October 3, 2006 "It Hurts When I Do This"

10/03/2006 Vintage Vinyl - St. Louis, MO
Other bands: none


It was against our unspoken constitution to cancel for any reason, but under these extenuating circumstances we felt it was what we must do because otherwise we'd be pushing the van back home with an empty gas tank and grumbling distended UNICEF bellies. Hell, I'd played with a broken hand before, so this was kind of a big deal.

So we cancelled our lunch dates at Iowa State on the 5th, the University of Kansas on the 6th and Lake Forest College on the 10th. I'm sure we were sorely missed. And so it was that our largest single cancellation due to financial and mental brinkmanship came to pass. We did keep one date in Evanston, IL, but it was close enough to home to make the drive in an afternoon, so we left it on the itinerary.

The Vintage Vinyl instore was interesting in that it was a place we'd visited on our first foray into the self-booking world of 2001, when we were poor(er) and full of naive unformed fire, scoping out soup kitchens and where every direction on the compass was a movie. It was a Someday venue, one whose marquee was always emblazoned with the names of artists we aspired to be categorized alongside while dealing with the grinding reality of playing basements and musty corners of skate parks.

We earned our ticket five years since. Getting access to the Back Door. When the employees moved the records so we could perform. If nothing else, this was another moment to gauge our progress. Still no large sums of money, still no reliable coalescing force. But we were playing Vintage Vinyl goddammit and that was something.

Like Swiss clockwork, Tim and his wife Sam were at the show. Kids were showing up in new and unfamiliar Brazil shirts and I realized that our label had finally followed through with at least a few posters and promotional schwag giveaways. The shirts weren't bad either. Nothing award-winning, but better than most of the designs we'd come up with on our own, save for the Eric Rose line.

We hit the road for home after grabbing a bite to eat. It was only seven hours. We probably made it in six at that time of night.