tight
and interesting. both bands are three piece groups.
if you traded 400 blows singer Skot for a bass player
and if the 400 blows guitar player had a wah pedal and
used it, you could have some really close comparisons.

maybe im reaching, i dont know. but if both of those
bands played together i would definitely be at the
show.

then it time for 8-bit to play. lots of people had
rolled into the club and the robots were drunk and
ready to go. they asked those peabodys to set up on
stage so they could rock it as soon as the robots were
done. shit, bitch, robots don't need no stage
anyhow....

the robots went to work and were bumping their way
through the crowd and working the ghetto-robo shit
they way they know how to. anti-log had hurt his leg
earlier on the tour and pulled something while doing
one of his david lee roth high kicks. midway through
the set he snapped the highest kick he's probably ever
pulled off and he felt a bunch of things tear behind
his knee. they finished out the set and were stoked
for the positive crowd response and for the set of
texas rock that those peabodys were about to bring.

8-bit @ Emo's in Austin, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

those peabodys took the stage and you could tell from
the first beat of the first song that they own emo's.
their sound was completely dialed in. you coulda
easily made a live album from the set they played. it
was great to see them play on their home turf and they
fucking pegged it.

so you all know, those peabodys are a three piece
band. clark plays bass, dances like a madman, and
sings on more than half of the songs. adam plays
guitar (he's also rumored to be austins best drummer),
sings on several songs, and pulls mean ass guitar
riffs that sound like classics the first time you hear
them. mike plays and teaches drums and is the fucking
nicest guy. when the ro-bros were wandering the
country for their robo-mamas funeral, mike put them up
for three days on their way back home. its such a
super bonus that their band kicks ass cause they are
the fucking coolest guys in texas, hands down.

Adam of Those Peabodys rockin out at Emo's, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

they played the best set of any band we've seen on
this tour and were in awe at how great they were live.
if you like hard southern rock with fat guitar lines,
look up those peabodys online and on myspace. you
definitely wont be disappointed.

Clark of Those Peabodys on stage at Emos, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

after the show we met a really nice guy named franklin
from a band called the murdocks. he invited all of
the mormons and the 8-bitters to crash at his house
and invited those peabodys and other homies over to
drink. his roomates, elisa, lauren, zane, andrew were
cool but i dont think they were to stoked on us. they
were all really nice and dealt with all of us anyway.
zane was really cool and partied down that night. one
of homettes brought a bottle of cazadores and we got
all fucked up.

This is Rich. , originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

everyone got to crash on the carpeted floor. im not a
huge fan of carpet as opposed to hard wood unless you
are talking about sleeping on it. carpet is like a
message with a happy ending compared to sleeping on
hard wood.

we survived our first night in austin and celebrated
with hallucinogens. anti-log was walking with a
pronounced lip and robo-t was nice enough to tell him
to stop being a pussy. anti-log shut the fuck up and
went to bed along with everyone else

Austin day 2

we had a day slated to be off today but robo-t hooked
up a last second show at the red eye fly. when the
kids of whidney high were in austin filming for that
johnny knoxville movie 'the ringer' they played at the
red eye fly and the booker remembered drinking with
robo-t. he slated us in to play after two other bands
that were already scheduled to play.

we hung out during the early part of the day at
franklins house and got to shower. again, i dont
think his roomates were too happy with 10 stinky fools
using their shower but they dealt with it anyway. the
girls were sisters and were really cute. franklin is
dating one of them.... good job franklin!!!

we had to scram because everyone at the house was
going to a female roller derby match. i guess there
is a big roller derby scene in austin and those girls
kick ass. we wanted to go but are broke as hell and
couldn't afford to buy tickets.

we headed out for ice cream because this awesome girl
named valerie said shed hook us up with free ice
cream!!! thats the second time on tour we had cute
girls donate ice cream to our gypsy cause. we had
badass ice cream and took pictures in their photo
booth. valerie fucking rules!!!

Ice Cream with Vallerie! Thanks!, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

mike from those peabodys drove by the ice cream shop
and lead us to adam's house. adam has a cool ass
house and we started getting the drinking going. a
bunch of people headed over and drinking and
conversation took off.

Chillin on the stoop @ Adams (Those Peabodys) in Austin, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

eventually we had to head over to the red eye to play.
austinites/austonians seem to have some beef with the
place but it was nice enough and they let us play with
no notice. they also hooked us up with free lonestar
beer so we were stoked.

we got to the club and realized that valley arena were
playing. we played with those guys a long time ago in
LA. they are a band out of long beach and are nice
guys. they played their set and we all talked after
they played. they mentioned coming to oklahoma city
with us the next day to jump on the show with us.
cool enough cause we jumped onto their show.. it was
set.

the guys that showed up the night before to see the
mormons showed up again at the red eye fly and rocked
out to the mormons set. the club was pretty dead
cause it was a sunday night but the mormons again
managed to play a great show. i am convinced that it
was the best joey has ever played. he played the
drums with a lot of aggression and was on through the
whole set.

those peabodys guys showed up to the club as 8-bit was
about to start. mike the DJ was spinning across the
street at the 710 and he asked if we would be
interested in playing there as soon as the set was
done at the red eye fly. but of course....

so the robots launched into their set but anti-logs
high kick was more of a foot sweep. he couldnt lift
his leg more than a foot off the ground. the show was
really fun and the tallest guy we've ever seen at a
show was really cool and having fun dancing and
interacting with the robots.

Anti-log @ The Red Eye Fly in Austin, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

the show ended and the robots invited everyone across
the street to the 710. the club cleared and everyone
made the trek. we got into the club and it was full
of tattooed and tough looking girls. it turns out
that we walked into the austin roller derby teams
afterparty!!! it was ON!!!

the robots quickly set up but only had one mike with
about a 3 foot chord. fuck it, lets go....

the robots jumped into a completely different set and
the roller girls were going crazy. it was hot as a
bitch so the robots started shedding clothes and the
roller derby girls started putting on helmets and
spinners. it was so fucking fun!!!

at one point, the captain of the roller derby team was
on anti-logs shoulders during his entire verse of a
song. it was crazy crazy fun and there is a shit load
of really good pictures.

Anti-log can't be stoped., originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

Dancy party!, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

Mike (Those Peabodys) dancing the night away, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

Rollerderby Girls afterparty @ 710 in Austin, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

Robo-T big pimpin, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

Adam chilling the Rollerderby Girls afterparty, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

after the bar closed, the derby girls invited to
robots and crew over to a pool party across town. we
looked for the mormons to give them the 411 but they
had already rolled to the guys house that came to see
them play. the robots kidnapped josh and headed to
party.

there is this big ass house with a big ass pool and
the robo-crew quickly jumped in the pool. there was a
gallon bottle of rum rolling and people were tipping
that bitch upside down taking monster hits off that
shit. none of the girls had bathing suits so they
started getting naked and jumping in the pool. since
the girls were naked, the guys felt bad so the guys
got naked too. there was a gang of nude people
running around including 8-bitters, peabodys, and the
really tall guy from the club.

people were weird about camera flashes but there were
a couple pics taken of the pool and naked people.

Pool Party in Austin, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

the party eventually wound down and the posse of
different musicians headed to taco cabana for some
late night eats. we all rolled back to adams house
and scrounged for any stray beers that were there.

there was lots of joking and lots of funny shit going
on but everyone eventually crashed out all over adams
house. completely fucking plastered...........

amazing times in austin!!!!

HOUSTON, TX 7/15/05

2005-07-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

we said goodbyes to tina. what a saint putting up 9
smelly guys and one bratty girl in her and her friends
house. letting everyone shower, shave, and do
laundry. there is something to be said about having
14 year old friendships. shit, she knows we'd do the
same for her. i can already know there will be a
phone call to help her move in when she arrives in
northridge in a month or so...

we said said farewells and headed out through
louisiana. swampy, rainy, muggy louisiana. we wanted
to stop to take an airboat ride but we were broke and
pressed for time. we made the push past baton rouge
and into texas.

after a pretty long time we hit houston. we made our
way through town and got to the club called SUPER
HAPPY FUN LAND!!!

Super Happy Fun Land, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

we got to the eccentric venue and were wowed with the
place. it looked like a barn but inside they had a
bar, an art gallery, and a theater-like venue in the
back. a package from LA was supposed to have arrived
but we checked with the owner and there was no such
luck. aw fuck...

we took off from the venue looking for cheap booze and
food. we are all flat ass broke and dont really have
money for food. somehow everyone manages to come up
with cash for booze, cigs, and drugs... i dont know??

we hit the grocery store and got some cheap ass
icehouse beer, a bottle of hard liquor, some fruit,
and then we hit the deli getting really expensive
meats and cheeses.

i know you are saying, 'wait a minute!!! you just
said you didnt have money for food! whats up with the
expensive meats and cheeses??'

bitch, i didn't say we were going to pay for it.
people broke into teams and weaved through the store
tucking expensive food items in anything they could to
hide it from the store employees. i couldnt jock the
beer and the big bag of fruit so i payed 18 dollars
total for everything including some bread for
sandwiches. by the time we got to the van we probably
had more than $100 worth of tasty food and
medications.

we headed back to the venue and had a small feast. we
talked with the owners of SUPER HAPPY FUN LAND!!! and
they were really nice. they even invited us all to
crash at the club straight away. we hit a liquor
store and they refused to serve spacey-k even though
he only had one beer. they said he was too fucked up
to buy a bottle of gin. its a sad state of affairs
when you are sober and cant get liquor. it was a good
sign that shaves and showering along with deodorant
would be a really good idea. le-frost bought
spacey-k's bottle and we rolled to the club.

we settled in and proceeded to get loaded. its an all
ages club so some really young kids started to file
in. they were all nice and were interested in music
but were completely lacking energy, drunkenness and
the desire to have fun. we fucked around and got
drunk because we are losers and thats all we are good
for. oh, and surprise surprise, we smoked cigarettes
and talked shit.

the mormons lead things off and they were talking shit
at the boring kids that were sitting their asses.
patrick stuck his asses in the faces of three girls
and stayed in that position for a couple of songs.
the kids were pretty boring but were courteous
nevertheless so what can you do?? they played a great
show and managed to have fun despite the uptight
crowd. thats all you can do in that situation.

The Mormons @ Super Happy Fun Land, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

8-bit was rustled up from their respective beverage
and took the stage next. it was already known that
the crowd shouldn't have left their houses so they
immediately went on the offensive calling the club
SUPER BORING DUMB LAND and SUPER STUPID BITCH LAND
over the mike. the robots played the set and forced
people to get off their asses and try to have fun.
they were glad to finish the set and got the fuck
outside.

8 Bit @ Super Happy Fun Land, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

we talked to one of the people owning the club about
the different signs they had posted. you could get a
fake mustache, a unibrow, and rosy cheeks painted on
your face for 50 cents. it turns out that bands have
free fake things painted on them and 8-bit couldn't
resist...

le-frost got a unibrow, rosy cheeks, and a hitler
mustache. robo-t got a unibrow, rosy cheeks, and a gotee.
spacey-k got a unibrow, rosy cheeks, and a mustache.
anti-log for a unibrow, rosy cheeks, and a molestache.

Super Happy Freak Out, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

distracted by life and tour, 8-bit kidnapped josh and
went to investigate a factory at the end of the road.
i guess they turn wire into some sort of fencing. it
looked crazy with spools of wire whizzing and a line
of spot welders tossing sparks. we couldnt help
ourselves.

we asked who the manager was and they lead us to
Nacho. he was the night shift supervisor of the wire
factory. we asked for a tour and he was cool enough
to let us. we all had fake facial hair, open
containers, and it was past midnight, but nacho
complied.

wire factory, originally uploaded by mike jones 2000.

it was this weird world of serious wire welding. we
offered workers beer but they declined and nacho was
nice enough to explain everything to us (in spanish).
we thanked nacho for being so nice and we headed back
to SUPER HAPPY FUN LAND!!!

the final band that played was a very loose ska band.
none of us were aware that ska still existed but we
found out it does. the band was not any of our cups
of pee but the singer girl could really sing and had
mad talent. if she is smart enough to figure out that
she is beyond her band you will probably see her in
sprite commercials or something.

we were all pretty beat so some people went to sleep.
others went to an after hours club in the city.

Jimmy wrote:
Today I had quite a treat. I got to meet (and smell) Stinky McConaughey. Let me tell you my story. It was the morning of the 16th of July 2005. We had played the previous night at “Super Happy Fun land” in Austin, Texas. The show went well but the kids there decided to sit in the provided theater seats they have there which takes a lot of the fun away from us, but whatever. I guess they actually liked it because people bought our merchandise. Back to the story, I was in the van waiting to go pick up some food for everyone to fill their hungry bodies with when it happened. The door opened and an aura of smell filled the air. It was kind of like “Pigpen” from Charlie Brown, but it wasn’t cute like Pigpens dirt clouds. It was actually greenish fumes similar to that commercial where the guy says his wife calls him “Swampfoot”. It was pretty nasty. Anyway, Stinky was going to be our navigator to the food restaurant and to the local grocery store. I believe Stinky lived at the SHFL but I have no verification of that. I decided to not ask questions. Anyone who knows me knows that I have this little issue with germs and stuff so as soon as I got a whiff of Stinky, I got worried about our seat in the van that Stinky was about to sit on and everything else Stinky was about to touch. Luckily, I have a can of Lysol in the van. So while we were on the road, Vince text messaged me “foochie la”. That’s when I decided to take action and sprayed Lysol on the seat in front of me then preceded to spray it on Stinky and his seat. Now remember I’m behind Joey (who is driving) and Stinky was in the passenger seat. So I sprayed behind his seat and on him a little. I think he noticed because he touched his arm and smelled to see what that strange clean odor was. It actually might of puzzled the poor guy. I noticed a Jack In the Box and suggested to Joey that we stop there and order tacos for everyone, but he said the two tacos for a dollar “fucking sucked”. I replied “what? They fucking smell?” I don’t think Joey heard me, but I turned to Vince, who was to the right of me, and Claudia (of 8-Bit), who was sitting in the back. Both of them were doing their best to hide their laughter. I think they were laughing at the fact I sprayed Lysol on Stinky. I apologize, but it had to be done. I was quick to escape out of the van as soon as we stopped. I think I was in shock that Stinky had no shame in his smelliness. Needless to say, I sprayed down the chair after Stinky exited the van. As an added bonus, Stinky forgot his groceries (which consisted of root beer and milk) in our van. A regret I have about my experience with Stinky is that I did not get to take a picture of him. If I did, it probably would’ve came out blurry anyway like those Bigfoot pictures. Anyway, that is my short story of Smelly McConaughey, the man-thing who smelled so bad, yet had no shame. -jimmy hughes

NEW ORLEANS, LA 7/14/05

2005-07-14T18:39:00.000-07:00

we drove through the night heading to new orleans. it
was a pretty long and shitty drive but we arrived at
around 9am. we called up an old and dear friend tina
(look back to the indiana/dayton info. it was her
moms house, cookie, that we were swimming at) we got
to her place and people settled on her friends floor
because her power was out.

the suits were smelling rancid so we headed out to the
laundry mat to try to wash out some of the nutsack
sweat. we didnt have a show scheduled for new orleans
so we bought a shitload of food to have a big restful
bbq. there were three pools and we took advantage of
two of them.

tina's power came back on and we all migrated back to
her place. somehow vic, our friend that is helping us
with merch and things, got hold of a voodoo priest in
new orleans that he knew. the voodoo guy mentioned a
few good clubs in new orleans and vic got cracking on
making calls.

sure enough, the hi-ho lounge said we could play. we
were glad but also kind of bummed cause we could have
used a day off. oh well, we are on tour afterall and
the point is getting your ass in front of people that
wouldn't normally know about what you do. we
marinated the chicken and threw it in the fridge. the
crew of tired bastards headed to the other side of
town and rolled into the hi-ho.

Hi Ho Lounge in New Orleans, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

Jimmy @ the Hi Ho, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

we got there and there wasnt really anyone there. we
asked what the deal was and it turned out that GWAR
was in town and people in new orleans are really into
them. hell, i remember seeing GWAR as a kid on
halloween in chicago, i saw them again for the hell of
it when we were visiting chicago. it did seem weird
though that the city was pretty cleared out because of
GWAR...

8-bit played first and back stage they met some crazy
folks from west virginia that were in the band slated
to play immediately afterward. 8-bit played and the
show wasnt so fun but the sound guy was really nice
and we weaseled a couple of free beers a piece. there
were few people there but they were pretty fun anyway.
the set was done and 8-bit cleared the stage.

Anti-log @ The Hi Ho, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

cryptorchid chipmunk (which is a chipmunk with one
testicle) came on next. i'll leave this to joey to
describe cause i will spend 5 pages writing about
them. completely out of control.... (joey's entry below)

the mormons played last and finished out the night on
a positive note. the sound guy was having a great
time watching them and was really upbeat and positive
about everything. the few people in the crowd were
appreciative and nice. its a shame there wasn't more
people there but what can you do when you get a last
minute show?? all you can do is make the best of it
and the mormons did just that.

we all headed back to tinas and had a really late
night BBQ of chicken, hamburgers, hot links, and corn
on the cob. we made a couple of sides in tinas
kitchen and had a big old feast...

there was an after dinner parking lot smoke out and
wound down from a long stretch of driving and a
breakneck tour schedule. people made late night phone
calls to friends and loved ones before calling it a
night and crashing.

we all really wanted to go to the french quarter to
show the mormons around and get fucked up but we were
just too damn tired. when all is said and done we
will average a show a day covering over 10,000 miles.
you just dont have time to do all the touristy shit
you wanna do...

we crashed out and were ready for the first of 4 shows
total in texas. californias dreaded texas..

Patrick @ The Hi Ho, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

Joey wrote:
It rained more than I have ever seen. New Orleans was suffering the wrath of some hurricane’s outer rim. It’s a night off for us. I hate nights off. I like to keep the momentum up, and a night off seems like a waste of time. My shirt’s been wet for hours now and it’s getting dark. Someone’s ex lives here so we camp out and I’m finally relieved to jump into a pool. My god. It feels so good. I miss comfort. Our sentence is almost up leaving only a third of the tour. When we get home, comfort will be taken for granted again. No more tactics of espionage finding somewhere to use the restroom. I’ll miss it.
As I return from the pool, Vic, the best merch guy in the world, informs me he has found us a gig that night and that we have to go now. I was looking forward to barbeque, but that would have to wait. It was time to rock.

We showed up to a club somewhere in New Orleans, but away from the French Quarter. It looked pretty shady. So as we predicted no one was there, except for a band from West Virginia. So we tried to make friends with them and the staff at the bar, and Vic had 2 friends there, so it was time to rock. Except, the 8bits were playing first, and the second band insisted on keeping its slot. I would stand there watching my friends plod through their set for absolutely no one, doing so like the soldiers they are. The other band and staff really loved them. Of course they did. They are a honed, drunken machine. At there absolute worst, they will fucking take it out on the audience and blow you away…. but at their best, like tour has made them now …they can do no wrong. So they fucken destroy everyone, and everyone is licking their ass, stating the obvious: ‘you guys are great’…’nest time I’ll promote the show’….’aww, sorry man, GWAR's playing in town tonite..’ I love to see the faces of people when they are indifferent with us when we walk in, and after we play they are willing to snort your butthole. In the case of the next band, this was literally the case. We were out in the van when they started. I could here was bunch of starts and stops. I might like this music. I thought back to and hour earlier when I met them. They were responding nicely to my nice guy introduction. I introduced myself to everyone in the room except the girls. These girls were no doubt the girlfriends of these guys and I was Mr. Nice right now so…..Well it turns out that those girls two solid guitar-playing musicians and I’m just a life-long chauvinist. The second girl was playing one of those basses with no real body..What are they called? Steinberg or something. The music was wild enough and not completely inaccessible. So I watched. They were going for the crazy thing. The girls were half naked and soon I noticed the dudes were too. I wasn’t feeling too homophobic by their thongs and stuff, so I watched. The 2 girls were at the front of the stage now, and though we are faithful as old dogs, I watched. Pretty soon one of the dude pulls down his pants exposing himself to the audience and starts lighting his pubic hair on fire. Later on I would hear people in our party say that it smelled really bad. I was far enough away to not smell anything or anybody, so I continued to watch. Just when I decided that guy was the crazy one, the guy in an old dress comes to the front of the stage. I have to stop here. If I think about it too visually I will start gagging again.

O.k. I have a weak stomach about certain things. Rotten food growing and moving, I don’t care. Dead animals dead with maggots writhing, somebody pass the Tapatio. GET A BABY AND CHOP HIN IN HALF WITH A CHAINSAW, better him than me. But show me a shit, other than my own, being used out of context other than the norm,..I’ll freak out. I first discovered this about 10 years ago when my then band-mate Dave brought back what he referred to as shit tapes from NYC. I trotted along the low quality footage until this chick bites a poop like it was a candy bar. Even as I’m writing this, I must be very careful not to truly visualize. That was it. I was running out of the room gagging, with my eyes full of tears. Vowing never to go in that room again. They coaxed me for a moment and I almost threw up.The second time I came across my kryptonite was years later. Again on video, I was eagerly watch the GG allin documentary as was wiping shit all over himself and throwing it at the audience. WHOA! Gagging hard. Another scene, some chick is pissing in his mouth and he is barfing as he is drinking it. Fuck. That fucked me up for a long time. Watching. Still watching. I still had no idea that the guy in the dress lifted his skirt. But he did. He then grabbed a beer cup and proceeded to piss in it. Things would be happening for about four seconds before I would realize what was going on. Before I fucken knew it, this guy was drinking, I mean DRINKING a huge beer cup full of his OWN PISS!! Gulping it down. My mind tried to tell me that it was beer. No. Not beer. Apple Juice? No fucking apple juice in this dive. PISS. Holy Shit. I recoiled. I was trying to keep my composure. I was embarrassed but my face and neck began to contort . I tried to make my way to the door but the room was spinning. The sound man crossed my path and I tried my best to hide my grimace. He wore the opposite facce. All smiles from ear to ear. I’m sure he saw me, and I’m sure the fact that he seen me about to barf probably pleased him. I altered my path now heading straight for the door. I made outside with a mouthful of barf and puked on the sidewalk grass. Giving the history of this area, I’m sure that I’m not the first. I kinda paced around trying to calm myself. I don’t know if I can go back in there.

Cryptorchid Chipmink @ The Hi Ho, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

Cryptorchid Chupmunk, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

ATHENS, GA 7/13/05

2005-07-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

Joey, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

Spacey K, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

Anti-log @ Tasty World, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

Tracer Matula, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

Those crazy Mormons, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

jumped in the pool, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

Faded, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

CHAPEL HILL, NC 7/12/05

2005-07-12T17:48:00.000-07:00

we rolled into chapel hill in the early afternoon and called out homie
dee dee who was randomly staying in chapel hill to see a friend. we
were in bad need of showers so she was cool enough to let all 10 of us
come up to her hotel room and wash the sweat and spit off ourselves.
the frequency guys washed up and headed into town to check it out. the
8-bitches and josh curled up on floors and in windowsills to crash a
power nap before the show.

refreshed and road weary, the crew headed into town following many a
pro-bush auto on the freeway (interstate goddammit!!!) we got to the
venue, the night light, and the rest of the mormons were already
there. there was a comedy show going on in the venue and the place was
some weird bookstore that they sold beer at.

chapel hill is a weird place and has the most jogging people we've ever
seen... we met up with our micromusic homie jeremy from the
receptors. there was NO ONE at the club so we got drunk on the
sidewalk and people were doing bong rips. it was the last night of
frequencies leg of the tour so they were extra aggressive and obnoxious
with passers by. they said fuck it and decided not to even bother
playing....

it turns out that one of the guys from Ween was playing around the
corner and everyone that was breathing or living was at that club. we
got a real late start and the mormons finally said fuck it and decided
to play. there were about 4 people in the venue that weren't in one of
the other bands. a member of 8-bit even had to bribe a girl to come
into the club by buying her a 7-up. she stayed for about two mormons
songs and then took off...

8-bit was about to start and le-frost walked into the bar next door and
told people that she would punch people in the face if they didn't come
see 8-bit. oddly enough, like 10 people followed her into the club.
8-bit went a little spaz and were climbing on the bookshelves. the
sound was crap and there were very few people at the show but it turned
out to be fun afterall.... the robots finished their set and cleared
the stage for jeremy from the receptors.

jeremy said fuck it and he decided not to play either. everyone just
rolled out into the street and the guys from frequency wound up
leaving??? what a weird fucking night?? the nakedest band on earth
just bounced without playing or saying real goodbyes. weird as hell...
hopefully we will see them again in september.

the robots hung out with jeremy smoking pot and drinking beer. the
club said that they weren't going to pay any of the bands so we stole a
bunch of books that we've always wanted as payment. no matter what
happens, 8-bit always finds a way to get some form of payment. this
time it was about $60 in books. wooo fucking hooo. that will fill the
gas tank..

jeremy wound up taking off and the robots hung out on the street and
got drunk with the few people that were at the show. there was a
two-piece tall wooden sign in front of the club that had their events
listed on it. robo-t's drunken ass said that he wanted to try to
hurdle it. people were trying to talk him out of it but there is just
no convincing a drunken robot what is good for him...

he got a good running start and leapt high into the air. he almost
cleared it but got his two caught on the top of the sign and he took a
full-on header into the curb and the sign rolled up on top of him. it
was funny as fucking hell.....

we dragged our broken asses out of there and headed back to dee dee's
hotel room. the door guy wasn't too happy with 6 people going up to a
tiny one bed room but he let us up anyway. a few minutes later, he
called up to the room and said we had to get a hotel room too...
motherfucker!! the club didnt pay and now this dick wants us to pay
for a room too??? we havent stayed at a hotel this whole trip. why
would we want to start in chapel hill of all places??

dee dee was so fucking nice. she agreed to pay for a hotel room for us
in exchange for some robo-sexual favors. a robot quickly agreed and
she got us a room!!! man, that girl is so nice!!! we got a good night
of sleep and everyone got to shower. she made a shitty date on tour
really fun and nice. dee dee rules!!!

COLUMBUS, OH 7/11/05

2005-07-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

Jay of Frequency Needs A Mate, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

so we drove through the night and arrived back in ohio. bodie had a
flight back to LA and we had some time to kill so we found a park and
hung out. people spread out sleeping bags and got got some much needed
rest. it was hot as hell but everyone managed to got a little sleep.
we thought about jumping into the lake but it was too disgusting.

we woke up from a nap and it was hot as a bitch. spacey-k was
completely MIA due to one of his two hour long nature hikes. robo-t
was spotted jogging around the lake in 100 degree weather??? he said
fuck it and jumped in the murky ass lake and went for a swim. the lake
turned out to only be 3 feet deep and there were ultra-aggro fish. the
fish were jumping all around robo-t and one even jumped and landed on
his head. it was like the fish were trying to drown him. he came out
of the lake with nasty mud on his leg. gross as hell...

spacey-k eventually returned to the shuttle craft and we rambled to the
airport so bodie could catch his flight back to LA. we bid a very fond
farewell to our crazy documentary homie. its really crazy that this
guy wanted to film 8-bit in the first place. its even crazier that he
jumped in the van and left on tour with the drunken douchebags. its
crazier still that he turned out to be the coolest, most helpful guy.
he started out as some weird guy with a camera in our faces and wound
up a super cool friend. any one of us would have bodies back no matter
what and would jump in a car in a second to go bar hopping with that
guy. he is a really rad guy.

we said our good-byes at the airport and rolled into town. turns out
the club, little brothers, is pretty much on top of ohio state
university. it is a really nice town and people were friendly. we
made some fliers for the show and handed them out. le-frost wound up
giving several to crack heads. probably cause we could really go for
some crack.

we headed back to the club and a gang of really cool people from the
dayton show drove a fucking hour to come and get loaded with us. alee,
the patron saint of diluted ohio liquor, came with another bottle of
whiskey. this time matt couldnt make it so we were a little bummed but
she managed to bring a grip of super cool friends with her. also, the
super rad folks that invited us to the dayton after party showed up and
immediately got down with drinking and smoking some shit.

our super crazy boston homies from frequency needs a mate arrived and
the party was officially on!!! things cant help but be fun with them
and the dayton crew....

marvin the robot played. they (he) were the cool motherfucker that set
up the show. they played an eclectic set of crazy songs and were fun
guys. he played a rare show with an additional member on stage that
played a crazy song about satan. god we love satan!!!!

Marvin The Robot, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

frequency took shit over and played a rocking ass set even though the
crowd was reluctant to have fun. alee led the charge and anti-log
stripped to his underwear to cheer on the frequency homies. they
played a great show and were getting drunk as hell. especially jay....
that guy took more shots than i've ever seen..... i dont know how
the hell he managed to play drums. chris, colin, and kevin were doing
lines in the bathroom that were easily a foot long. we cooked a
fucking monster shot for john and he was nodding like hell on stage.
they are the drug takenest motherfuckers we've ever met.

John of Frequency Needs A Mate, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

after being completely upstaged by the performance and sheer
consumption, 8-bit meekly took the stage.

little brothers is a big place and big acts roll through there all the
time. somehow they had one mike and one cable. that it??? fucking
mr. ts can more than handle 8-bits limited needs and this club thats
about as big as the glass house doesn't have shit?? what the fuck???

8-bit realized that somehow someone stole a fucking helmet. we are
nearly positive that one of the meat heads stole one of our 'fucking
faggot helmets'. piece of shit motherfuckers. steal from a
corporation, not poor ass robots that are on tour.... i hope whoever
it was dies a painful, homo-erotic death....

whatever. le-frost sucked it up and went helmetless. there were some
technical difficulties getting the set started. we were pretty sure it
was the sound guys first gig or something. completely useless. josh
from the mormons and robo-t had to teach him how to work a sound board.
once the bullshit was figured out the robots had to rock it with one
mike and missing a helmet. fuck it.

the dayton crew and the frequency guys were stripping like mad. there
is something that just makes things so much more fun when people get
crazy and naked. the robots quickly followed suit and shed clothing
too. it turned out to be this mad mix of robo-rap and naked
free-for-all.

HELL YEAH BITCH!, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

Gettin freaky with 8 Bit, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

it turned out to be a really fun show and it was great to see the
dayton folks. they are the fucking best. what band would you drive an
hour to see?? pretty much no one. those crazy motherfuckers made the
drive to see 8-bit??? are you fucking kidding??? super awesome people
and they are down to have mad fun. when we hit the road again in
september we will surely drop by ohio to have a mad drunken fun time
again....

we bid sad farewells and hopped into the space craft for the long ass
drive to chapel hill, NC. frequency and 8-bit drove through the night
and almost hit several deer in west virginia. driving driving and more
driving. the mormons somehow found a show in washington DC and were
able to play as a four piece since 8-bit hijacked josh. we hope they
had a fun show and will have safe travels to meet up with us in chapel hill...

BALTIMORE, MD 7/10/05

2005-07-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

aside from john waters, what do you know about baltimore? turns out
there isn't that much more to know about the place.

8-bit arrived to the club and shawn phase was there. the guy is a one
man show that plays guitar to nintendo tracks while sporting a power
glove and wearing a helmet. he was fucking rad and there were a few
people that went to see him play. we drank pabst and hung out talking
and waiting for the mormons to arrive with the gear. the bar was
really weird and wanted to close at 9pm and there was no sign of the
mormons who got lost on the way to maryland.

Shawn Phaze @ The Mojo Room & Lounge, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

we stalled as long as possible but they got fed up with us and told us
that if 8-bit didnt play right away they were going to close the bar.
what the fuck?? who closes a bar at 9pm. i could maybe see opening a
bar at 9pm, but closing it??? fuck it, we were there so we may as well
play. we had to do something we've never done before.. perform as a
disgusting human version of 8-bit!!

The robots in human form., originally uploaded by shitface1000.

there were a few people there that came to see the robots so they said
fuck it and played. anti-log had frequency hang over so he played in
his underwear. the human-bots played and in the middle of one of the
first songs, a guy pants anti-log. what can you do, right? anti-log
spit at him but missed. the salivary glob snuck just between the guy
and his girlfriends faces.

now, if you wanna be part of the show, make sure you want to be part of
the show... anti-log spent the entire set making fun of the guy during
his verses and threw lots of references to his whore girlfriend. the
entire song 'suck my dick' was sung directly to the girlfriend and the
boyfriend was squirming. it was fucking funny and the guy was really
bummed.

the show ended and anti-log went up to him and asked if had anything to
say. the guy said, 'that was a fucking great show. you guys are
awesome!!!' he then hugged anti-log. 8-bit exists in this weird
alternate universe where you can call a guys girlfriend a 'disease
riddled whore' for thirty minutes and have the guy give thanks and
affections. what the fuck???

shawn phase had to take off and the mormons still hadn't arrived so the
half-bots hung out on the sidewalk talking to some fucking great
people. we met justin, chris, rebecca, and her boyfriend who is
awesome but im too drunk to remember his name. we also talked to the
bar tender who was really cool and is interested in doing an 8-bit
remix. we hung out and we were loaded but not loaded enough for out
likings. the mormons showed up at the club about an hour after they
were closed and we loaded some stuff into the 8-bit van and separated.
there was a stupid argument and we needed a day off from each other so
we separated for a day.

Chillin @ The Mojo Room & Lounge, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

the 8-bitches kidnapped josh and we headed out with our baltimore
homies to go to a bar that they frequent. we got a little lost and had
to take a piss break but we got to the club and it was fucking great!!
half of it was a bar and half of it was a liquor store. we ordered
shots and beers and proceeded to get tore the fuck up.

8-bit decided to say fuck it and play a parking lot show for the few
people that were at the bar. we tossed an instrumental cd into the van
cd player and just went for it in the parking lot. a cop from inside
the bar came out and shut us down. fuck it. we started launching off
bottle rockets in the parking lot. the cop asked for one but seemed
like he had no concept of their function. he was a big ass guy and he
held one in his hand. instead of holding on loosely to let if fly out
his hand, he squeezed the shit out of it and it was burning the shit
out of his hand. he looked down to witness up close where the pain was
coming from and it blew up right in his face. it was so fucking
funny...

we went back in the bar and had good conversation telling of old war
stories of past alcoholic tragedies. the drinking continued on and on
and then things started getting weird.....

some guy that had to be in his mid 50's was dancing on a table and
taking his clothes off.

What the fuck?, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

we went to the back area to see what was going on and it was a weird
series of people rallying each other to take their clothes off. it
broke out into this weird group of people, a redneck bartender, a group
of lesbian girls, an old lady, and some indian (the tee-pee kind). it
was weird drinking and nakedness. one girl, who will remain nameless
(though if you have any deductive reasoning could easily figure out)
took her top off complete with bra for $5!! it was awesome though we
were too shy to take pictures...

we finished out drinks and anti-log puked in the urinal while pissing.
we headed over to rebeccas house and she offered to cook everyone food.
rebecca rules!!! it doesnt get nicer than that... so we headed over
to her house and spacey-k passed out in the van. anti-log made it to
the house (somehow with a stolen nextel phone in his hand) and passed
out on the floor in the front room. josh, bodie, robo-t and le-frost
hung out and enjoyed great company and great food. rebecca even
offered to let the robots crash but they had a long ass drive to get to
columbus ohio. there were hugs and appreciations all around. again, a
small pocket of people made a perfectly forgettable show turn into a
super fun night of traveling. its crazy how we have found a way to
sift through entire cities and find the coolest motherfuckers that live
there. i swear its the buddha bracelet thats keeping us safe and
helping us to find incredible people.

we hit the road for a long ass drive....

NEW YORK CITY 7/7-8-9/05

2005-07-09T19:29:00.000-07:00

Jimmy in Time Squares, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

we woke up at around noon which is early for us. we all had some
breakfast courtesy of Le-Frost and Vic. its about goddamn time we got
a girl in the kitchen... we ate, drank coffee, took shits, and packed
our stuff for our first shows ever in NYC. we were warned by everyone
that new yorkers were mean and aggressive so we got some baseball bats
easily accessible in our vans.

we made the short 4 hour drive but The Mormons got stopped on the way
into the city at a toll booth. I guess some bombs were set off in
London so New York was on high alert for shit to go down. there was a
short delay and the mormons were released from their search. we really
hope our friend trist that just came to visit us is ok in London. if
our phones worked for anything i would call her.

we got to manhattan and pulled up to CBGB's. man, i dont feel like i
should have to tell anyone how significant that club has been to
changing american culture and music... we were a little awestruck at
the door of CB's and it was our first show ever in new york. then we
got inside....

Vince, Patrick, & Kelly @ CBGB's, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

Joey at "Joey Ramone Place", originally uploaded by shitface1000.

tourist trap piece of shit. the fucking bathrooms were clean?? what
the fuck?? they are about to close the club any day now cause we heard
the rent there was now 40,000 a month. its a fucking t-shirt shop more
than a club now.

we parked the van and loaded in and were making fun of some band that
was having a photo shoot out front of the club. they were wearing
make-up, like foundation and all, with a lighting crew and all that
shit. bunch of fucking posers. i made a point of spitting on their
van when we had to move ours around the corner.

we ventured out to get some authentic NY pizza at Rays and some booze
at a little market on 2nd. we had a van party and proceeded to get
loaded less than a block from the club. a gang of friends showed up to
roll the party. mary and eli from the monolators, le-frosts cousin
andre, todd and edie, chris, ping, and sheena. we were getting loaded
listening to roxanne shante and biz-markee.

the fellaz from frequency needs a mate began the evening and are crazy
tight. those guys have crazy energy and it comes across in their
music. you should look up the band on myspace and do a search to find
their website. they are a great band and the hands down funniest and
craziest motherfuckers we've ever met.

Frequency Needs A Mate @ CBGB's, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

the turnout was pretty bad for the show but more friends loaded into
the club to make it fun. airin, nico, becky were in town from LA.
gina, abigail, and mariam rolled to the show who are lovely
sweethearts. dj ness, the greatest DJ and coolest girl ever. patricks
grandpa, niece, and cousin. there were a few more friends of airins
and a supercute girl that i was too drunk to remember her name...

the mormons played next and blew shit up. i don't know what else to
say... they brought it hard and drowned out whatever bullshit rehash
of nu-metal that was coming from the next room. it felt like the
mormons could have played that same stage in the mid 70's and would
have held their own with any band that rolled through there. they can
hold their own with any band now. its a damn crime that more people
don't know about them. if you don't own the mormons album or haven't
seen them live then you are missing out on something that is real in a
diluted and crappy time in music history. go buy the bravery album you
damn poser...

The Mormons @ CBGB's, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

8-bit came on next and the CBGB's staff didn't really know what to make
of a rap group playing at the punk mecca. the 8-bitches were able to
drink and smoke waayy to much before the show and had celebratory
drinks with all the homies. they got on and it was a drunken wreck.
one of those shows where a mike isn't working, the robots can't
remember their lines, they can't stand up, and they hurt themselves.

anti-log had some sort of iggy pop flashback and broke a bottle and cut
himself several times. it was some sort of twisted homage to the club
that started so much of the imagery that we know today, he was dripping
blood everywhere and he wiped a mess of blood on his face mask. he
went into the crowd wiping blood on everyone that was too slow to get
away. the bots wound up tangled in a a mess of cables and blood on the
floor.

LeFrost @ CBGB's, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

the show was really fun but CBGB's refused to pay 8-bit cause the bots
somehow broke a microphone?? gimme a fucking break... CBGB's being a
bitch cause a rap group was too punk?? what a pathetic piece of shit
club... if thats how they do shit then let if fucking close. the
originators of that club would be chopping heads in that place getting
rid of everyone involved if they knew shit like that was going on.

after the show, we all said goodbye to the friends that had to go and
the groups split on different missions. jimmy and josh headed to time
square and ground zero to check out crazy shit in the city. le-frost
and tim went to the slipper room and they met up with preston, dj
ness's boyfriend. they had some drinks and stumbled into the strongest
weed they ever smoked. le-frost was out of her mind stoned. joey,
patrick, sheena, robo-t, spacey-k, and anti-log were told there was a
club that would give them all free booze. the followed airin, nico and
a pocket of beautiful girls they know to find the free liquor.

they all got to a club that turned out to be in the basement of another
club. it also turned out to be a gay club and liquor wasnt free.
they all managed to have fun dancing and weaseling one free drink out
of the place. when it came time to buy drinks they decided to leave
and go on a quest for $2 pabst.

le-frost and tim eventually hooked back up with the large crew and
rolled on with the drinking. eventually everyone rounded back up
behind CBGB's and said good-byes. the big ass crew headed to a friends
house in long island to crash out and rest up for the show at lit the
next night.

some confusions about sleeping arrangements happened and there was some
bummed out folks about van sleeping after driving all the way to long
island. fuck, its tour, what can you do??

Lit Lounge and The Slipper Room

most of the mormons headed back to manhattan and the 8-bitters got some
sleep in long island. they got some food and coffee at the stop 20
diner and then headed into manhattan to meet the mormons at lit.

we loaded into the back room of the club with the fancy coffee table
and ventured off to the liquor store. we ended up getting thai food
next door and the funny memory of that was spacey-k sitting down and
breaking the chair. we all got a pretty good laugh and had some pretty
tasty food.

we met up with the same crew of friends and super cute girls with the
addition of preston. the basement of lit is a small little dark cave.
we hung out in the back room getting loaded, smoking incredible weed,
and hearing a funny tale of cocaine consumption off the fancy coffee
table. we missed the first two bands cause we were busy getting
loaded.

the mormons went on third and drew some lazy drinkers from upstairs.
the stage is like 6 inches tall due to the low ceilings and the sound
was pretty good. the subs in the club were in need of replacing or
upgrading but the sound was loud enough for the narrow room. i guess
the first band was an acoustic act and the second band was a
semi-mellow rock group. the mormons built up the energy of the place
through their set.

by the end of the set people were getting drunk and were moving around
a bit. it was good to see that some people want to have fun when they
leave their houses. cute cute girls dancing and having fun while the
mormons brought the noise.

the mormons finished their set and left their equipment on the stage.
it was so crowded at that point that it would have been impossible to
return their gear to the back room. 8-bit doesn't give a shit about
playing on the floor so they took it from there.

one of the robots climbed the stairs to fuck around in the streets and
annoy the supposedly angry new yorkers. when the robot went back into
the club the door guy asked to see ID?? what the fuck?? like if he
had an ID in his ro-body he'd be able to compare it with the picture?
some common sense was pumped into the door guy and he let the robot
back in.

the robots were reunited and launched into their set. there was no
room to move around and robots kept hitting their heads on the ceiling
when they tried to climb on chairs and tables. all in all it was a
good show and people were really cool and fun. when the set came to a
close there was some shouting for an encore but the sound guy wouldn't
let the robots bust that shit.

dj-ness was having no part of the evening ending so she made a call
over to the slipper room. she announced (at something like 2am) that
8-bit was going to play at the slipper room and everyone should go. no
shit??? a big posse rolled out of lit and made the journey to the next
club.

we arrived at the slipper room and rolled the drunk 10 fold. the
slipper room is a burlesque club where cute girls occasionally dance to
8-bit songs. we were welcomed by todd and edie. dj-ness was hooking
up the robots with drinks and getting more people into the club. they
had to chase ethan hawk out of the club so 8-bit could play. maybe
they were worried about the liability???

so 8-bit began a set that airin wrote at something like 3am and played
some more of the obscure songs that the old school homies know. the
club was fucking packed and it was a drunken mess. it was so fucking
fun and the place was full of beautiful girls. sooo fucking fun!!!

8-bit finished and josh and sheena pulled out merch for the sake of
trying to help out tour funding. shit was flying off the tables.

the robots went out front of the club to get some air and talk to
friends and thank people for supporting but they were drunk as hell.
everyone was being so nice, anti-log was bummed. he said something
about asking where all the angry new yorkers were and he invited people
to spit on him. at first people were saying no but only at first.
soon he was covered in authentic new york spit.

everyone divided up, some going back to the crash house in long island,
some venturing into the city to sight see, and some people headed to an
amazing loft on the boarder of china town. the loft was incredible!!!
good friends, beautiful girls, and new friends we just made markus and
circus.

anti-log was immediately thrown into the shower to wash off his new
york souvineer spit. he was so drunk he didnt know what was going on.
he came out soaking wet in his underwear and passed out on the floor
in front of a big speaker.

being purposeful, names have been withheld, but a big sack of coke
showed up at 7am. people were playing with anagrams, dancing, playing
loud music, and drinking heavily. a good and lecherous time was had by
all.

things eventually wound down once the bag was empty and a little sleep
was had by all. manhattan fucking ruled!!!!!

LeFrost & Tim chillin in Brooklyn, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

long islang show

we woke up and wiped the crust from our eyes. we eventually dragged
our bitch asses out of the loft and airin took everybody out for cuban
food at cafe habana. goddamn, you trip over beautiful girls in new
york. they are everywhere... every ethnicity, every shape, size,
color. its overwhelming or maybe we've been on the road too long. the
waitresses there are jaw dropping. no wonder lenny kravitz made a
video about falling in love with a girl in that place.

the food was great and the company was better. we enjoyed the walk
back through little italy and china town back to the loft. anti-log
even nicked an art deco ashtray to give to their gracious hostesses.

we got back to the pad and we found nico and becky getting ready to
leave to go back home to LA. we all tried to talk them into staying in
new york for a longer period of time but nico was really sick. we
helped them with their baggage down the stairs and said goodbyes.

we tried to talk airin into hitching a ride with us back to LA and to
finish out the last two weeks with us on tour. he was tempted but had
to get back to take care of shit in LA sooner than we could offer him.
we said sad goodbyes to the super-cute trio of girls and to airin and
we loaded into the space craft to go to long island for the next show.

the two sets of stragglers made the drive back into long island for a
house party at diana's. we all met up with the frequency needs a mate
fellows and the fucking momolators!!! we proceeded to get drunk.

we were wondering where all the supposed angry and hateful new yorkers
were when we were in manhattan. we found out... there are mobs of
them in long island. to say that long islanders have an accent is
understatement. its like a different language. a very angry,
aggressive, hateful, and loud language. there were some really cool and
fun people there but they were outnumbered by the meathead-fest.

there were a total of 8 bands slated to play in the basement of one
house and the first keg was cashed after the 2nd band. recipe for
disaster.

dianas friend angie played in a drums in a band and kicked ass. there
is something about girls that play drums, i dont know what it is...
and when a girl plays the drum well???? fogettaboudit.

there were a couple of metal bands interspersed in the mix that dragged
even more hatred out of the swarm of mental midgets. i have no problem
with metal, we grew up on the shit, i have a problem with ignorant
people. we were at a place that people wouldnt meet the minimum
requirements to enter a special olympics essay competition.

frequency needs a mate were the first of the touring groups to play and
they were fantastic. they managed to win over both the cool people and
the meat-heads. it was a magical thing to see... did i mention that
the guys in frequency needs a mate are the funniest people are earth??
there will be more on that later... they played a great show and
really bridged some gaps at that party.

Chris/FNAM - basement show in Long Island, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

Keith/FNAM - basement show in Long Island, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

the monolators followed one of those screaming metal bands but were
delayed due to yet another visit from the police. once the cops left
the party started up again and the second keg arrived. mary and eli
rarely perform as a two piece but they are the dynamic duo and can do
anything they set their minds on doing. they were fucking great and
angie had her mouth hung open the entire show. it looked like she was
witnessing the greatest 25 minutes of live music she has ever seen, and
it very well might have been. they had one super fan that was half
naked and dancing spastically through their whole set. hhe had a
pom-pom and was flipping out. it was great to see.

the monolators are one of those rare bands that makes everyone smile
and have a good time. im so glad we got to see those guys in NY. they
are the nicest and coolest damn people. its such a huge bonus that
their songs rule! i'll be their best friends in space or anywhere else
for that matter.

The Monolators - basement show in Long Island, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

the mormons were slated to go on next but when it came time to play
they discovered that jimmy's bass was missing from the trailer.
fucking shit. they jumped in their van and headed back to manhattan to
look for the bass at lit. luckily they found it but not in time to
play the party so they hung out in manhattan.

the police came to the party again and gave diana a ticket. they said
if they had to come back that they would arrest her. she signed the
ticket and got everyone back in the house that girl doesn't give a
fuck. 10 minutes later 8-bit played regardless of cops and what might
happen to diana. if the state of wyoming had half the balls that this
little long island girl has they could have had an amazing time when we
were there. the moral of the story on that one is probably that
pussies dont deserve to have fun.

the basement was HOT and the robots were about to die, then something
amazing happened. people started taking their clothes off!!! the
robots looked up to see a mob of naked or near naked people all over
the basement. it was mostly guys but it was masterminded by the guys
from frequency. those guys are the nakedest band i've ever seen.

Frequency Needs A Mate getting Naked with 8-Bit, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

it was a drunken slip and slide of naked people and beer. the
meat-heads stayed near the back or went upstairs. a few guys with
their shirts off made them sexually confused so they had to back away.
8-bit nearly suffered heat stroke but finished the set like the
robo-soldiers that they are. it was really fun after all... we went
upstairs to continue getting drunk. its been this recurring thing
that we are trying to kill ourselves every night with liquor. its like
the movie leaving las vegas was merged with 'on the road'.

when we got upstairs we heard a meat-head say 'whats up with that
faggot band?' we also heard, 'i went down stairs and it was like a
bunch of naked fags everywhere. fucking sick.' we didn't feel so bad
about the blowjob that one of their girlfriends handed out later that
night. its gotta suck to kiss the lips of a girl that just sucked off
a 'faggot'. dumbasses. another ironic thing was that one of the
meat-heads was caught singing the chorus to 'suck my dick' a half hour
later. its gotta be rough singing a 'faggot' chorus. loser patrol.

one of the funniest things that happened was a flash of brilliance led
by Jay, the drummer of frequency. one of the meat-heads was wearing a
metallica shirt. jay asked him if he liked metallic and he said, 'fuck
yeah, im wearin the shirt!!' there was a live mike nearby so jay asked
him to sing 'enter sandman'. metalli-meat-head got all pissed off. he
was saying that jay didnt know what the REAL metallica was all about.
he said that enter sandman was shit and that metallica got soft and
their real shit was the old shit. jay told him that he just really
like enter sandman. the guy got crazy and and asked jay if he was
fucking with him. he said 'this is my dads shirt. if you wanna fight,
we'll take it outside motherfucker.' it was sooo fucking funny. the
guy was so disgusted at the thought of enter sandman that he took the
shirt off and walked upstairs.

if i told every disgusting thing in detail this would be incredibly
long. here are some quick highlights and quotes.

'you're my best friend, dont make me punch you in the fucking face' (he
wasn't kidding)

'emo faggots will die. the only real music is blood metal!' (quoted
from a guy with frosted hair)

'what did i did?' (same frosted haired guy)

a scrawny vanilla ice rapper guy was trying to fight an obviously drunk
girl in a dinner dress

'i think this dog is a faggot'

it goes on and on and on... the next highlight was the kid with the
pom pom had passed out on a bed. since homophobia was the prevailing
theme of the party, the frequency guys decided to have some fun with
it. they put high heels on the guy, some female undergarments, nail
polish, some choice accessories, and topped it off with spitting in a
condom and leaving it next to his face. unfortunately the camera
crapped out cause it was sooo fucking funny.

we all had some quick gay sex and went to bed to prepare for the drive
to balitmore..

WORCESTER, MA 7/5/05

2005-07-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

we stopped along the way quite a bit and switched several drivers. we
got through ohio, pennsylvania, and got into upstate new york. i
think a lot of people on the west coast have no idea that New York
State is rural and really pretty. We saw deer on the side of the
freeway and even stopped briefly in Amsterdam. It is a suprisingly
pretty state.

NY Toll Ticket, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

we eventually arrived at our Mass. destination and couldn’t believe
what we arrived to. we got to the house that josh from the mormons
grew up at and it is amazing. an unbelievable house on a bug ass lake
complete with boats, canoes, kyacks, and plenty of room to crash for
everyone.

Tony in the lake, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

since no one had any tour lovin, we flew in some affection. after
quickly checking the place out and checking in, it was off to boston
airport to pick up cute sisters. it was probably the best night of
sleep on tour....

Patrick, Sheena, Ping, & Andy on the boat, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

we woke up in the morning and went swimming, boat riding, and canoe
tripping. after an exhasuting day on the lake, we headed in to
worcester and got to the Luck Dog Saloon.

It turns out the Rolling Stones did quite a bit of recording in Mass
and actually played on the very same stage that the Mormons and 8-bit
were about to play on. It had some making of a good night so we went
to the liquor store and got stocked up with beer and liquor for a blow
our parking lot party.

On the way to the show, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

before the show started, robo-t and vince both vomited in the parking
lot. it was also josh’s brother tim’s 24th birthday so we got him a
cupcake and sang happy birthday. we couldn’t find any candles so we
had a bottle rocket birthday cake.

josh met up with several old friends from his home town and anti-log
got to see his old friend Lee from the indiana days. the drunk rolled
on until josh’s friends began to play in a band called ‘frequency needs
a mate’. we all knew Chris and Jay from a whirlwind visit they had in
LA a couple of years ago.

Parking Lot Party, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

They tore into their set and brought the energy from a yawn to getting
some people off their asses. the fellas in the band will be hitting
several shows with us on the eastern leg of tour and we are exited to
get to see more of these guys. they are really cool guys and know how
to bring the rock..

FNAM @ The Lucky Dog, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

8-bit went up next and were more aggressive than usual. This was
josh’s homecoming and a lot the people in the place were busy drinking
and talking instead of being there to check out some fresh live music.
8-bit made fun of the name of the town, called the crowd a bunch of fat
lazy bastards. One of the 8-bitters even got behind the back bar and
swigged off a whiskey bottle. Slowly, people got off their asses and
into the show and it was just in time for the mormons.

8 bit at the lucky dog, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

the mormons came out and josh’s homies moved up to the front of the
club. patrick started going nuts immediately and wrapped himself up in
the steps that led up to the stage. Joey was playing drums so hard
that his helmet wouldn’t stay on his head and it became more of a scarf
than a helmet.

Jimmy plays bass and the guy is a work horse. He doesnt complain, he
doesn’t get trashed, he just takes the stage every night and plays
flawlessly. The guy holds everything together and he does it modestly.
Jimmy is the silent backbone of the mormons.

Vince pulled it together after puking to play a super tight show.
Patrick was everywhere playing the better part of some songs outside
with the help of a wireless mike. Josh played through the most pain of
any show yet. His hand seems to be getting worse instead of better.

The Mormons @ The Lucky Dog, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

the show wound down and the owner and bouncer were all pissed off about
the 8-bit whiskey bottle incident. we were sure that a fight was going
to break out but nothing mmaterialized. instead we went across the
street for some bomb ass food.

we headed back to josh’s folks house and partied till we couldn’t take
it anymore. we knew we had a day off before heading to new york so
everyone got deep and heavy sleep.

so we had an amazing day in a beautiful house on a spectacularly clear
lake. it was slightly rainy but it was a welcome relief from the heat.
josh got to catch up with really cool friends of his and anti-log got
to catch up with an old friend of his.

vic and robo-t cooked up a mexican feast and casual beer drinking and
pot smoking was enjoyed by all. if we miss one thing aside from loved
ones, its tapatio hot sauce. when we moved to LA we never heard of
tapatio and now we cant eat anything without it.

when we get off this crazy trip we are gonna have a carne asada bbq to
end all bbq's at the house and we are going to do shots of tapatio.
goddamit. you ever tried to eat a taco with tabasco?? please.....

everyone caught up on laundry and sleep. everyone took showers and
just relaxed on a lazy day in paradise. josh has the coolest folks
ever. who the hell puts up 14 people for 3 days?? especially the gang
of douche bags that are rolling on this trip...

all in all, we had a nice relaxing break from the tour before we
finally landed in new york city.

DAYTON, OH 7/3/04

2005-07-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

the robots woke up and said goodbye to their west lafayette homies
including the stray cat that made best friends with Patrick.

we all went to White Castle for breakfast (always a bad idea). none of
the LA guys had only heard of white castle from beastie boys songs so
it was an experience for them. the concensus of breakfast was that
white castles are not good. they are slimy and shitty burgers and the
west coast wasn’t missing anything. they don’t understand that you
have to eat at white castle once a month or so to remember why you
don’t eat there regularly.

WHITE CASTLE, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

we were about to head to dayton but anti-log remembered to call his old
chicago mafia family that had a house in lafayette (home of axl rose).
we headed to the house and they were cooking steaks and shrimp. the
crew was bummed that they had just eaten white castle but several
people decided to eat anyway. we took a quick swim, gave many many
hugs and headed back to the freeway to head to dayton. anti-log felt
good to know that cement shoes for enemies are a phone call away.

SWIMMING, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

we hit the four hour drive to dayton and saw several billboards for Tom
Raper RV’s. that guy had to have had a difficult time dating with the
last name raper...

we finially hit ohio with the mormons leading the way.

WELCOME TO OHIO, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

we got to dayton and it was a zoo. they were setting up for a
fireworks show (on the 3rd) and there were thousands of people on the
shore of the river waiting for the show. we had no idea that dayton
was an actual city. it was full blown with buildings, people that
weren’t white, and police everywhere. we pulled up to the club
(elbo’s) after battling traffic and were pleasantly suprised..

FIREWORKS IN DAYTON, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

we have a buddy in LA named Sal and he had brought his friend Allie to
some shows. Turns out she lives near dayton and she brought her
boyfriend Matt (along with a big ass bottle of vodka and a bigass
bottle of seagrams) to the show. much drunken battling took place in
the parking lot and we missed the first band completely.

The mormons took the stage and blew the doors off the place. The sound
at the club was really good and it was an in your face show from the
first note. The dayton people had no idea what hit them. they
shredded the club and people were in awe at what they were witnessing.
when they finished the show i heard someone say, ‘we don’t get bands
like that to roll through here. that was the best shit i’ve seen in a
long, long time.

8-bit went next and were inspired by the amount of energy the mormons
brought to the club. the 8-bit crew were all over the place, dancing
on the bar and swiping beers from behind the bar. the crowd was great
and it was the only time 8-bit felt that a club had too much bass.

the final band was called 8-bit revival. they brought the good rock
and the guitarist/keyboard player had a chaos pad. everyone should
have a chaos pad... its a fun addition to any live or studio set-up.

8 Bit Revival, originally uploaded by shitface1000.

the people of dayton were real nice and were interested in talking to
the people in the bands. one set of folks invited everyone to a party
and one guy named andrew had the bands sign his shirt.

we packed up and rolled to the party. we got phone calls from our LA
friends that are in New York. there will be a crazy three day
whirlwind drunkfest when we get to NY. the party was cool and everyone
was really talented there. there was a weird thing with girls blowing
out the asses of their jeans. we thought it was Dayton fashion but it
turns out that it was coincidental ass accidents.

we eventuallypulled out of there and began the 12 hour trek to
massachusettes.

WTF, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

INDIANAPOLIS, IN 7/2/05

2005-07-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

Andy at the wheel, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

we woke up at the house in west lafayette and got our bearings on being
back in Indiana. west lafayette was the town that Robo-t met Spacey-k
while living with Anti-log. That town is the where the first
incarnation came together of what would become 8-bit. Spacey-k and
Robo-t used to write rap songs about the jocks and assholes in their
school nearly 6-years before the first 8-bit rap song was written.

there are mixed feelings about that town. it was nice for anti-log to
again see the parking garage that he almost jumped off of before moving
to LA. joy...

a nice family invited everyone over for dinner. they made a big spread
of food and took care of whoever came over. Oh, and as an aside, the
daughters are beautiful. It was an extra bonus to see cute girls after
days and days of driving.

everyone geared up, loaded up, and took the hour long trek to
indianapolis. we arrived at a rustic kinda country bar called ‘locals
only’. we had a few small hassles getting a couple of minors into the
club but everything eventually worked out and we took time to watch the
local bands.

there was a really good three piece honky-tonk/rockabilly band called
slick andrews. it was good to see something authentic in that genre.
Some guys from kentucky and indiana with an amazing guitar player in
his 50’s... they were the real deal, not the prepackaged posturing
you’d see in LA...

Slick Williams Jam with Dannys wife, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

some old friends that we hadn’t seen in years came to the show so we
got to do some catching up with some cool faces from the past. we
drank pabst and got trashed. ahh, good times.

the mormons have never been to indiana. the only things they knew
about indiana is the Indy 500 and a band that used to play in the mid
90’s called Sloppy seconds. Someone from the club overheard the
conversation and told Vince that the guy playing in the 2nd band was
from Sloppy Seconds. That made the Mormons day... He sang funnny ass
songs about getting head from the dead and some sloppy seconds
classics.

Vince with Danny, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

it was time for 8-bit to play and the fourth of july was approaching.
the club was more or less dead aside from the friends we were with so
8-bit decided to have a 4th of july spectactular. Robo-t and Anti-log
took roman candles (with report) and had a duel at 15 paces.

Roman candle battle, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

8-bit played and the show was fun and weird cause old friends had no
idea what they really did live. the show was fun and dumb and the
8-bitters got way too drunk (suprise).

Breakin bottles more, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Anti-log in Indy, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Dancing with the robots, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The mormons played and people didnt really know what to do. Being a
country music friendly bar, it was kind of a shock to the system. They
put on a great show, so good that the sloppy seconds guy tracked them
down and left nice messages for them.

the posse headed back to west lafayette to crash. the 8-bit tour ship
was launching bottle rockets and roman candles at the mormons tour
church while driving down the freeway. the 8-bit shuttle also tried to
throw a smoke bomb into a jeep as they were flying down the freeway but
it ricocheted off the hood.

everyone got back to the west lafayette house and drank. we had a
mini-fourth of july celebration by launching the few skyrockets we had.
robo-t was drunk enough to launch a sky-rocket out of his hand and
somehow managed to not get burned.

Tony fireworks, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Fireworks, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

everyone went into the house and drank till they passed out.

SAINT LOUIS, MO 7/1/05

2005-07-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

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

2005-07-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

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

2005-07-01T01:41:00.000-07:00

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.

TOPEKA, KS 6/28/05

2005-06-29T13:28:00.000-07:00

Josh writes:
----------
After sleeping for about 3 hours, sweating my ass off and swatting flys
off myself all morning it felt incredible to take a shower. Jimmy went over
to a motel and got a room and we each took turns sneaking in and washing
days worth of dirt and filth off ourselves. Before leaving the Flying J rest area
I got in an argument with some cowboy because I asked him to move his car.
When we park the van, we have to park across a few parking spots so we don't
stick out all over the place. This guy parks rigth behind the trailer, so i can't back
out. So I just asked if he could move and he gave me some attituded about
parking there and not in the back with the semi trucks. So basically I called
him an asshole, and then he said he wouldn't move his car. So I told him okay,
I'll just back right into it then. He made me apologize for calling him an
asshole and then moved his car. Jimmy managed to grab the camera...

Cowboy yelling at josh, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

joey at flying j, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Anti-log writes:
--------------
Holy fucking heat wave. It was 101 degrees as we were driving through
Kansas. Every time we stopped for gas there were corny references to
the Wizard of Oz. Remember, Dorothy was from kansas? One particularly
stupid shirt said, Toto for President. I would be down with the shirt
if it was the band Toto running for president, but the scrappy dog??

Patrick driving, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

It was incredibly windy on the freeway (ok. ok. the interstate) and we
were getting blown all over the place. Our merch guy meets a cute girl
and our van is getting blown. What thehell is wrong with this picture?

We finally got to within 20 miles of Topeka and we got pulled over. We
are sure that we were pulled over because of the California plates
cause we couldn't speed due to the high winds. This cop was a dick. A
racist dick.

He said we were swerving (it was fucking windy) and that we weren't
using our turn signals to change lanes. Then the fucking guy said,
'What are you doing in town. You here for that Mexican-fest or
something?' What a fucking dick. We live in Highland Park for
fucksake. Every day is like mexican-fest at home. Why the hell would
we come to Topeka looking for mexican people?

We told him that we were in town to play a show in Topeka. The
conversation went like this:

"Where you playin in Topeka?"
"At a club called the Boobie Trap"
"Uh huh, i see.. What kinda music dya'll play."
"We are a hip hop group and our friends are in a rock band"
"OK, but why'd you two got the same tattoo"
"We all do, its a band thing"
"I see. Well, drive a little better. I'll let you go.'
'Thanks (the muttered 'racist dickhead')

It's funny cause Bodies sneaky ass got it all on video. We oughtta
send the clip to that guys superior or something. Cops are dicks
wherever you go i guess.

kansas highway patrol, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We got into Topeka and filled up the cooler with Pabst. We asked where
a YMCA is cause we needed to shower, and we asked where the Boobie Trap
was. We got directions and realized we were hungry so wee asked where
mexican-fest was. They never heard of no mexican-fest.

kansas YMCA, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Vic sold the liquor store guy a CD and we went to the Y. Vic went in
and talked to the cute girl behind the counter. he talked her into
letting the 7 of us in for free to finally shower. Afterward we all
felt tons better.

The Mormons were running late so we went to the club to try to smooth
shit over. We pulled up and got out of the van and some older,
mulleted douchebag came up to the car.
"Are ya'll the band?" says mullet
"yeah, one of em"
"where you been? youre late! you were supposeda play at 8;30. its
already 9:45."
"We don't have any gear. The Mormons have all the equipment."
"Well shit. This aint gonna work at all"
"Fuck it then, we won't play"
"Well, i'll try to figure something out. Maybe the local band will
play first"

What a fucking joke. The guy runs sound at a bar the size of our van
and he's got a total boner about time and shit. Gimme a fucking break.
We stated calling him 'Mulltard' because he was a retard with a mullet.

Vic, Bodie & Anti-log, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

They had $4 pitchers of pabst. so we dove into drinking. The local
band played and they were nice guys. They had to go to work the next
day so they were cool with playing first. The Mormons go to the club
and we quickly loaded in and began playing.

We started the set and the music was super low. i was signaling for
mulltard to turn up the music but he wouldn't do it for whatever
reason. When the song ended i yelled out for him to turn up the music.
He didn't understand what i meant. i said the music, turn up the
fucking music. He threw a little fit and turned the shit up.

The crowd was primarily in their 40's and it was hot as a bitch. We
went over like a black man at a Klan rally. We were bombing with the
crowd. We hurried through the set and closed with Suck my dick. All
the dirty old men and women related to the song and they wanted to talk
to us after the show.

The Mormons played and went over much better than we did. Patrick
popped out onto the floor to do his thing and mulltard turned his
fucking mike off. He said that Patrick had to stay on the stage or
he'd turn the mike off again. Fucking control freak bastard.

Josh, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The mormons finished their set and we all went outside to drink and
smoke. I got some info from the locals and here is what we know about
mulltard.

Mulltard is his middle 40's.
Mulltard is into metal.
Mulltard lives with his mother..
Mulltard drives a minivan.
Mulltard has never been known to sleep with either sex.
Mulltard is suspected of wearing womens undergarments.

Lance "mulletard" Soundguy, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

I talked with the door guy who turned out to be super cool. I talked
with a guy that wants to learn sound from Mulltard to eventually take
over his job. That guy was super cool. I talked to another kid that
was a SHARP that turned out to be a really cool guy too.

All in all, Topeka sucked ass but again we managed to find cool people.
No matter what happens we find cool people and manage to have a good
time. Oh, that and drink too much.

DENVER, CO 6/27/05

2005-06-27T12:55:00.000-07:00

The day started off with waking up at another goddamn wal-mart. We
weren't harassed and got semi-decent sleep. We headed toward downtown
and got coffee at this shop that had internet access so we caught up on
email bullshit and began the weblog shit.

While hanging out we noticed a ninja shop across the street so Le-Frost
and Spacey-k went and bought ninja stars and and a ninja-patch for our
homie in Ninja Academy. When they got out the noticed a tattoo shop
next door.

Spacey-k is a founding member of 8-bit but he is not in the atom cult
with the rest of the band. (if you notice, everyone in 8-bit has an
atom tattoo on their right wrist). No time like the present, so
Spacey-k got some work done. Check the pic of Spacey officially
ruining his life. If you want details on the cult, email us at
ninjastarrecords@aol.com.

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

We felt bad for hanging out at the coffee shop pretty much all day so
we hooked up the barista girl with Mormons and 8-bit shirts.

We got to the club and it was literally two blocks from Coors field
(the rockies got their asses kicked by Houston) and a half block from
the bar we got wasted at the night before where Robo-t ended up
vomiting.

Old Curtis St. Bar outside, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

There was a cute girl working the bar and a guy scambling to get things
together for the show. When the guy settled we asked his name and he
said it was Kosta. I knew the guy was greek and it turned out he also
lived in chicago for 6 years. We went from strangers to instant
homies.

We met a cool irish girl Sara (from ireland, not that bullshit "kiss me
im irish" cause its St. Patricks day and i haven't been laid in two
years irish) and she bought everyone shots. What a girl. The fastest
way to a robots heart is to buy shots.

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

There was NO ONE in the club so I coerced Kosta, my Greek homie, into
letting some underage kids into the bar. That made a total of 12
people at the club (not including us and the Mormons) but the show was
the most fun yet. The Mormons were completely amazing and Patrick was
in peak form. the 12 people in the place were appriciative and super
fun.

Vince, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We played and had a good ass time. If there are people at a show or
not, you have to have fun and you have to tear shit up. Thats the only
way to be. If you are in a band and can't do that, stop playing. You
will be sadly disappointed with your band and yourself if you don't
have fun just playing the music you wrote. Fuck it if people are
there.

LeFrost, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Robo-t, Spacey-k, and our documentarian homie Bodie went skating
outside the club. Did i ever tell ya'll about Bodie? He's the guy
you'll see chasing us around with a camera. He's got this crazy ass
idea that people want to see 'behind the scenes' footage of our group
of nobody trash. Poor guy. He is totally nails as a person. He
scraped together some funds to come out for the first 18 days of tour
and film some shit. He will eventually make some sort of film out of
our insignificant lives so anyone can see what a bunch of assholes we
really are...

Bodie impressed us with his skating skills but he split his pants
trying to land a kick-flip over an obstacle. He has adapted quickly to
not giving a flying fuck about anything so he rolled with it, torn
pants and all.

Kosta and the cute bartender Esther invited us to meet up at a bar to
drink more with Sara the irish carbomber. We rolled to that shit and
got more loaded than loaded. Vic, one of our oldest LA friends and
tour merch homie, made friends with Ester and they disappeared to hang
out and get to know each other. How fucked up is that?? Two bands
from LA are on tour and no girls can give a fuck about any of us. Our
goddamn merch guy finds a cute girl and they hit it off. Craziness.

Esther, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Old Curtis St. Bar group, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The final bar closed and Robo-t and Le-frost vomited. Kosta invited us to a Greek place called Petes to get some drunk grub. On the way I was
driving completely drunk. A fucking cop gets behind us and turns on
his lights. I'm shitting my pants for a second, then he passes us and
pulls over Kosta.

A seasoned drinker and a smooth talking Greek, Kosta got out of that
shit. They let him go and we got badass food.

The night wound down so we said goodnight to our new friends and we
made our way toward Topeka. Denver was the coolest overall city we
have been to on this trip. A good mix of things to do, good shops and
shit, and super cool people.

We got about a 100 miles out of Denver, found a Flying-J gas station,
and tried to crash. I am getting sick with a cold so Le-frost tried to
give me some echinacea, garlic, hot pepper concoction and i threw it up
immediately. Two big blasts of puke coming out the back of the van.
Luckily, fucking Bodie was sitting there with the camera in my face as
i lost my guts. That made 3 of four 8-bit robots vomiting.

We took a nap and the Mormons got a hotel room. We still had a lot of
driving to do to get to Topeka so we figured we'd get a jump on it.
We gave the Mormons the secret handshake and separated from the fellaz.

CHEYENNE, WY - 6/26/05

2005-06-26T16:58:00.000-07:00

wyoming_sunrise, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

joey wrote
-------
“This is fuckin great.” I say to josh as the sun rises above the
Wyoming cloudscape. This land is so vast and empty. I love that. I
feel comfort in thinking of a great escape to a barren place like this.
The continental divide, bombing the 80, is one the most startling
things. You can’t see it. You look at it and you can’t focus because
you start to imagine things. What life might have been like before…our
now. Being a native from los ageless I realize what a simpleton I am. I’ve
not seen much. But here I am now. On tour. A ton a states I’ve never
been before. I didn’t even pay attention to the tour schedule when it
was being developed because I wasn’t experience this without imagining
it. I want it to have its own story.

I glance out the window and see deer in the endless shrubbery; this is
their world. We are us metal demons that take lives away. No people
live out here. It’s 6:00 in the morning and I realize I’ve never really seen the sun
rise before. I guess I’m kind of keeping josh awake with sporadic
small talk evbery 4 and a half minutes as Patrick curls up in the
shotgun and Jimmie and Vince share the honeymoon suite in back, All
three have pretty much slept through the night, but I’m much too
paranoid to sleep in this death machine. I think Jimmie sensed my
paranoia, because about 2:30 in the morning he sent me a text message
to my cell phone reading’ Cliff Burton Dude…Cliff Burton. I almost had
a nervous breakdown right there. I thought, for a split second, of
Cynderoppa, the demon.

But josh has once again driven all night and I am grateful. I take a
hit of pot and I wonder what the sentencing guidelines are for this
state. Cheyenne: 141 miles.

Vince wrote
-----
...so i guess that’s were i’ll check in with our perspective and the
first installment of TOUR WOES. episode whatever... in a galaxy of
rednecks far far away our “heroes” find themselves bitching and biting
at each other like big babies who need their diapers changed. look,
the reality is we’re a group of unlikeable personalities when we’re at
our worst. and when you’re traveling in a van with four other people
who haven’t showered, and haven’t slept much at all, the worst will
show it’s ugly face. the sad thing is, it only took 2 1/2 days for a
meltdown to occur.

being 1 for 3 in shows played on tour put us in a fucked up mood to
begin with. things did not work out as we had hoped and the looks of
disappointment were setting in on our mugs. it seemed like we drove
for hours and hours ending up in wyoming just to take a dump in an
outhouse in the middle of fucking nowhere. the show got shut down
cause 8-bit were shooting off bottle rockets- that they bought not even
a half a mile up the road. and that’s some kind of big deal, so shows
over.

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

the kids who set up the show were disappointed. we were pissed
that we unloaded all our shit and had to break it all down literally as
soon as we were ready to burn. rock n roll blue balls AND we had to
load all that shit back into the trailer. “fuck this!!”, i thought
silently stewing in my own brain juices. the 8-bit crew were already
having fun drunk off their asses and we were as sober and haggered as
can be. have you ever been in a bad mood and then someone walks in
having the time of their life and that just irritates you even more
cause you’re not having even half as much fun as they are? i hope so,
cause that’s the only way i could describe it. it’s hard to switch
from pissed-off and irritable to euphoric in an instant- at least for
me. the kids were bummed out on us. supposedly, we burned their spot
and that would be the last show. i guess it’s a big no-no to light
fireworks in cheyenne during fireworks season. i think it’s retarded
for a city to sell fireworks and then come down on kids for setting
them off a half a mile away from where they were sold. it was even out
of the city limits! in the middle of nowhere! but whatever- that’s
the way they do it there, and we’re not from there so i don’t know.
but it wasn’t the kids’ fault. i don’t think they were ready for our
brand of what we call ‘fun’ in l.a.. they seemed tame and passive for
young kids. and i’m sorry we blew their spot and then our friends lit
bottle rockets at them. that sucks. we meant no disrespect to the
kids, or the cattle, or the wyoming sky we shot bottle rockets at, or
the outhouse.

so we got to denver from cheyenne. i was driving. still pissed-off
and not knowing at who. i have never been to denver so i just drove
around trying to find some place to park for a while so that we can
stretch our legs and have a smoke- no smoking rule applies in our van.
for a pack a day smoker it sucks. bah! we got in contact with 8-bit.
they were drinking at a bar nearby and we met up with them. we stood
at the bar for a while, had a few drinks and it was time to find the
next spot to make meemees. the plan was to crash out at a wal-mart so
that we wouldn’t be hassled.

so on the way there, a couple of us were still bummed on the whole
situation to this point- and yes, me included. would you expect any
less? josh had about 2 or 3 hours of rest the last couple of days and
was on his breaking point. i was irritable as fuck and “not in the
mood”. so, me and josh comenced irritating each other to the point
where josh lost it. totally could not take or hear anything i was
saying and started going passed my limit of letting it go. rather than
go into specifics, i’ll just say it got to the point where i told josh
to stop the van and let me out or i was gonna do something ‘not nice’
to him. total blowout. so i took a walk at 1:30 am in denver. a
place that i had never been to. just walking around to get those
horrible thoughts and urges out of me. i was on the brink of losing my
shit. i had no idea where i was going, but i knew that if i didn’t
start walking- ...it’s a good thing i walked. i wandered around for an
hour or so, heat radiating from my face and hands. i made my way back
as soon as i regained control of my actions. we headed for the
wal-mart. on the way some guy was screaming, “...hey!!! don’t stab
me!! no!! help! police!!!!” running down the street being chased by a
couple of guys. weird night. awful night.

we all woke up soaking wet in our own sweat from sleeping five in a
van. nasty.

anyway, me & josh squashed the bullshit between us. both of us agreed
that we were both wrong- and both major pricks- and appologized to each
other. i’m glad. it was awful getting to that point with josh. i
think very highly of him. if it weren’t for josh we wouldn’t be on
tour- we probably wouldn’t be anywhere. it’s all thanks to his hard
work. i hate fighting with friends and that’s why i feel a lot better
having said our sorries. cool.

stupid. so fucking stupid. would you believe we’re grown men? i
wouldn’t. i think we’re fucking assholes. miserable and defective
personalities. on tour. together. for 25 more days.

There-e-mang wrote
-----------
Wyoming sucks. There is no alternate viewpoint. Don’t ever go to
Wyoming ever. Got that??

wyoming_sunset, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We got to Cheyenne and we couldn’t find the city. Its the biggest
fucking city in the state and we couldn’t find it. We got the
directions to the show and there was nothing there. A dirt road with a
fence blocking it and a plywood sign that someone spraypainted SHOW!
on. it was pathetic, really...

So we were fucked and crossed over the freeway (no one knows what a
freeway is, its an Interstate). We found a fireworks store and bought
a shitload of bottle rockets (3 gross for $5 with a free 100 pack of
black cat firecrackers), roman candles (with report), and somebig ass
skyrockets to shoot at gas stations along the way. We asked the locals
where the fuck the city was and we headed into town.We got to the city
center and it was a complete ghost town. No one was out. It was noon
and nothing was open. We wound up driving a little out of town and
found a grocery store.

We bought some shit to eat and I talked to the cute (probably 16 year
old) check out girl. I asked her what was there to do in the city if
you wanna have fun. I shit you not, she said, ‘Go to church’. I
laughed cause i thought she was joking. I said, ‘No, seriously, what
is there to do for FUN’. She said on sunday all there was to do was go
to church or swing. Now we were getting somewhere...

I asked her where people go to ‘swing’. She said, ‘In the park,
silly’. She meant swing and in swing set. Goddamn, we are definately
not in LA anymore.

We went to the park and pulled blankets out under trees and crashed
out. Some of the crew got into their underwear and jumped into the
lake to go swimming. It was nice and we got some rest. We were ready
to play the show!!!!

We got back to the ‘Show’ sign and followed the dirt road to this
cluster of buildings for the ‘University of Wyoming Research center’.
It was a small group of little cabins and barns. One of the buildings
said, ‘Sheep Building’. I guess the Wyomingans need some privacy when
they make sweet love to sheep.

We loaded into the venue and asked where the bathroom was. Sure
enough, there were two outhouses, one for boys and one for girls. We
asked the guy what sort of testing they performed there and he said
something so ridiculous that we had to ask again. He said they test
the effect of wind on tumbleweeds and test speeds of wind v/s
tumbleweed speed. Thank god someone is performing this valuable
service. I’m glad tax dollars are going to such a worthy cause.

wyoming_claudia shitter, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

wyoming_shitter, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

There was no alcohol allowed on the premises so we went back to the
firework store and hit the bar next door. It was called “T-Joes” so we
felt at home cause it sounded like “joe t’s”. We ordered a bunch of
pitchers and whiskey drinks and proceeded to get loaded. We played
Shuffle Board with some locals who kicked our asses but they were nice
enough to buy us an additional pitcher.

Vic met a truck driver from Idaho and he wanted to go to the show. He
was real cool, his name was Bill but his handle for the CB was
Shagnasty. The guy was fucking DRUNK. He rolled with us to the venue
(after we got 36 take-away beers) and told us stories of Lot Lizards.
Lot Lizards are hookers that work at truck stops. The blow or have sex
with a trucker, then get on his CB and call out to the other truckers
asking if anyone wants any ‘commercial’. Thats code for hooker
services.

wyoming_shagnasty, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Bill aslo said there are semi’s with stickers that have a picture of a
lizard with a line through it. Like the Ghostbusters logo, but with a
lizard instead of a ghost. That tells lot lizards that they don’t want
any hookers. I will find that sticker somewhere along this tour. That
is now the only thing i care about.

We got to the show and the first band played. We were all drunk as
hell and started lighting off bottle rockets in the parking lot. The
Mormons were about to play so we stopped to check out the show. Right
as the Mormons were about to begin, some redneck came and told the
people at the venue that the show was shut down and the venue was shut
down for good.

wyoming_fireworks venue, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The kids that threw the show were pissed at us but we were piss drunk.
We reloaded the trucks and started shooting bottle rockets at the kids
throwing the show. They were screaming, ‘Stop It!! Seriously, stop
it!!!’

We drove off laughing. In like one hour we single handedly ruined in
the whole Wyoming music scene...

We said fuck it and headed straight for Denver. We hit some bar that
had bigass $6 pitchers of Pabst and continued to get fucked up. Robo-t
vomited and Spacey-K passed out. We headed out of that bar and went to
Wal-mart to sleep in the parking lot. I guess they don’t harass you
there.

On the way to crash out, the Mormons got into some sort of fight and
Josh decked the van. His hand is all bandages up now. Hopefully he
can play guitar for the rest of tour...

Denver_josh hand, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

I think thats it for now. We will be playing in Denver tonight and in
Topeka, Kansas tomorrow. Interesting and retarded times are had so
far. Its monday?? I can’t wait to finally shower. We smell like a
bunch of fucking hippies.

PROVO, UT - 6/25/05

2005-06-25T16:49:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Salt Lake City for gas and to trip out on the huge ass
Mormon temple. On the positive, SLC is full of pretty girls and the
city is the cleanest i’ve ever seen. On the down side, we felt like
people were watching us and damn near everyone was white. That was
kinda creepy...

utah_marquee, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant and sure enough, it was full
of crackers too. We had some really good food then headed to the next
venue, Muse Music. We were all really tired and the place wasn’t open
yet. Le-frost saw a vacant storefront two doors down and tried the
door. No shit, it was unlocked.

We piled into the empty store and camped out on the floor. There was
electricity but the plumbing didnt work. There was a big shit in the
toilet and someone had to go bad. One of the crew wound up taking a
shit on a shit. Fine for that person but our cozy squat suddenly
smelled like an outhouse. We were too fucking tired to complain so we
crashed out anyway. We were even able to weasle free wireless internet
from the comic book shop next door.

utah_tony sleeps, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We woke up and the venue was open so we loaded in. There was a really
nice and polite guy running shit. He hit up Joey and asked what was up
with them making fun of Mormons. There was a series of explanations
and things seemed to be smoothed over. We asked the guy if you could
smoke in bars in Utah. He said he didn’t know because he doesn’t go to
bars. Weird, right?? So we asked what cops would do if they caught
one of us with weed. He said he wouldn’t know cause he doesn’t smoke
weed....

Something was off...

We went to the store and got a couple of 18 packs to prep for the show.
It was slated to possibly be sketchy cause The Mormons were playing in the largest
Mormon mecca on the planet. The Mormons don’t make fun of Mormons.
Like if there was a band called The Buddhists and wore robes and played
in Japan. People wouldn’t get aggro, right?

So we played and the people were cool and much nicer than in Richmond.
Really cool and young kids just there to have fun. The show went fine
and everything was great. Our moods quickly changed cause we knew the
Mormons were on next. A couple of the 8-bitters got on point to
either fight or work crowd control if things got dumb. They never did.

utah_8bit plays, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The Mormons ripped shit up and everyone was really cool. Patrick did a
great job assuring the crowd that it was just music and not some blow
toward their religion. It worked like a charm and the played a great
show.

utah_mormons, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We ran into some really cool kids that wanted autographs. Thats so
weird... We know that our autographs are worth less than used gum but
we obliged nevertheless. Super cool kids. One was 16 and the other
was 15. Being the positive influences we are we offered them beer but
the declined. They said they were OK and were really appreciative of
us playing in their town. They were soo cool.

utah_kids w: beer, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The moral of the story, if there is one, is that Mormon people are
really fucking nice. Most don’t drink or smoke or do drugs. They are
just happy and nice. It turns out that Mormon people are just like us,
but better. What could have been a nightmare turned out to be really
fun. We suggest to anyone..... Don’t be afraid of Utah. Its a really
nice place.to check out. We would definately play there again.

After an after party in a Wal-Mart parking lot, we are on the road
again to Cheyenne, Wyoming. None of us have ever been to Wyoming so
hopefully its a good time. Now its time to sleep while we listen to
Stereolab. We miss lots of people in LA already. Hopefully we won’t
end up dead on this trip so we can see ya’ll again.

utah_fireworks tony, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

utah_fireworks tony:andy, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

Joey writes:
After the two drivers had a battle of wits over who was going the right
way, one conceded and we made our way to the Wal-Mart in Provo Utah.
I know Jimmie likes this because for him, this is also a tour of toy
stores to search out action figures. He loves that shit. Now here’s a
chance for him to check the inventory in a ton of different wal-marts.
He had also told us some that I didn’t take seriously at first. He
told us that in small communities, wak-marts are like community
centers. People would gather there. Well, we drove up at 10:15 on
Saturday the 25th of June, and this wall-mart was rockin. Literally
rockin! There were guitar players jamming front of the store,
(jamming being the operative word here). Cars were spaced out with
young people milling about and socializing. Like a modern day
sock-hop. Hell,. I don’t know what a sock hop is. Bottom line.tons
of chicks. Tons of white chicks. Are you guys in a band?” Two or
three indicate in the affirmative and Andy does his job by plugging the
Mormons as he walks past the no-doubt dumb batch, and she turns her
attention to us lagers. She’d kinda cute, but she had put too much
time into flirting with some geeky looking guy to give him up just
because we rolled up. Besides we needed supplies. Your hardest cowboy
needed to stop into town every once in a while for a rub-n-sug.
I was waiting in tremendously long line with KELLY, WHEN I NOTICED HIM
CONTINUALLY DIPPING INTO HIS JACKET POCKET AND FISHING OUT SOMETHING HE
WOULD QUICKLY sump in his mouth. It looked like cookie or something.
That’s when I got nervous because I realized Kelly was shoplifting. He
was pretty drunk and doing a sloppy job of it but I was SURE THAT HIS
CONNFIDENCE WOULD CARRY HIM THROUGH. Besides, with my paranoia
problem, I had already worked out my complete alibi. I finally got
outside and made my way to the van. Kelly was swallowing when he
explained how he couldn’t help himself and had to dip into my beef
jerky. It’s cool. The guy’s a food larcenist.
Tony started shooting off what turned out top be bogus fireworks, but
we all paid attention, because of our communal fondness of fireworks.
Or fire. Just then here comes some chunky monkey white girl saying,
“you can’t fire off fire-works in the parking lot and that it is
illegal, and THAT SHE’S A COP!’ We are strangers in a strange land so
we dip into our L.A. bullshit and exert that it was not us who lit any
fireworks. She laughs and exclaims that she is not really a cop and
wants to know about out travels. We gladly tell her a she must have
been the go-getter of her chick posse, because she had 3 girls in tow,
trolling their Celica thru the parking lot, making conversation now
that the go-getter broke the ice. They are nice enough and all of us
boys are on our best behavior so we push on to Wyoming.

RICHMOND, CA - 6/24/05

2005-06-24T16:37:00.000-07:00

So the tour started off with some snags. The Mormons van had some
problems and they couldn’t find a trailer anywhere. The closest U-Haul
trailer was in Wyoming so they were pretty well fucked. They wound up
buying the funniest trailer ever in Santa Barbara. Its covered with
wolf paintings and has a dog house roof on it. Check the pictures...

utah_mormon trailer, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The Mormons wound up missing the first show in Richmond, CA, because of
all the difficulties so we kidnapped Joey (the Mormons drummer). We
got to the show and it was basically Al’s bar in LA but a little north
and called Burnt Ramen.

The neighborhood was packed with crackheads. I guess officials were
debating calling a ‘state of emergerncy’ for the city due to a rash of
recent shootings in the neighborhood. Whatever...

So we saw that the crowd was mostly punk rockers and metal friendly
people. No rap group has ever played there. Whatever.

Instead of closing with ‘Suck my dick’ we wound up opening with it.
Immediately after the song Anti-log asked for all the tough guys to
please step forward. He handed over a beer bottle and said that 8-bit
would give anyone a free t-shirt thar could break a bottle over his
head. No one could do it.

RICHMOND_bottle break, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

richmond_bottlebreak 2, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

The bouncer guy took a whack and had no luck so he kept hitting
Anti-log over the shoulder and one good shot in the knuckle. Robo-t
kicked him and he backed off. Then the robots went back into their
drunken robot-ery.

It was a pretty tough crowd but some of the people from other local
bands were having fun and were really cool. I can’t say that we killed
the place but fuck it. Some people were cool and were supportive so it
was pretty successful. We are pretty comfortable with that fact that
we aren’t everybody’s cup of tea. We come off more like a cup of pee
to people. Again, whatever..... It was cool that friends of
Penfifteen came to the show and were really nice guys. We have been
overloaded lately with a gang of cool people from Santa Barbara.

utah_8BITPLAYS, originally uploaded by mormons - 8 bit tour.

We left the show and drove drunk through Nevada to the next show in
Utah. Everyone was sleeping and i was listening to some talk radio
show about UFO’s. We hit a patch of desert and it looked like it was
covered with snow. It turned out to be he salt flats past Bonneville
speedway. It was crazy looking. I’ve never seen such a lifeless
desolate place in my life. I was coming down from a drunk, listening
to UFO stories, hallucinating from lack of sleep, and was driving
through what looked like Mars. It was the neatest landscape we’ve come
across so far.