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Here is where you'll find all the wacky tales from the road and learn of all the inner workings of the four Full Service dudes. Usually written by Hoag the Warrior Poet, you might just learn more than you wanted to, but here at FS, nothing is too embarrassing, too graphic, or too stupid to post. So grab some green tea, put on your favorite FS CD, and read on. . .



FULL SERVICE UPDATES

March 5, 2010

After wrapping up our run with Badfish, we headed south to spend a few days in Tulsa while we waited for the shows with State Radio to Start. The first night we went over to Smell’s girlfriend’s family’s house where her father Dave had prepared a home-cooked stir-fry dinner and had the USA-Canada gold medal hockey match all tivo’d up for us. It’s too painful to rehash what happened in the game, but man…the dinner was fantastic and I have no qualms re-living that. Lots of veggies, tasty rice, and some beers. Gluten free grub for Bonesaw. Thanks Dave! We actually did it again the next night after an afternoon movie (“Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief), but this time he made Mexican Potatoes (basically a taco on top of a baked potato. Genius!)

The day of our first show with State Radio (Tuesday), we made an impromptu trip to Tulsa’s Rock Radio Station, KMOD. It’s a ClearChannel station, so we were anticipating them being very lame about doing anything to help us promote the show (we came with 15 complimentary tickets and some CD’s), and Smell even sheathed a plastic sword into his jeans in case the DJ’s proved unwilling. Luckily, those measures weren’t necessary, and the DJ’s were ultra cool. So was the receptionist. She really went to bat for us. We videotaped the whole thing, check it out:

The shows with State Radio have been great. They’re really cool guys. Right off the bat, their drummer told Smell and I we could use any part of his kit we wanted to augment our drums/percussion setup. Smell’s been having a lot of fun with Mike “The Mad Dog’s” China cymbal.

One of the coolest things about their band is that they have an extra bus entirely for a group of street teamers who are following them around and doing community service projects in each city. What an awesome idea.

Can’t wait for the show at La Zona Rosa. This Friday. 9pm. $15. Let’s make it thick in the middle so Bonesaw can catch a wave!

February 27, 2010

The OHIO Shows Ok, before we get into the Ohio shows (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Bowling Green, and Columbus), I must first relay a quick story about the end of the night in Chicago. Here’s the scene. It’s late. We are tired. Downtown is bustling. Bonesaw is driving Smell, Youtube, our friends Nneka and Shelby, and I to Nneka’s house to settle in for the night. Her place is 15 minutes from the House of Blues, but once we get there the search for parking begins. 5 minutes go by. Then 10. Then 20. Then THIRTY. It’s beginning to get ridiculous. At the 35 minute mark, we see a spot near her place and begin discussing the viability of this option. “Nay, it is not a big enough spot,” say some. “Agreed,” say others, “let us move on from this impossible space.”

Now, you may have heard about our individual tour super-powers; Smell has keen eye-sight (indeed, he was the one that located the spot first), Bonesaw is a gear-packing legend, and Twinky-P’s steady hand at the wheel has come in handy during many a night-driving/inclement-weather driving shift. My super-power, is much more specialized. I don’t get many chances to break it out, in fact. And I’ll be the first to say that I’m not a great driver, have not the patience for a meticulous gear-packing, and am pretty much last in line in terms of eye-sight. But they do say this about me; “The kid can PARELLEL PARK”.

So when I heard the nay-saying all around me, when I heard everyone say “forget this spot, let’s move on”, I knew it was my time to shine. “Guys…” I said, and I didn’t even have to finish my sentence. Bonesaw simply turned to me from his position at the driver’s seat, gave me a nod, and opened his door and exited the vehicle. What followed is a blur. In my greatest parking moments, the world becomes mute, time stops, all my muscles relax. I am reminded of the song “In Your Eyes”: all my instincts, they return and the grand facade, so soon will burn without a noise, without my pride I reach out from the inside Ladies and Gentleman, this was one for the ages. Two cuts of the wheel. One fluid motion. And in. Here’s a photo:

Ok, annnnnnnywaaaaay…

CLEVELAND,OH
Cleveland! Just imagine how hard it was to resist the urge to say “Hello Cleveland!” at the beginning of the set. Even though the joke is beyond played-out (not unlike the “freebird!” call), you’ll never know how much you want to say to a crowd in Cleveland until you’ve played to a crowd in Cleveland. Our set here was only 30 minutes, but it was a blistering one. This was another House of Blues gig, and as if to further stake their claim as the best venue-chain in the nation, this one had a stage-side clock that was so makeshiftedly-beautiful it almost brought tears to Smell’s eyes. It was an alarm clock taped to a microphone stand with two pieces of a broken drum stick as a mounting base. Sadly, I forgot to snap a photo of this one. Later on in the evening, we broke the audience-stage barrier during the jam with Badfish on “Pawn Shop”. I brought a snare drum down to the front row of the audience and recruited two people to play an 8-bar solo. The community factor went way up after that. One big happy family at the Cleveland House of Blues. For more on our visit to the Hall of Fame, check out Boneman’s journal update. CINCINNATI, OH The next day was Bonesaw’s birthday, and we had a surprise waiting for him when he came out to the Whale in the morning. Check it out:

That night we played a show in Cincinnati. Before our set, Bonesaw and I did a Tour de Stad at the University of Cincinnati Bearcats stadium. (A Tour de Stad is when you run up and down all the steps in the stadium). It was freezing out, but….it was a great chance for a T’d’S, so we braved it.

There were a couple of interested things about this show. For starters, the original Full Service bass player (1999-2001), Kevin Downes, was in attendance. Kevin used to be a doctor of rock, but now he’s an actual doctor, which is also a noble profession in my opinion. Both fields involve healing, after all. It was also in Cincy that we initiated a new stage-gimmick to encourage people to visit the merchandise table. Earlier in the day, we bought some Frisbees, then wrote “$5 off any item” on the top in magic marker. In the middle of the set, Smell and I hucked them into the crowd. Only one came back to the merch table, and its structure was severely compromised.

And finally, the city of Cincinnati holds a special place in me and Bonesaw’s hearts because it is where the 80’s Christmas movie “Babes in Toyland” (Keanu Reeves, Drew Barrymore, Richard Mulligan, Pat Morita) was filmed. In the movie, they sing this amazing song touting the many excellent things about Cincinnati (“It’s Ohio’s Maserati!!”), so we thought we’d sing it a capella from the stage. Here’s the clip from the actual movie:

It didn’t get much reaction. We found out later that most people at the show were not actually from Cincinnati, they were transplants from other cities in town to attend college. But still, I can’t imagine they didn’t love it.

Switching gears here for a second, I put together this video of what it’s like for us (and Badfish/Scotty Don’t) at the end of a night. There’s a lot of painful work to be done. It’s not exactly a huge party. Peep:

But man, when we have a day off, it is nothing but non-stop, mind-blowing adventure!

BOWLING GREEN, OH
In Bowling Green the following night, legendary superfans Jackie, Jaala, and Matt arrived for a two show run. The highlight of our show here was when Jaala agreed to come up on stage and hold my bass drum in place to keep it from sliding too far away from me. (The venue didn’t have a drum rug). Runner-up for best memory of the Bowling Green show has got to be the 10% Mojo Rising IPA they had on tap. Only takes one of those, lemme tell ya. And finally, in third place comes the after-show hangout at our hotel, where J,J, and M were also staying. They introduced us to their great-dane/Labrador pup, “Sully”, then went out with Smell and YouTube to scarf some Waffle House while Bonesaw went to bed. COLUMBUS, OH Our last show with Badfish was last night in Columbus, Ohio.

Four Ohio dates in four days. We really made the rounds. It was sad parting ways with our buds, but we celebrated in two ways. First, we brought out Pat to do a Baritone Saxophone solo during the bridge of “Brazil”. (Included in one of the following videos). And second, Smell orchestrated a giant, late-night snowball fight after loading out from the venue. He filled up a huge box with snowballs and recruited Jackie, Dorian, Colby, Scott, YouTube to actually attack other people walking down the street. It didn’t always go well. Smell reported that it was actually too much excitement for one particular female passerby, who in fact ended up vomiting. I…don’t know what to say about all that… Anyway, here are some videos of our set that night:

And finally, here are some funny pictures I doctored up:

February 22, 2010

A few weeks ago I thought I made an incredibly savvy purchase. We were in need of some type of shelving unit on which we could place our backstock of shirts by the merch table in an orderly fashion. Up until now we’ve just had all of our shirts in duffel bags, scattered around our feet and under the merch table.

That wasn’t a smart way of running things. We’d look over at Colby (Badfish’s merch guy) and he’d be sittin pretty with all of their shirts stacked neatly on really sturdy plastic shelves. But those shelves are kind of expensive (and by expensive, I mean in the Full Service way, as in “over $10”). So Bonesaw tasked me with finding a cheaper alternative, and I ended up getting one of those racks you hang your laundry on. It was cheap, collapsible and compact, and easy to set up. But the other day, Colby broke it by leaning on it. Personally I think it was sabotage. “Oops”, he said, like we were in kindergarten and he just knocked over my block-structure.

Anyway, I maintain that it was a good purchase, and after a band meeting (yes, we have band meetings about laundry racks), we decided we’d stay the course and make the same purchase next time we pass a wal-mart. In the meantime, Smell has again demonstrated his fix-it genius (he is so Dwayne Lardon’s son) with this elaborate contraption. (I think I’ve seen that red rope looped through Smell’s pants before, by the way, which means he sacrificed a belt for the good of the rack, which in turns means he deserves a round of applause):



On the way to Chicago the other day, The Whale made it’s first ever drive through the snow. We are happy to report that it owned the snow without any problems whatsoever, further establishing himself (herself?) as the greatest band vehicle known to man.
The show at the House of Blues was kinda strange. Doors were at 5:30 and we played at 6:30 to a highly sober crowd. There’s a certain amount of loosening up to be done by the crowd before a band takes the stage (including, but not limited to, the intake of alcohol), but since we played so early, I don’t think the crowd had time to properly prepare themselves for the onslaught of rock we were set to deliver. Walking the crowd afterwards, it was clear that people enjoyed the set, there was just a much more subdued vibe during the actual playing of the songs. That’s ok though, it was still a fun night. The “Pawn Shop” jam was pretty awesome. In the video at the end of this update keep an eye out for Bonesaw taking a shot of whiskey offered him by Scott, then heading over to blindfold Pat during a key moment in the guitar lick.



Many thanks to Nneka, Aubrey, and Andy for letting us crash at their place, and for going the extra mile to bring over some futon cushions at 3am. Speaking of 3am, this is what Smell looked like at 3am, karate pants, ground-squirelled jacket, and SHOES for once: HERE.

Also, thanks to Kevin from Chicago for hooking us up with free passes to the Skating Rink at Wrigley the morning after the show. Kevin hit us up a while ago saying he really wanted to come to the show because he’d seen us last time at the Chicago H.O.B, but that he couldn’t swing the $20 for the ticket. So he offered to trade a ticket to the show for 4 passes to the skating rink. It took us approximately one-hundredth of a second to agree to the trade, and when the time came for skating, we couldn’t have been more psyched. As we walked to the rink from Nneka and Aubrey’s house, we got a kick out of seeing Wrigley field covered in snow. It was also crazy to see the apartments near Wrigley topped with bleachers. What a cool place that would be to watch a game.





Next stop, Cleveland. As I write this actually, we are approaching the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. The entry fee definitely does not fall under the category of “cheap” (as in, under $10), but…whatever, it’s the RNRHOF, who cares.

February 19, 2010

Hey, Hoagie here. Met up with the guys in Tulsa under somewhat atypical circumstances on Wednesday. Bonesaw and YouTube had driven up from Austin in the Whale, Smell had flown into town a few days earlier to visit “sweet girl”, and I rolled in on the Badfish bus after spending 10 days on the road helping them establish a video blog. Being with those guys was an absolute blast, and though the comforts of their bus were hard to leave, I was (for some stupid reason, considering the lack of a bathroom, kitchenette, sleeping bunk, big screen tv, coffee maker, refridgerator, etc.) excited about the prospect of traveling in the Whale again.

For those of you interested in what kind of crazy situations I found myself in during my run with Badfish, head over to the Scotty Don’t Facebook page and check out the videos we made. Las Vegas, Santa Cruz, Chico, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Reno…it’s all documented. Every last boomerang throw, brewery visit, Lotus joyride, you name it.

Anyway, like I said, come Tulsa it was back with my boys in Full Service to play at Cain’s ballroom. As Bonesaw so eloquently put it from the stage that night…”This is our 4th time playing Cain’s. We opened for 311 to a packed house, for Badfish in the small room and now big room to a packed house, and by ourselves in the small room to the sound-guy and a newspaper reporter. Maybe we should change our name to ‘Coattails.’”

We hadn’t jammed together in 12 days, so we did an extra long soundcheck to get the blood moving. To my surprise, our set was pretty much error-free. I think Bonesaw may have unplugged himself at one point whilst traveling the “Bonesaw Superhighway” (the area between my bass drum and the front of the stage) but that’s becoming par for the course and dare I say perhaps a highlight of our show. Bonesaw can do no wrong in his mind. If one of us messes up he’ll give us the death-glare and call us a dumbass on the mic, but if he messes up, he just looks over at us and laughs. Yeah, funny.

The surfboard crowd-surf is also becoming par for the course. Bone caught excellent rides at both Cain’s and the Granada Theater in Lawrence, KS. Both times, Pat from Badfish/Scotty Don’t came up to grind out the last chorus of “Hi-Ho”. And Scott, the drummer, actually executed a Takeover on “Freezing Dub” (he rocked the Cabasa and some bongos). I guess maybe that’s payback for Smell always going over and hitting Scott’s drums during our set. Well played, Scotty.

So back to the surfboard; in Lawrence, Bonesaw attempted a “Bone-Cam” by strapping a flip video camera to his head via his headband, but the footage is pretty rough (it’s mostly the ceiling), so our next project (suggested by Pat) is to build a mounting device that will hold the camera at the front of the surfboard, facing Bonesaw, so you can see him hopping on the board and screaming out his route (in essence, a horsehoe, so he can get back to the stage).

Another new thing we’ve been doing is the “Merch Wheel”. By this point you’ve probably all heard about “Merch-Pong”, whereby one pays a dollar for 3 chances to sink a ping-pong ball into any one of three cups set up about 6 feet away. (The prize is a CD). But with the “Wheel of Merchune”, you pay $3 for a chance to spin the wheel and win either a sticker (meh…), a kazoo (cool!), a poster (sweet!), a CD (excellent!), a shirt (killer!), or the whole package (cowabungaaaa!). The Merch Wheel has been incredibly popular so far, but we’re still crunching the numbers to see if it’s economically advantageous to us. In the end, we don’t really care, because it’s just so damn fun. And the coolest thing about all this? It was conceived by Dadsaw (me and Bone’s dad, John Kepner), and built by SmellDad (Dwayne Lardon). You guys are our heroes. Well done.

One of the highlights of every show with Badfish is the jam at the end of the night on “Pawn Shop”. Somewhere along the way this became a tradition, and every night it gets a little more bizarre. Most recently, it featured me on guitar, Pat and Bonesaw on drums, YouTube and Scotty on bongos, Joel on keys, Dorian on bass, and Smell on cymbals. That’s quite a mash-up. I’m not sure where we’ll go from there, but I think it may involve Smell on a melodica, and maybe Colby on the surfboard.

Drove through some snow on the way to Chicago yesterday. YouTube was crazy excited! He even sacrificed dry jeans to take a picture of himself standing in it.

We actually didn’t make it all the way to Chicago last night, so we stopped to sleep in Iowa. It gave us a great opportunity to watch some Olympics. Who knew that Curling was such an exciting sport? We watched a whole freaking match last night. Afterwards, I even checked the iPhone app store to see if there was a Curling video game available for purchase. There wasn’t. Will you make one?

Anyway, yeah…Chicago House of Blues tonight! I’ll let you know how it goes.
Oh and PS—did you all see the video of Smell doing a Takeover at the Wal-Mart in Lawrence, KS? Here it is:

February 2, 2010

Full Service January Tour Diary: Entry #5 (Austin, Emo’s)

Back home! Back to the warm environs, right? WRONG. It was freakin’ FREEZING when we came back into town. So lame. We still managed to sneak in a few games of backyard soccer with SD/BF’s bassist Joel Hanks. You-Tube was unable to play, so Hanks filled in on the Red Team with Bonesaw. They’re on a 3-game winning streak now and it’s somewhat concerning. After so many years of dominance, Smell and I may have to rethink our strategy. Joel is a conservative player that executes early, scores a few goals, then camps out on defense and refuses to make mistakes. It’s a great formula, but it’s somewhat infuriating, and it’s at odds with the Blue Team’s high-octane approach. Whatever, we’ll figure something out.

Austin was a great show, aside from the staff at Emo’s being really mean. I guess they only treat hipster screamo-bands well and everybody else like a sack of…nevermind it’s not worth it. I just could never figure out exactly what they’re problem was. Example…

Hoag: “Hey man, how do you open this door?” (The door had no handle and some sort of knotted-t-shirt contraption holding it tightly closed)

Door-Man: “Uhh…OPEN IT.”

Thanks you butthead. At least Morgan, the hospitality girl, was nice. And she lives on Alpine, it turns out. Crazy.

Anyway, the show itself was great.  Bonesaw kind of upped the ante on the crowd-surfing with some rafter-hanging. Thanks again to Pat from SD/BF for covering the guitar and vocals during the wave-catching. It’s great having you up there. I couldn’t help but notice after watching the video, however, that you seem a little befuddled as to what the last chord of the song might be. Ha! “SUCKER!” (In Smell-Voice).

So we’re off for a couple weeks then it’s back on the road with Scotty Don’t and Badfish for some Midwest touring. Will the Whale hold up in the freezing temperatures and likely snow-storms? Stay tuned!

February 1 , 2010

Full Service January Tour Diary: Entry #4 (Dallas, House of Blues)

We got to Dallas with some time to spare, so Ry-Guy-Fish (SD/BF sound guy) suggested we play 4-square on the floor of the venue in front of the stage. It sounded like a great idea, until—after the first point—the ball ended up on top of the House of Blues mixing board. But, as the accompanying video shows, we were not deterred. We simply moved right-of-center to give ourselves more leeway. The H.O.B lighting guy actually helped us out with the spotlights too. Our new spot was pretty dark, so he angled the ceiling spots to shine right down on us.

The people at the House of Blues are really somethin’ else. So accommodating and friendly. I love how Cari even labels our Styrofoam food containers with our full names.
Highlight-o’-the-night award was when Pat from SD/BF came up on stage to play guitar while Bonesaw again surfed the crowd with his Walker board. In the video, you can see Bone actually attempt to stand up this time. One day, Bone. One day.

This was also the first night that we had a 3-balls-in-a-row, grand prize merch-pong winner. Yassir sunk ‘em all and went home with a CD, a Kazoobie kazoo, and a custom T. When asked during his post-game interview about the secret to his merch-pong success, he had a very interesting answer. Definitely not what I was expecting to hear.

January 31, 2010

Full Service January Tour Diary: Entry #3 (Houston, House of Blues)

Somewhere along the line I have developed a reputation for being a ruthless impersonator. Consequently, there has been an ongoing search for a quality Hoag impression in an effort to put me in my place. I’m not sure we’ve found it yet, but backstage at the House of Blues in Houston, Colby from the SD/BF crew made a heroic effort. Watch the video and see if he came close. I think he’s got a long way to go. While he managed to accurately capture the grunting noises I make while playing, my posture is definitely not that good.

This show may have been one of the best we ever played. We debuted another new tune, “Time’s Definite”, a fast and complicated banger. I’m somewhat shocked that we were able to get through it, actually.

The Highlight-o’-the-night was without question when Bonesaw took his Walker custom FS surfboard INTO THE CROWD for a long ride around the pit. It was a pretty impressive moment and the energy in the place was immeasurable. I couldn’t believe he made it back to the stage without an injury. Unfortunately, there is no video footage of this momentous occasion, so his next two rides in Dallas and Austin will have to suffice.

This may have also been the first time we ever opened a show with a curtain-opening. We started Battleship just before the curtains peeled back from the stage so that we were already in full-rocking mode when the crowd first saw us. Actually, I think one time—many years ago—we had a curtain-opening in L.A. but that was pretty lame. There was nobody there, first of all, and also the curtain was more like a garage door that took forever to pull up. And it made a lot of garage-door type noises.

Anyway, merch-pong was again a big success and there were a lot of winners. Actually, is it really a success for US if there are a lot of winners? I’m not sure. I think they actually call that “bad-business” and “losing money”. But at least people are having fun.

Be sure to watch the accompanying video diary until the very end, when Twinky-P (new name is “You Tube”, by the way) battles the merch-display rack (really a laundry-rack) for world domination. I think there’s a clear winner, but you decide for yourself. 

January 30, 2010

Winter Tour Second Leg:  Baton Rouge

(ALL OF THE FOLLOWING IS CAPTURED ON VIDEO, WHICH IS EMBEDDED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE DIARY ENTRY. ENJOY!)

Waffle House has quickly become our favorite place to breakfast. We find that their service to be impeccable and their food to be affordable (gotta love their “dollar$” menu, which is a subtle way of saying “dollars” menu, aka anywhere from $1-$6) and sometimes-good. On this particular morning after the show in new Orleans, we found the eggs to be a little bit…how did Smell describe it? “Dusty”. A very apt description, I must say.

But it’s always a good time there, and as we ate our food Bonesaw read the list Hoag had written immediately after waking up that describes what he really doesn’t like about Smell.
We boogied on over to Baton Rouge after breakfast for our show later that night at the Varsity Theater. Smellman used the downtime before our set to make an FS stencil that he would use to spray-paint (in light purple) onto his new percussion brief-case. It’s actually quite pretty. Well done, Smell. Later in the evening, Hoag added “good with stencils and spray paint” to a list he’s making that details what he likes about Smell. Another addition to that list? “Plays a good fake arcade fortune-teller character”.

We did a “CD-for-$1” promo last night that ended up kicking major butt. Although I’m not sure how proud we should be about selling a whole bunch of CD’s for a dollar, because I think people would buy anything for a dollar. Things that are a lot less awesome, like an eraser or a slap-bracelet. (Wait…are slap-bracelet’s cooler than FS CD’s? Don’t answer that).
The whole dollar promo thing also kind of conflicted with the merch-pong idea. After all, why would someone pay $1 for a CHANCE to win a CD when they could just pay $1 and be guaranteed a CD? So merch-pong wasn’t as exciting last night, but we had a few players.

None of them were successful though. Muahahahahah!

In related news (couldn’t think of a segue), Aaron Neville’s a big Louisiana hero, and they had a big portrait of him in the club. Hoag couldn’t resist paying homage to A.N. by singing “I Don’t Know Much, But I Know I Love You” to aforementioned framed-photo.
The show itself was fantastic. We had a lot of peeps come out to see us and it’s nice to see Baton Rouge shaping up as a Full Service Hot-Zone. Soon we may need to call in Morgan Freeman and Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo. (Wasn’t “Hot-Zone” the name of that movie?)

The highlight of the show was obviously the Jeffs from 6-Pack-Deep coming out to join us for “Trumpets”.

Afterwards, Smell and Twink (who’s new name—starting today—is “YouToob”) made their bi-daily post-show trip to Waffle House, which makes for an interesting day-cycle that is bookended by visits to, as Smell affectionately calls it, “Doubleya-H”.

January 29, 2010

Winter Tour First Leg: New Orleans
(ALL OF THE FOLLOWING IS CAPTURED ON VIDEO, WHICH IS EMBEDDED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE DIARY ENTRY. ENJOY!)

It didn’t take Smell very long to get sick of being in the Whale. I think we were still within Austin city limits, in fact. A remarkable feat even for Smell, who is admittedly prone to quick sourings of mood when it comes to his relationship with certain members of the band, namely me (Hoag).

After driving all day on Tuesday we stopped at our favorite motel chain—a Super 8; Affordable (certainly), equipped with clean linens (doubtful), and aromatically pleasing (most definitely not. And actually, I’m not sure “aromatically” is a word).

The next day we made a quick stop in Baton Rouge to pick up the legendary fansaw Mark Larmeau. Mark is so bad-ass, he even made his own Full Service display at the coffee shop he works at. He also hooked us up with some coffee, which helped fuel our morning drive to New Orleans where we’d be meeting up with Scotty Don’t/Badfish for our first show of the tour.

We’ve never been to New Orleans but we heard it was a strange place. So we were kind of NOT surprised when the first thing we saw pulling into town was a PETA protest that featured faux-slaughtered human beings wrapped in saran-wrap a-la so much packaged meat.

After that we found a field and played a game of soccer with Joel from SD/B on the red team and Mark on the blue team. They won. I don’t really wanna talk about it. But it was fun nonetheless, because we played right next to the Mississippi River and for a large part of the game there was this crazy music coming from a tugboat. Circus-type music. It made for an interesting soundtrack to the sometimes ugly competition being played out on the pitch.

The park was a really cool place. Hoag even found a friend, who turned out to be a statue. A statue with some really comforting advice.

We wanted to make sure we got the whole Bourbon street experience before we had to leave town that night, so we head out for a walk before soundcheck. We sang an a capella version of “Surfer Girl” while we made our way from block to block, all the while making sure to stop and take pictures with the silver mime dude and listen to some sweet New Orleans jazz.

Before the show we met this dude named Luke who turned out to be a real character. He was waiting outside the artist entrance and after Smell and I asked him where we could find a good place to buy a 6-pack of high quality beer, he said “actually I was hoping to get an interview with you guys”, so after he took us to a place to get a 6-pack (and a mardi gras mask, which I wore on-stage) we brought him backstage and eventually did a really fun interview. His plan is sort of Takeover-ish actually; he really wants to get a job with a local music rag, so he wants to write an article about us that he can bring to the interview as an example of his work. Well done, Luke-Saw.

Our set was a blast. Battleship into Rocketships into Black is Back. We actually debuted a new one, too; “Greetings from Beyond”, featuring an instrument switch between Hoag and Bone at the end.

Perhaps the highlight of the night was the success of our latest idea—“Merch-Pong”. People pay $1 for 3 ping-pong balls that they try to sink into any one of three cups. If they sink it, they get a prize from the merch table. A ton of people played and many won. We’re crunching the data as we speak, and it looks like there’s a prize won for every 6 balls thrown. Not bad odds.

Another highlight was of course our end-of-the-evening both-band jam with Badfish on “Pawn Shop” for their encore. Methinks it is becoming a tradition.

That’s all for now my friends, next up..Baton Rouge.



"Greetings From Beyond" debut - New Orleans


"Black is Back" and "Rocketships" at NOLA House of Blues

November 25, 2009
"Look! I Caught a Smell!"

The end of the tour! Like I said, what better way to spend it than with our old pals from SDBF (Scotty Don’t/Badfish). We met up with them in Chapel Hill at a place called the Cat’s Cradle. Joel really wanted to play some soccer because he has no friends in his own band, so we obliged and headed over to the UNC intramural fields, which were freaking amazing. Astroturf baby! (Do they still call it that anymore? Do they just call it “turf”?)

            Anyway, it started to rain really bad, and we contemplated quitting because I only had one pair of shoes on the tour…but it only took the guys like 3 seconds to convince me to say “F” it. Plus, Bonesaw told me that he could load me one of his extra pairs after the game. I was all psyched to wear his awesome black high-tops but when the time of reckoning came, he suggested that I borrow some from Colby—SCBF’s merch-dude/conga player—because he realized that he actually didn’t have an extra pair to give me. It all worked out though, because Colby let me borrow some really sweet shoes. That didn’t solve the problem of our wet clothes though. But when in doubt, The Whale usually has the answer:

            Joel and Bonesaw ended up beating Smell and I, and we never got a chance to avenge our loss. It’s a tough pill to swallow. We hate losing to Joel. Hate.

The show that night was pretty damn good. Smell and I grabbed some pizza with Pat from SCBD and had a blast playing with the Mr. Potato heads that had there.

Perhaps the greatest/scariest part was when Bonesaw jumped off the stage onto a speaker and landed half on the speaker and half in the crowd. We actually thought he may have really messed up his knee for a while. But he knows how to treat an injury, and he put ice on it right away. The next morning he was good to go.

The next day we were off to Charleston, South Carolina. We got some video of this one, check it out.

            Charleston was a fun one. One of Pat’s parents’ friends came out, a crazy guy named J.O.B. Super nice though, and he was a blast to hang out with. He lifted our spirits and inspired us all to jam extra hard.

            And for the last show it was back to a good-ole House of Blues, aka, the best venue chain on the planet. This one actually had a particular cool exterior. Check it out.

Mel took care of us at this one. She even looked us up on youtube before we got there (she loved the “Stubb’s ‘Inside the Whale’” video), so she knew all our names and everything. She hooked us up with some great dinners, too.

And now for the random sentence of the update: While fishing backstage, I caught a Smellfish:

So yeah, Myrtle Beach was a great way to end this November Tour. All four of the FS dudes joined the Badfish dudes for a monster jam on “Pawn Shop” during the encore (which is a tune that Badfish has definitely turned into their own, with a new bridge jam and double-time feels and the whole bit).

In the morning, we woke up and started our 24 hour drive home to Austin, which is something I’d rather not re-live/talk about. There were 3 highlights however. First, we stayed at Smell’s grandma, “Mama Ann’s” house. She’s such a sweet lady and always cooks us the best meals. Secondly, while at a rest stop on the second day of travel, Smell found this amazing gummy treat. (We didn’t eat it).

And thirdly, at a different rest-stop, we thought we saw “Wolf-Buddy”, Bonesaw’s canine friend of Hope, Arkansas fame. Alas though, it wasn’t him.

Next up for FS: Stubb’s on Dec. 4th! Stay tuned for a short film/commercial to get the promo going.

But before I sign off, here’s another video chronicling our recent time in the studio.

November 16, 2009
Recording sessions, leaf piles, and one craaaaazy cat

Before we begin this update, let’s peep this video of Whit-Man’s cat, Emilio, chasing around a laser on the rug. 



Hehe. Crazy cat. You’ll never catch that laser.

Annnnnyway…after those shows in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, we stopped into my oldest brother’s house to hang out with our nieces and nephews. While there, Smell and Twizzler and I got slaughtered in a whiffle ball/kickball game by Bonesaw, our nephew Mack, and our nice Lily. Mack is quite a gamer, as the following video will prove.



We’ve had two shows since we last spoke. Most of the time has been spent in the recording studio at Montgomery County Community College with Gtori “Morgan Betz” Anderson. The session has gone incredibly smoothly. Five tracks, 6 days in the studio. Actually, Bonesaw kicked the whole thing off by giving a lecture to a music-business class. I did not attend, but I watched for a minute from the outside, and he was making grand gestures and waving his hands around and pointing, so I bet he did great.



So, every time we record a bunch of tracks at MCCC we end up experimenting with a new instrument, and this time was certainly no exception. We added a Banjo-Ukelele to “Riverbanks”, and attempted to use a wind organ (or, since it’s Morgan’s, a “m’Organ”), but that sucker was like 3/8’s of a step out of tune and…well that just doesn’t work. But man, that Banjo-Uke sounds great. Here’s a video of our time in the studio.



We also did this really cool thing on “Flavors”, where all four of us took 4 bars for a guitar solo. XXXX got the first four bars, XXXXXX got the second, then XXXX, then XXXXXX. It’s crazy to listen to, because our respective personalities come through so clearly. It’ll be interested to see if you all are able to tell who did what section. Wait, I just told you! Crap.  (ed. Note – I omitted the names here because obviously Hoag wasn’t listening when we decided that we’d do some ticket giveaways for people who could correctly guess the players. We also swore an oath never to tell who did the solos except to the people who got them right. Again, Hoag I know you were there…. what happened?!)

When we weren’t in the studio, we spent a couple of days raking leaves for Mom and Dadsaw. At the end, when we had all the piles organized, we had a little fun:



We had two shows this week. The first one in D.C. at the annual George Washington University PSK fraternity charity party, and the second one at Germantown Academy’s 250th reunion celebration. The D.C. show was—as always—kind of nuts. Dirty basement, black-lights, pledges being told to get us water and order us pizza and all that jazz. In other words, it was a great time. It DID kinda suck forgetting our PA head though. We had to go buy one from guitar center. Ouch. Anybody wanna buy it from us now?

After the show we ended up driving back to Philly. We left at 2:30a. It’s a 3.5 hour drive from D.C. to Philly. Do the math, and that puts us in the driveway just as the sun is threatening to rise. I don’t know how many of you have ever gone to sleep AS the sun is coming up, but…it’s a very strange feeling and it will mess you up. The sun actually didn’t rise by the time we fell asleep, but sometimes the threat is enough.

As a result, the next day’s show at the G.A. reunion (which happened to coincide with my 10-year high school reunion), will forever remain a blur. We all felt kind of cracked out. A little bit shaky from the inside-out, that feeling you get when your body would be perfectly fine going to sleep at this very moment, but your brain keeps sending it “no! there-are-things-yet-to-be-done-today” signals.

We actually played 2 shows that day. One from 4:30-6pm, and one from 10:30-1am. There were beers during, in between, and after. And there was my high-school reunion. Everybody had a wife or a husband. I didn’t. Most people wore sports coats. I wore high-tops. (My friends actually congratulated me on wearing long-pants for the occasion. I’m glad they noticed the effort). But it was incredibly cool that nearly all of my former classmates headed over to the bar after the reunion to catch our late set. That helped carry us through a 24-hour period of playing 3 sets and 6.5 hours of music. We slept for about 6 of those hours, so we’re talking spending about 33% of our waking hours playing music that day. (I could very well be wrong on my math there, but the other day I multiplied 32 by 12 in my head and it only took like 5 seconds, so don’t underestimate me).

So tonight we wrap up the sessions with Gtori and head out in the morning to meet up with the Badfish/Scotty-Don’t guys for a 3 day tour of the Carolinas. What a great way to end the November Tour. By eating all their food and using their tour-bus fancy-things.

November 11, 2009
Mountains, Cigars, A Visit to Hell, and Davy Jones?

Wed, Nov. 5th

5:45pm: arrive in new york city for our show at sullivan hall. score an amazing parking spot right in front of the venue and realize there is only 45 minutes left until the spot becomes free, so after unloading we decide to hang out at the parking spot in the freezing cold for 45 minutes to make sure we don't get a ticket.

6:30: leave parking space. blood starts to flow as we put one leg ion front of the other. 

6:35: a discussion begins about where we want to eat. twizzler-p asks hoag to look up "chipotle" on his iphone. 

6:36: after some confusion, we head off in the direction of chipotle.

arrive at a deserted playground. there's supposed to be a chipotle here. all is not lost, however, as smell finds a really cool mini-soccer ball. 

we regroup and continue looking for chipotle. we play with the mini-soccer ball along the way. 

somehow we lose the mini-soccer ball. 

finally find chipotle. upon entering the establishment, hoag and smell decide they'd rather support a local place instead of a nationally chain. they're in new york city, why not try to find some ny-style pizza? twizzler loves chipotle, so he decides to stay.

smell and hoag begin a wild-goose chase for authentic nyc pizza. 

they run into a place called "ben's famous pizza", and pull open the doors to a rush of pizza-oven-generated hot air. 

hoag orders a salad pizza. (salad on top of a pizza! genius!) and smell grabs some plain cheese. 

the two notice that there is no parmesan to be found in this joint, and are too afraid to ask, as this seems sort of like a "soup-nazi" type place. (when hoag asked for some tomato sauce on top of his salad pizza, ben didn't look very happy, as in--he snarled and grunted "sure"). 

finish eating and head back to the venue to watch our friend maciej play his first show ever. he has a great voice and it looks like he's been on stage before, but he hasn't. we are all extremely impressed. in addition, he is able to pull out 60 people to the venue, while we have only ever been able to draw about 50. we all are extremely depressed. 

maciej finishes up, and FS takes the stage at precisely the same time that hideki matsui hits 2 more rbi's to go up 7-2 against the phillies in what was to be the fateful game 6 of the 2009 world series. 

we wrap up our set and hang out with the friends who made it out on this cold, mid-week evening. 

hoag hops into the driver's seat to captain the whale back to philly. 

hoag makes a wrong turn. 

hoag makes another wrong turn.

everything becomes tense. hoag feels the pressure coming down on him. some of it is deserved, some of it--he feels--is not. a small shouting match ensues between bonesaw and hoag, and hoag tells bone he'd "rather drive home in silence, please. shut up! you're being a jerk," to which bone replies "i'm not being a jerk! i'm trying to help you! you're a jerk." then they say those things again to each other, as if they hadn't just said them moments ago, and then it fizzles out. 

Friday, Nov. 7th

Start the drive up to Northampton for our show at the iron horse. 

stop at walmart so smell can by some winter clothes.

arrive at iron horse. are told that there is an early show, and we won't be able to load into the venue for another 4 hours. smell and twizzler head out to explore, and bone and hoag head out on a run.

bone and hoag return from their run just in time to witness an old man on a bike almost get taken out by a swerving car. the man on the bike swerves too, and he ends up wiping out. he hops right back up and starts chasing the car. then a police car turns the corner and turns on his lights. bone runs out into the middle of the road to grab the guys bike so it doesn't get crushed by traffic (bone is a friend of bikes). hoag takes it all in with his mouth hanging open. eventually, everything ends up ok.

everybody--including the Massachusetts/Connecticut entourage of Roses and Whitneys--reconvenes at a cozy little bar called the toasted owl. hoag isn't sure why he orders a bourbon, but he does. smell gets a dogfish head 60-minute ipa.

head back to the venue to unload our gear, and there's actually a line of people waiting to get in to see us. they aren't allowed into the venue for a while, so smell and hoag give them all kazoos (and also their jackets to two people in t-shirts). 

smell smokes his first cigar.

the fine and dandy trio--a bluegrass band who's mandolin player used to go to school with bone and hoag--warms up the evening with some 4-part harmony, straw-chewin tuneage.

FS takes the stage to a lively crowd of about 65. for our second time in northampton, we are thrilled. barry o'connell, an old professor of bonesaw's who is in surprise attendance, tells us that "the music has gone deep". hoag wonders if he's referring the the lyrical depth of "boogie-woogie-woogie-woogie-woogie-woogie-woogie". probably. 

we all head back to the whitney crib in connecticut and explode our luggage all over the living room floor.

wake up in the morning and head out to hike a mountain (hill? hillock?) near hartford. throughout the whole walk we hear guns being fired in the distance. apparently there is a shooting range nearby, but hoag thinks there is a time-warp situation going on, and what is actually going on has more to do with a colonial minutemen-style militia.

head back to the rose family estate and play a good old-fashioned game of "barn"sketball. it's a self-explanatory game. here's a sample of what the play-by-play would have sounded like:

whit slams his head into the wall as he tries to wrestle the ball from hoag! 

smell flies across the floor and--ohhh-that's the sound of his bones rattling on impact!

and CONMAN flings hoag like a ragdoll into the windowsill!



hoag plays on the tractor in rose's driveway.

head back to whit's to shower, take some advil, and ice our bruises before making the drive to providence to play at place called "club hell". actually it's not even called "club" hell, it's just called hell. it's all red lights and dark-corners and really good beers at the draft-taps that are actually not working, all of which serves to make the place indeed quite hellish. to top it all off, the sound from the stage is a nightmare thanks to broken monitors. hoag has trouble hearing both his voice and bone's guitar, and as a result makes more than 10 pretty gnarly mistakes throughout the performance.

afterwards, we hang with a few dedicated fansaws, then head out to a pizza place with a hodge-podge assortment of old friends from the area. among them: b. rose, a. rose (bros and arrows), conman, whit, sarah, sniper kitty, z-man, and the baldwin bunch. 

before heading back to momsaw and dadsaw's house in philly, we stop in to visit my brother and his kids in wilton, ct. we play wiffle ball with lily and michael. michael goes 7-7 with 4 singles, 3 doubles, and 21 rbi. bonesaw hits a 200 foot homerun over the house. 

arrive back at the philly house and watch the eagles lose to the cowboys. smell is happy. the rest of us are not. smell does an admirable job of not boasting. we are grateful for this, as he could have been quite cruel. 

Monday, November 10th

Begin working with mooger on 3 new tracks. After some trouble getting the right guitar tone, we get all the rhythm tracks laid down. "Yes I'm a..." sounds huge and awesome, and "Riverbanks" has just the right clean-but-gainy chugging groove to it.





Break for an early evening game of soccer. bonesaw is healed and looking strong, and the red team celebrates his return to sporting with an exciting 6-5 victory over the blue team.

grab some hoagies at lee's famous hoagie shop. they get our names wrong on the bill. twinky-p is "twiggy-pete" and hoag is "hole".

back in the studio for some serious vocal tracking. all 3 singers this time, so there won't be 7 hoag's on a song. it's sounding nice and balanced. back at it tonight with the moog-man. 

10 minutes ago: hoag loses to bonesaw in ping-pong, 21-10. 

5 minutes ago: bone loses to hoag in ping-pong, 24-22. 

5 minutes from now: bone loses to hoag in ping-pong 21-19.

September 30, 2009
The Midwest: Giant Teddy Bears, Long Drives, and 40 Minute Sets

Columbia, MO

Before heading to the show in Columbia, we had to stop to get an oil change for the Whale. Unfortunately, this Whale is an automobile, and needs that kind of oil. If it were a real white whale--Physeter catodon—it would be running on its own spermaceti oil. We’re looking into how we can make this happen.

Anyway, it hasn’t happened yet, so we had to go to Walmart (I know, I know) to get a change. While there, we were determined to make the most of our visit to Big-Box-Land, as the video at the bottom of this entry shows.

When we rolled into Columbia, we picked up Joel from Scotty Don’t/Badfish and found a field on which to play 3-v-3 soccer. The first game went to Smell, Bonesaw, and me. Joel can’t stand losing though, so he demanded a re-match, and this time he wanted Bonesaw on his team. They ended up beating Smell/Chito/Hoag this time, but…well that’s it, they beat us. No excuses. (I’m finding it hard to resist calling Joel out for cherry-picking).

After the soccer match, Bonesaw, Smell, and I walked around the campus (University of Missouri). As we walked around the main quad, Smell remarked upon his strange relationship with Colleges and Universities; he’s never graduated from one, but he’s been to about 50 of them, thanks to touring in a band. Next time somebody asks him where he went to school, he vowed to answer, “I don’t like to limit my college experience. I like to spread the wealth. I’ve been to 50 colleges. You’ve probably only been to 1, huh?”

Here’s a pic of Bonesaw and I in front of the famous Mizzou columns

For dinner, we all split up, but I definitely went to the coolest place. 9th Street Deli. A funky little sandwich shop that served some pretty dank beers to boot. Mike is the owner, a very hip, laid-back guy who clearly loves and takes pride in his establishment. He even enjoys somewhat of a celebrity status, as everybody in town seems to know and love him. He had me sign the wall, which I was honored to do. When I couldn’t come up with the $8 I owed him for my beer and sandwich (I only had $6 on me), he said “gimme a CD and we’ll call it even.” As I walked by the deli later on that evening, I heard our tunes playing from the soundsystem he set up on the outdoor patio.

The set at the Blue Note was fantastic. Columbia is a very lively zone, very enthusiastic about music, life, delis; the whole deal. I’m glad we got to visit, and we all can’t wait to go back. Afterwards, we even partied for a while with the venue crew. Sitting on the drum riser in an empty music hall, drinking beers, sharing stories, making fun of Joel…it was great.

The next morning we had a killer breakfast at some café; Egg sandwich on a whole wheat bagel with turkey sausage and tomatoes, and a coffee. All for $4. I still don’t know why it was so cheap. Most of the time on this tour we were in such a rush to get on the road in the morning, that we usually had to hit up freaking McDonald’s (I KNOW!) for a quick breakfast (except for bonesaw, who brings his cereal-nuts-fruit-tupperware thing everywhere, as well as his coffee french press this tour as well). But this place in Columbia made us realize that we should no longer give money to an establishment that pulls its food out of a drawer, throws it in a microwave, and puts it in a Styrofoam container, which is then put in a paper bag, which is then put in another paper bag. No more, I say! I’m embarrassed. (editors note: they still ate at McD's 5 more times on this tour!).

Lawrence, KS

The drive to Lawrence was no joke, but we got there with plenty of time to load in, take a run, wander around, and see the biggest teddy bear of all time. We also had time to return yet another lost dog to its owner. We didn’t name this one and fall in love with it as we did with Wolf-Buddy, but he was a good pup.

After watching an intense game of ladder-golf between Pat/Joel and Colby/Ryan from Scotty Don’t, Smell and I took a stroll around town to find something to eat. Then Scott told us about the beans that their bus driver Danny made, and we headed back to the SD/B bus to scrounge off that. We spent a lot of time scrounging off the SD/B crew. We have very little shame in this regard. But when we need a place to heat up our rice and vegetables (and this time, beans), and there’s a microwave right outside the venue on their bus…it’s just so hard to resist knocking on their door with a puppy dog look on our faces.

During dinner, we all talked about how to save the world. Smell extolled the virtues of vegetarianism, and his refusal to oblige an unsustainable, inhumane, environmentally destructive food industry. (But he still ate the eggs from McDonald's!).

Afterwards, we went over to some bar that had a special on 24 ounce Single-Wide Boulevard IPA ($4). Wished it was Double-Wide, but what can you do?

The rocking that night was high. We even played “Yanomo”, which has been slowly creeping back into our sets. That song definitely—as Ricksaw Reagan would say—“goes hard to the paint."

Carbondale, IL

Lawrence to Carbondale. A whale of a drive. And it left a bad-taste in the mouth, too, because of the gas station store guy who tried to make us pay $1.22 to fill up our own water bottles with water from the ice machines.

Anyway, at times, we weren’t even sure we were going to make it. Turns out we did, but with only enough time to spare to fit in one game of pre-show soccer. (Joel insisted, even though time would have been better spent finding a decent meal). Team Smell/Chito/Hoag avenged their loss from Columbia, capitalizing on Joel’s inability (unwillingness?) to play hard on wet/sloppy turf, and Team S/C/H’s brilliant use of the side of the SD/B tour bus. (It was parked alongside the edge of the playing field, and could be used for bank-passes off the side panels).

Bonesaw collaborated with Scotty Don’t that night on “Refugee”. He and I had been joining SD on stage for “Movies on T.V.”, which had been going awesomely. (Video below). I love that song, and managed to find some sneaky little harmonies tucked into Pat’s sweet melody.

We were anticipating another long drive the next morning, and this was going to be a late show, so we left early, but had Smell stay behind to try and sell some merch. He rode on the SD/B bus that night, something he’s used to from his stint working for them on their spring tour. (When Chito and I rode the bus a few nights later, Smell gave us some tips on how to avoid waking up every time the bus made a turn in the middle of the night: “Pssh…sleep on your back and you won’t roll into the bunk-wall.”)

Thanks Smell.

Columbus, OH

We barely made it to this one. I’m talking 30 minutes to spare. Pretty much parked the Whale, went into the venue, took a pee, and hopped on stage. We had arranged to use SD/B’s equipment to save time, so that was fortunate. Except when we got there, the backstage door guy wouldn’t let us in without our passes (which of course we hadn’t gotten yet). We have long hair, smell bad, and have guitars and drum-sticks in our hands, who the hell did he think we were? Thank goodness Colby came by to vouch for our legitimacy; otherwise we may not have had time to take those pees.

Anyway, it was fun using Scott’s kit. The drum seat is really low, and he puts his drums on the riser, so I felt kind of separated from both the band and the crowd. Kind of like a bubble. But I enjoyed it. His drums sound damn good. Thank god he has a bag attached to his floor tom with spare sticks, because I sent a stick flying by accident during “Hotter in the House,” which tends to happen when playing someone else’s drums, because all the heights are different, and the rims are set at different angles.

Scott joined us on Gymnasium that night, which was a treat. He played the acoustic guitar part. It’s in the video below. He may need to grow out his locks if he continues to appear on stage with us, however. Or at least start wearing clothes that have holes in them.

The evening also featured one of the greatest “bow-and-arrow” shots of all time during “Black is Back.” See the video, it’s there in all its glory.

Also that night, Smell, Bonesaw, and I also bum-rushed the stage during Badfish’s set to play the trumpet part on “Wrong Way” with our Kazoos. (Again, video).

This was also the night that Chito and I rode on the SD/B bus to the next town. Among the highlights? Using running water in a moving vehicle=for some reason very cool. Watching “Enemy of the State” on a big screen? Also very joyous. 

Later on in the drive, Colby came back from a Flying J rest stop with a very realistic-looking, mascot-style Lion mask. It would come in handy the next day at the Nelson Ledges festival.

Nelson Ledges

We’d heard a lot about Nelson Ledges. Big rock quarries overlooking lakes. Nature trails. Tons of trees. When I woke up in the bus, we were already there, which was very time-warpish, since the last time I was awake, I was in Columbus. As I opened the door to step out onto the festival scene, I was bummed to discover that it was a nasty, rainy, gloomy day. Walking around the grounds, I got a quick feel for the festival vibe. Tents, campfires, hippies, and drugs. Alright!

We had a good deal of time to kill, so Smell, Chito, Bonesaw, Joel, and I went for a jog. We weren’t prepared for how much we’d get heckled. We tried to turn it into a Forrest Gump type-thing, where people would spontaneously join the run, but these people weren’t into that. At all.

While we were jogging, Colby, Pat, and Ryan were making the most of the Lion mask. Pat led Lion-Colby around on a leash, advertising a deal on their merchandise.

Here’s a video of our time at Ledges. Note the mind-blowing demonstration of the “Floppy Arm Dance” by Bonesaw, Chito, and Smellman. This dance was originated and perfected by Takeover Tour veteran, “Pukey”.

Headed Home

Ahh, the drive home. SUCKED. 3 hours after nelson ledges, then 15.5 hours to Hope, Arkansas the next day, where Bonesaw had a reunion with Wolf-Buddy on his morning run. He inquired about purchasing her from her owner, but it didn’t work out.

After Hope, it was another 9 hours to Austin on Monday. One more minute in the Whale and we should probably have started to get fitted for straight-jackets.

So…the Tour was great. Never been to most of those places. The Midwest is a beautiful, quiet, but lively and friendly area of the country. And of course, Scotty Don’t/Badfish rules. Thanks for letting us invade your space, guys. Hopefully we can do it again soon!

As for what’s up next…just wait. Big ideas for the next tour are a-brewin’….

Oh, and PS---we got some excellent press during the tour… Check it out

More videos on the Videos page!

September 21, 2009
Let's Go To Chicago, Shall We?

Wolf-Buddy! The name of the dog Bonesaw found on his morning run after our first over-night stop in Effingham, IL. He found her whilst jogging through a small rural neighborhood. She had no tags on, and he tried to encourage her to stay put, but she wouldn’t leave his side. She looked kind of like a wolf, with a beige coat and tall pointy ears. He didn’t know what to do, so he just kept running. 2 miles later, as he jogged into the hotel parking lot, Wolf-Buddy was still by his side. She was actually the first thing Smell and I saw after we woke up and left the room to grab a continental breakfast. She was standing next to Bonesaw—both of their lower-halves soaking wet because of the morning showers—looking up at us as if to say “what should we do now?”           

Bonesaw was clearly taken with her. “Guys, we got a problem…” Then he told us the story of what had happened. He even suggested that if we can’t find her owner we should take her on the rest of the tour with us and finally home to Austin, which was quickly shut down by a debate of the logistics involved in such a course of action. Nevertheless, we had to do something with her, so after breakfast (she spent the time romping in the green pastures behind the hotel property) we called her into the Whale and drove her back to that neighborhood. It looked like she recognized one particular house, so we left her in the yard and made our teary goodbyes.

Later that day, five hours deep into our nine hour drive, we were thankful we hadn’t acted on our impulse to bring her with us. She was delightful, but….well, you know.

When we reached Rantoul, IL at around 10pm, we were able to find a liquor store with some quality beer. We chose Longhammer IPA, made by Red Hook Brewing; a 6.7% hop-grenade (not quite a bomb) that definitely did the trick after a beer-less evening in Effingham (a dry county).

The next morning—after Hoag gave Smell a tutorial in proper showering technique --(Smell: “No matter how much a wash, I still kinda stink!”)—we found some cornfields behind the hotel, which Smell promptly pillaged.

How did it taste, Smell? “Dry…Hard…Bad.” And so, after realizing her couldn’t eat it, he drew a face on it, gave it a personality (gruff, confrontational, brutish) and made it into a mascot for inside the Whale. But I haven’t seen it in a few days, so it’s probably decomposing somewhere underneath a Whale bench.

You may be wondering how we spend all this time in the Whale (1,176 miles to Chicago for our first show of the tour). The “Whale in the Driveway” skit gave some indication, but here’s another little glimpse. You may be shocked at the sheer rock’n’rollness of this debaucherous activit:

Last night in Chicago (House of Blues) was amazing. I think 1,000 paid (I’d estimate 20 were there to see us, 980 to see SD/Badfish). In any case, the place was packed and we rocked appropriately. Afterwards, Bonesaw and I joined Scotty Don’t on stage for “Movies on TV”. He played guitar and I sang harmonies. Love singing harmonies. And listening to Bonesaw shred solos.

Before the show we walked around Chicago to do some sight-seeing. Most of the time we walked around Millennium Park, as you can see in the video. Silver people on stilts, a giant metallic bean, gorgeous gardens, and stylish, scrap-metal-like amphitheaters.

Tonight we got added to a show in St. Louis with Scotty Don’t and Badfish at a place called Pop’s. I think Megadeth is playing there soon. (Which reminds me, Alice in Chains is playing House of Blues Chicago tonight. it was funny parking our tiny little Whale next to their mansion-bus). 

September 15, 2009
The Stubb's Show!!!

There are some things in life; winning that 100 yard dash in 5th grade against Johnny, who always bragged about how fast he was and who always said he could crush you in a race. Or asking out that beautiful girl in the boots and hearing her answer with the words “of course!” Or finally beating all 100 levels of Bubble Bobble with your brother after two hard weeks of losing to the Blob Monster on the final level.

Well the Stubb’s show this past weekend ranks right up there with the race, the girl, and the slaying of the Blob Monster. Please don’t ask me to rank these moments, as they are all so rich with varying shades of joy and triumph, that it just seems cruel to pit them against one another. These moments are a family. And the Stubb’s moment (can 2 hours of rocking be considered a “moment?”) is the newest member of that family.

Where to begin? Let’s begin with thank-you’s. First of all, thank you to the people that came. You all were so prepared to jump and shout and dance and sing, I could see it in your eyes as we talked before the show. Many of you I have seen at shows before, but so many of you I feel like I’ve never seen before in my life, which means that existing fans are turning on new people to our tunes, which in turn means that these dedicated FanSaws deserve a big round of applause. People like Joker, Jillian, Aaron, Craig, Eliza, and so many others are the reason why more people are getting served. That’s the reason we put you all in those radio-ads, because we feel like we owe so much of the fire-spreading to you. Thank you dudes! The question is, will you guys stick with is when we go through our weird period and make a record with power-drills, kitchen-pots, ektars, harmonicas, whistles, cellos, timpanis, and choirs?

More thank-yous…To Ken, for manning the merchandise, and for carrying equipment. Josh Sokol for loading the stage before the show and for making sure we were properly hydrated. Ryan and Andy as well. And Nadjia and Kerry for lugging all that merchandise back to the Whale after the show. Very impressive.

Speaking of merchandise, those new home-made silk-screen tee’s sold like crazy. I’m a bit obsessed with these t-shirts, as I spent a lot of time making the screens and making sure they get pressed onto the shirts accurately, and that they get properly heat-set with an iron after they are made, so it’s quite satisfying to see that people actually like them. It touches mi corazon. And I must extend one more thank you, to Amber, for being such an expert presser, such a graceful “Inktress”.

There are a bunch of videos of the performance up on youtube taken by Jillian Davis, who—being the superfan that she is—took footage from the very front row. Check ‘em out below.

Dom! Your promotional effort was phenomenal. You and Cousteau’s Press brought a bunch of people, and that, my friend, is a job well done. Keep at it, man.

And to the boys in 6-Pack-Deep…People were coming up to me all night saying how much they liked you guys, and ya’ll really got the place amped before we went on. And, as always, thank you for lending your horn players for the “Trumpets” performance.

We played for about two hours, and definitely dropped in some rarities. (I forgot how much freakin fun it is to play “Yanamo.”) We also brought Smell out front to sing a cover of “Wild Thing.” (Clip below). He even busted out a killer solo with one of our new Kazoobie Trumpet Kazoos.

Speaking of “busting out,” Bonesaw is really getting into “busting out a different Gibson Les Paul” every other song. Lucky bastard. Like I said during the show, I wish I could say “Wait, hold on guys, let me go bust out this other Ludwig 5-piece, it’s a 1960’s model with a cherry maple finish. Then after that I’m gonna bring out my 10-piece 2009 model with the fire-burst sparkle fini sh.”

Kazoos! They were LOUD on Trumpets. Kazoobie, this thing is really starting to get crazy. We sold a bunch of those little suckers and I feel like there’s a kazoo renaissance happening.

So anyway, when we got home from the show, the party continued. Check out this clip of the following debauchery:

The next morning we headed down to Corpus to play at Dr. Rockit’s. Our man Storby hooked it up. Storby is so effing cool, man. He’s one of those dudes that just loves music and loves helping bands. It was really interesting watching him refuse money from us for booking the show. He wholeheartedly rejected our overture, and told us to keep the money for Gatorades, gas, peanut butter, “all the things that keep bands in a van going, man!” Love you, Storbs.

The show was pretty cool, too. Beforehand, we went to dinner at some restaurant, and when we walked in they were playing our album. “Hey!” said the waitress, “We’re coming to your show tonight!” So that made us feel pretty hot-shottish.

Dr. Rockit’s is a bar/local hang-out atmosphere, and we were playing to mostly new fans, so it was quite a different energy than the previous night at Stubb’s. The all-star of the night was definitely George, a silver-haired middle-age man with a mullet so fierce that people were taking pictures, who joined us on stage for “Wild Thing.” I happened to catch his performance on my Hoag-Cam (I tucked my mini-video camera into my headband). See the video below.

There was one other blog-worthy moment from this show, and this type of thing has never happened before. During an a capella version of a new song featuring a 3-part vocal, Bonesaw and I completely lost our shit because of this one tiny little part where Smell echoes a lyric, so for one small moment all you hear is Smell sing a very tender “lately”. You may have to know Smell for that to be funny, but for some reason that just set us off. I could NOT KEEP IT TOGETHER. I’d look over at Bone and he’d be bowing his head crying from the laughter. Eventually Smell had to leave the stage so that we could regain our composure. Actually, what made it even funnier was that he actually did not leave the stage, he stole off into a mini, trapdoor-like room that is sort of hidden along the back wall of the stage. It leads to a very small room, maybe 3X3 feet, barely tall enough for a human to stand in. Just imagining him standing in there waiting for us to finish led to even more laughter. It was rough.

Anyway, I gotta wrap this up because tomorrow we’re leaving for a Tour of the Midwest and I gotta print up a whole bunch more home-made tee’s! Chito’s coming on this one, by the way, so we’re pretty freakin pumped. Chito rules.

 

September 5, 2009
Smell Packs His Clothes in a Paper Bag and other wierd things about our trip to Baton Rouge and College Station. . .

We get pulled over for a lot of reasons—a lot of bogus reasons (having a shirt tied to the back door of the whale, for example), but this one takes the cake; about a half-hour outside of Austin, on our way to Baton Rouge to play the Varsity Theater, we got pulled over by an old cowboy in a sheriff’s hat and his little friend, who looks and acts like he might be his son. (“Oh yeah, boss, sure thing boss, you’re right boss”). And for what? For an “unauthorized sun-screen tint” on our windows. Little cowboy even went so far as to suggest that we might be transporting dead-bodies. (It’s not every day that one has to answer the question, “Are you transporting dead bodies?”).

So after telling them we weren’t murderers, we told papa cowboy that this is how we bought the van from The University of Texas Geology Department, back in 2006. He then asked if any of us had ever been arrested. We said no (Smell and Twink’s arrest in Brooklyn was expunged from their record last July), then he asked us again 30 seconds later. Our answer hadn’t changed. Then he and his little buddy went back to their crown Victoria to run Bonesaw’s license. We used the time to think of a name for our next tour. (Some of the rejections? “Economic Downtourn” “Tourt Reform”, “Tour-ie Spelling”).

When he came back, he gave us a warning and wished us good luck at our show. This, after suspecting us of being in the dead-body-transportation business. Whatever man.

What followed was a mostly uneventful drive over to Baton Rouge. There was one highlight, though, and that’s when Smell unveiled his new travel gear to us. It’s too funny to write, I suggest just watching the video at the end of this entry. The guy is an innovator, I’ll tell you that much.

After unloading at the venue, we had plenty of time to chill, so Smell and Bonesaw and I went over to this coffee shop and pretended to be sophisticated.

Later, before we took the stage, the club filled up pretty freaking well, thanks to the dedicated efforts of some hardcore Fansaws. Mark Larmeau brought a bunch of peeps, Casey Hawkland, Kitty Cat, Adam Alford, Harrison Rainwater, and many others. Many thanks to you guys for spreading the word. And a special thanks also to Tiffany for running merch whilst we jammed.

The kazoos are proving to be a hot item. One girl actually bought 15 before we even played, and we sold a bunch more to some other folks. The 6 Pack Deep horns kinda drowned out the kazoos in the crowd, but that’s all good because those guys rule. And most of the time we won’t have horns, so the magical sound of the ‘zoos will permeate the building. Kazoobie Kazoos, baby! All thanks to them.

After the show we ran into some dudes waiting by the Whale. They were wearing strange shoes that were form-fitting to their toes. Some kind of new footwear philosophy, I don’t know. But they were freaking awesome and they made these dudes look like Ninja Turtles from the ankles down.

Anyway, they apparently became huge fans that night. Said they’d “follow us to the end of the world.” Drugs may have been involved.

The next morning we woke up and scarfed some waffles at the hotel complimentary breakfast. I made the perfect waffle. And there were little bowls of walnuts and blueberries, which made my freaking morning. It was joyous. Bonesaw ate cornflakes, almonds, and a banana that he brought from home. Silly gluten-allergy.  

College Station the next day was most excellent as well. We hit up the Texas A&M radio station (their tagline: “The College Station college station”) to do an interview with our old friend Patrick Gallagher, who interviewed us there two years ago and who returned this year just to do this interview.

Here’s a clip of our first meeting in 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR7PZwsP3kI

And at the end of this entry, you can see some clips from this year’s visit.

After the interview/performance, we roamed around campus. There were thousands of people walking around in maroon shirts because of the football game that was going down later that evening. We didn’t have maroon shirts, and I think people just assumed we were communists.

Later on we played at Zapato’s Cantina, thanks to the efforts of great guy/new fan, Geoff McClard. He put the whole thing together, which is one of the coolest things a new Fansaw can do. Thank you Geoff, we had a blast, and we’ll do it again soon. Thanks also to all you crazies who came out and jammed for so freaking long, and our fansaw street teamers like Kevin Primm who brought six freakin’ friends to the show! Man, College Station is becoming a little bit of a hotbed of Full Servicedom. Oh, and Badger…thanks for making us play Freezing Dub a second time. I messed up the first time, so this one gave me a chance at redemption.

We played from 10:30 until about 1:30. 3 hours. Arms were tired, eyes were droopy. Then we had to drive 2 and a half hours home. We didn’t get loaded up and on the road until about 2:30. You do the math, man. It was rough. Bonesaw slept until 11:15 the next morning. In case you don’t know the guy, that is…well that is something I thought was impossible, frankly.

Here’s the video montage of the whole trip:

Up next? C’mon, you know the answer…STUBB’S on September 12th!! Spread the word.

~ Hoag

August 1, 2009
Houston, Dallas, and ENORMOUS stages

The drive up to Dallas for the House of Blues show with Scotty Don’t and Badfish was completely un-remarkable except for one thing. At a rest stop near Waco, we spotted a long-ago car bingo item that we’ve only seen twice in two years. In fact, in the original game we played it was the very last item to be found, and it was found at the very last minute, before all of us were thinking about calling it final because we thought we’d never see it and we were tired of looking. It’s an item you may think is very common, but trust me; it’s becoming an endangered species. Ladies and gentleman, I give you…The “Calvin Pissing” Sticker…

(And for you FS trivia nuts out there, here is the diary entry from October 15, 2007, in which the Calvin Pissing sticker was finally found...)

Smell won the 2nd Car Bingo list. We were stopped at a red light in Goodwater, Alabama (home of Smell’s Grandma “Mama Ann”), and he said to us very calmly, “Ohmygod…calvin…pissing….” And sure enough, barely visibly, in the middle of a much bigger chevrolet sticker, we all sadly, hesitatingly, acknowledged it’s presence. It was all sort of anti-climactic actually. I don’t mean to diminish Smell’s victory in any way, I’m just saying...I don’t think any of us wanted to accept that the greatest, most competitive game of car bingo ever played…was over.

So…we were pretty excited for the Dallas show. Perhaps even more than the rocking, we were looking forward to bullshitting with our SD/B pals, and ordering salmon and salads and burgers from the wonderful Cari, our “server.” (Gosh that sounds so wrong. At this point she’s more of a “friend.” And yes, it feels wrong ordering dinner from a friend.) Cari’s awesome, she even put Mastodon on the PA before our set. And everybody knows that Mastodon is the greatest band on the planet. (Does everybody know that?)

We unveiled some new merch at this show, and Colby, the seasoned merch-veteran from SD/B, helped me arrange it attractively for the potential buyers. Many thanks to Ken and Amber for manning the table most of the night. And to Colby for manning the table when those two went to the bathroom/snuck away to watch the show/grab a beer.

Anyway, the items we unveiled were two new t-shirts, home-made using my friend Poop’s silk-screen gear. I designed the “Smell” tee, and he designed the “Hoag” tee. If you’re interested in buying one, email hoag@fullservicemusic.com and I’ll send one out to you. They’re 20 beans. Here they are:


The set we played was one of those 30-minute sprints. Now that we’re getting some really good slots as the openers, for big bands like SD/B and 311 and all that, we’re playing a lot more 30 minute sets. It’s obviously way different than playing 45 minutes or an hour, as there is less time to create an “arc” to the set. It’s so compact that we have a tendency to just hit ‘em hard the whole way, with maybe something like “Gymnasium” or “Ramona” to connect things. The 30 minute set has it’s pros (A—you never have to worry about “conserving energy” and can afford to go nuts the entire time, and B—you can leave the crowd wanting more) but sometimes I miss having the opportunity to toy around with the ebb and flow of the set, and obviously 30 minutes has a tendency to fly by way too fast.

After the show we drove a little bit outside of town, in the direction of Houston, and tried to find a hotel. In classic Bonesaw form, he nixed the idea of the run-down “Budget Motel” (think horror movies) but for some reason entertained the idea of the equally run-down motel whose sign was so jacked up that the name was un-readable (think scarier horror movie). We dissuaded him from that, however, and found a Super 8 down the road.

The next day we drove out to Houston to play the Sam Houston Race Park, where we were kicked out last year during the Takeover Tour. When we arrived at the venue—a strange place that is host to horse races and rock concerts (that classic combo!)—we discovered that entry into the concert grounds was frighteningly easy, making us feel stupid that last year we didn’t simply drive up to the little gate and say into the intercom, “we’re one of the bands,” which is all we had to do this year. How much trouble we could have saved last summer if we had simply pretended we were part of the 311 Unity Tour.

Here’s a video clip of our approach to the venue. It was strange. Full of winding roads, lakes, horse stables, and long tunnels.

(Insert Video coming soon)

The accommodations were nice. They had a trailer set up for us, and we read our books and watched some of Tommy Boy. Unfortunately, an un-named member of Full Service clogged the toilet in the trailer, and we had to suffer the indignity of having to tell the stage manager, and hear him say into his walkie, “Hey Pam, yeah can you send a plunger over to the Full Service trailer? Thanks.”

The set was great. The previous night we debuted one of our new tunes, “Coconuts,” and we played it again here in Houston. Both times it was received with instant enthusiasm, which was very exciting ans somewhat strange. We’ll probably pound out a recording of this one soon and post it online for all you folks that asked if it was on the CD after shows.
Here’s some video and some photos from the Houston show. The incredible pictures are by our friend Barry Dolton:




"Note the sweet flipbook that bonesaw and i made in the flipbook booth upstairs after the show."



What’s up next for Full Service? September 4th in Baton Rouge (Varsity Theater, w/ 6-Pack Deep), and September 12th in Austin at Stubb’s, with 6-Pack-Deep and Cousteu’s Press, featuring our 16-year-old neighbor Dominic Martinez on drums. He rules.

ALSO…We are pleased to announce that we are now sponsored by the leading Kazoo company in the country, Kazoobie Kazoos. They are donating a ton of kazoos every year, and they have given us 4 trumpet look-a-like kazoos with working valves for us to play from the stage at the beginning of Trumpets. These, and the 500 kazoos, which will be on sale at the merch table for $3, will make their debut at the September 4th show in Baton Rouge. We hope to get them in the mail this week, and when we do, we’ll make a little video of us using them in the jam room so you can see how cool they look in action.

 

July 28, 2009
Full Service goes to New Jersey

So who’s been watching the Daily Clips from the Takeover Tour? Mooger’s doing a pretty excellent job of actually posting one every single day, so head over to vimeo.com and subscribe to that thang! There’s also a player on the front page of our website. My favorite so far? It’s hard to choose. I’m a big fan of “Rapper-1 Unlow,” “Smell vs. Football,” “Hoag and Smell vs. Rocketship,” and “F Virginia.” I’m surprised Mooger hasn’t decided to upload the clip of Smell defending his outie belly-button. (“I was a baby! I had nothing to do with it!” in classic Smell freak-out/pterodactyl voice.) Maybe a write-in campaign is in order. Mooger’s email is gtori@mac.com.

This past weekend was a first for Full Service. We had a show out of state (in New Jersey), and we did not take the Whale. Bone and I flew up to Momsaw and Dadsaw’s house a week in advance for a buddy’s wedding, so Smell and Twink had to fly up by themselves. I’m kind of surprised they made it. Plus, we didn’t feel like driving into Philly to pick them up, so we arranged for them to catch a train after their flight landed. This proved to be a disaster, but it wasn’t really their fault. I was expecting Smell in particular to be in a raunchy mood when he finally got to M and D’saw’s place, but I quickly offered him a 7.3% Green Flash IPA and he forgot all about his hassles. I knew Twinky-P would be cool because he’s an even-Steven.
Anyway, after dinner with M’saw and D’saw, we headed over to Mooger’s to try some of his homebrew (excellent) and to look over some of the Takeover Tour footage that he and I had been editing together. (We are an unstoppable team. Actually there is ONE thing that can throw us off task, and that is the revisiting of the “Rapper-1 Unlow” clip. We can waste half-hours on that sucker).

Saturday morning we headed up to Asbury Park at the Jersey Shore for the Garden Grove Festival with Scotty Don’t and Badfish. We got there with plenty of time to kill, so we headed over to the boardwalk and watched a girl’s dodgeball match (not on the video.) Then we stumbled upon a really excellent flea-market, where Smell found a pair of glasses and a framed college degree. He’s a whole new man now, ladies and gentlemen.

The set was only a half-hour long, a dead sprint. (Leave it to us knuckleheads to spend the money to fly 1500 miles for a 30 minute set). We weren’t using our gear, which was a little bit of a problem for some of us. Scott’s floor tom collapsed into my lap on the first song. Here’s a picture of it. As you can tell, I’m shouting to Mooger for help, but he only laughed, pointed a finger, and snapped photos.

Bonesaw also had some problems. He tried to figure out the pedal board (Bonesaw never uses pedals), but failed miserably.
.

Then later he blew a fuse in Pat’s amp, which led to a 5-minute mid-set delay, during which Smell and I threw CD’s out into the crowd. I told the audience I’d be doing it bride-throwing-bouqet style, as in I’d turn my back and blindy throw, but the Jersey crowd didn’t really take to that analogy and I felt stupid for comparing myself to a woman at her wedding.

Anyway, we’ve got video of the whole weekend (including a great montage of Full Service taking their first ever flight together, back to Austin), and I’ll be uploading some clips of individual songs from the set in the next couple days, so be sure to check back.

Up next for FS: shows at House of Blues in Dallas (Friday, Aug. 7th) and Sam Houston Race Park in Houston (Saturday, August 8th), both with Scotty Don’t and Badfish. Other than that, we’re continuing to rehearse new material (I’ll keep the videos from the jam room coming frequently), and we’re designing new FS shirts with our awesome new silk-screen kit. Here’s a preview of what we’ve got going on with this. My friend Poop designed this one. PHOTO.

June 15, 2009
Full Service vs. ROT Biker Rally

God bless those Bikers, but man it’s a mad-house downtown during the Republic of Texas Biker Rally. Lucky for us, our show at the Flamingo Cantina coincided with this very chaotic annual event. HOWEVER, we were thrilled at the amount of people that braved the thick traffic and certain unavailability of parking spots to came out and go absolutely nuts at our show. There was so much energy from the crowd at this one, it really called to mind that famous equation of energy-transfer as-per ratio direct-correlation algorithmic binary coefficient. It looks a little something like this:

To the layman, this simple derivative proves that as fans rock out harder, the band rocks out harder, and vise versa.

Anyway, it all went off great. Mooger was in town, not even to film, simply to hang out and take still photos. But that proved to be useless because he’s a bonehead and forgot his zoom lense. Still, he got some nice shots. (coming soon). Our friend Phive also got some excellent ones.

The acoustic set, the drum solo, Tennessee Traveler with Smell on drums: it all happened. It was the first time we’d ever stopped a show to sit down and play acoustically for a few minutes, and it was the first time in at least two years that Hoag and Bonesaw have played guitar at the same time. The drum solo was good, simply the first rung on the ladder to eventual epicness, so that’s cool . And Smell…boy did Smell deliver on the drums for Tennessee Traveler.

Oh, and the Kazoos! You really just need to see the footage to get the effect. We had some people come up on stage to use the mics, and the rest blew the ‘zoos from the floor.

See a bunch of videos on the FS video page.

We’re close to landing a sponsorship agreement with a Kazoo company, and we’ll be printing out Full Service trumpet-capped kazoos to sell for $3 at future shows.

Anyway, a lot of out-of-towners came to this show, which was amazing to see. And as the video shows, a lot of them were singing along and getting rowdy. It really called to mind that most famous of equations concerning the augmenting factor of additional lyrical volume. I don’t even need to show you that equation, because it’s so basic.

So we’ll be laying low in Austin for a while, doing a bunch of Takeovers and writing some new material just for fun. We’ll keep you posted on both the takeovers and the new jams with emails and video updates.

ALSO…we’d like to announce our new video blog. It’s dedicated entirely to random clips (some that will be used, some that are simply outtakes) from the Takeover Tour documentary. Mooger will add one short clip per day. They are often hilarious, so be sure to tune in. We’ll keep you posted on when it’s up and running.

June 10, 2009
Takeover: Matisyahu/Les Claypool Concert

As usual, a video accompanies this update, but as usual, it is advised that you read first and view after.

* HOAG’S VIDEO
JILLIAN’S VIDEOS: (not up yet)
* SEAN’S VIDEO

Lately we’ve been trying to think of ways to raise awareness about our show this Saturday the 13th at Flamingo Cantina. Sometime last week we marked off June 9th for a potential Takeover at the Les Claypool/Matisyahu concert at the Austin Music Hall.
When we emailed our friend Sandra (the owner of the Austin Music Hall) about our plans, she immediately called us and said she’d clear the Takeover with the Sheriff. This is the same Sandra who let us in The Backyard to do a Takeover at the 311 show during last summer’s Takeover Tour. (See Takeover Tour Progress Report 14-A).

So when we got to the AMH for the Takeover, Sandra actually had a guy waiting for us to show us where we could park (a nice little spot next to Matisyahu’s bus). Not ONLY that, she also sent out two stage hands to help with anything we need. “Hey guys, welcome back!” they said, and we recognized them as the same dudes that loaded in our gear when we played with 311 a few weeks ago. So anyway, these nice gentlemen hooked me up with a rug for my drums. (The rug is an invaluable asset to a Takeover. It was extremely irresponsible of me to forget one, and I’m somewhat ashamed that after about 101 Takeovers I didn’t remember to bring such a necessary accessory. Shake it off, shake it off).

It was somewhat surreal doing a Takeover at a venue we’d played legitimately at just a few weeks ago. As we were setting up, somebody came up to us and said “Yo! I saw you guys with 311! Aren’t you guys too big to be doing this type of thing still?” Our resounding response, of course, was “hell no!” I hope we’ll never think we’re too big for a Takeover. Takeovers keep the grime of the street on you. They keep dents in your gear and sweat in your hustle. It makes us feel like pirates, and that’s a good feeling. I mean, a backstage green room with lots of couches and food and beer is also a good feeling, but that’s totally different.

Anyway, the question arose, since this Takeover was sanctioned by Sandra, could we really call it a “Takeover”? That’s when Smell came up with a new term: “Take-Upon.” As in, we took it upon ourselves to accept help. Not bad Smell, not bad at all. You could go to Yale no problem. (Actually Hoag, he meant “we took it upon ourselves to try to get permission… and succeeded.” – ed.)

So it was a great “Take-Upon.” Handed out a bunch of fliers for the June 13th show, and everybody seemed to have an awesome time. Les Claypool actually came out to watch 4 tunes, which in hindsight is sort of embarrassing, considering how out-there he is as a musician. He probably saw our stuff and was like (insert dignified British accent), “This is so elemen-tree. So stahn-dard.”

Anyway, there’s an outdoor patio on the second floor of the venue, and a lot of people watched the set from up there, which brought back memories of the Takeover we did at Coney Island during last summer’s Takeover Tour. (Luckily nothing happened after this Takeover that brought back memories of Coney Island).

And to top if all off, Sandra hooked us up with a handful of complimentary tickets to the show. Les Claypool was awesome and scary at the same time. At one point he came out in a tuxedo and a monkey mask and played an instrument I’ve never seen before.

Watch out for our next Takeover this Friday at 5:30pm at the corner of Barton Springs and Lamar.

June 5, 2009
The MTU: Mobile Takeover Unit!

Tuesday

2:45pm: Bonesaw organizes a band meeting to discuss ways to promote the June 13th show at Flamingo Cantina.

2:58: Smell shows up to the meeting

3:00: Twinky-P suggests ordering 100 kazoos and bringing them to the show for people to play the riff from “Trumpets.”

3:00: A unanimous “that’s brilliant” reaction from Bonesaw, Hoag, and Smell.

3:05: Bonesaw asks where we can obtain such a large quantity of “’zoos”

3:05:01: “Pssh….Party Pig on Lamar,” from Smell.

3:06: It is decided, we will travel to Party Pig on Lamar with the objective of buying 100 kazoos for the audience at the June 13th show.

3:07: Amid the excitement, Bonesaw re-focuses the group. “Now let’s think of ways to get people to the club…”

3:08: Hoag suggests doing a Takeover at First Thursday on South Congress Ave.

3:08-3:12: The group deliberates about location, start time, and other logistical concerns.

3:13: Hoag proposes that we do a Takeover Tour of South Congress, but in order to do this, we’d need to be mobile, which may mean sacrificing the idea of playing with our complete set-up. He and Smell offer to build a “Mobile-Takeover-Unit” (M.T.U) out of a shopping cart. It will house two miniature amps for electric guitar and bass, the generator for power, and various drums and percussion will be affixed to the sides.

3:14: This too, is met with enthusiasm, and it is decided that we will move forward into the execution stage of this plan.

3:15: Meeting is adjourned.

Wednesday

6:15pm: Smell brings over a shopping cart (the question of “where did you get this shopping cart?” goes unasked, and that’s probably for the best…)

6:16-6:30: Smell and Hoag drink beers.

6:31: Work begins on the construction of the M.T.U. It comes together surprisingly fast, which is a little alarming because things don’t usually happen so easily in this band when it comes to the execution of cockamamie plans.

Here is a photograph of the M.T.U. Behold it’s simple and elegant design, it’s entrepreneurial splendor, it’s Frankenstinian appeal!

Thursday

9:10am: Hoag wakes up early out of anticipation concerning the impending first Thursday Takeover and the inaugural performance of the M.T.U.

6:45pm: Chito and Smell arrive at the house and the final touches are made to the M.T.U. (some shoring up of the various parts, and the addition of a promotional sign advertising our show at the Flamingo Cantina on June 13th)

6:50: Chito and Smell and Hoag drink beers. Full Sail Amber Ale (Oregon), Bootlegger Brown Ale (Austin), and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (California).

(The following adventures were captured on video, but read first.)

7:50: Chito begins wheeling the M.T.U out of the back yard. Chickens surround him. It is a surreal scene.

7:50:26: The tom-tom falls off its mount. We resist the impulse to feel discouraged and simply pick it up and put it back on. No adjustments are made, but miraculously it never falls off the rest of the night.

7:52: Bonesaw places a call to Twinky-P to “meet us at the, ah…Guerro’s area…”

8:01: Hoag crosses W. Elizabeth St. proudly with the M.T.U

8:05: After we are shut down by the police for performing on a public street corner, we are told to “Move on.” We tell the officer we would be happy to, as our device is completely portable and was designed to do just that!

8:06: Smell and Bonesaw offer different ideas of where we should set up next. Bonesaw wants to head south towards the cupcake trailer, and Smell wants to go “that way” (north). Bonesaw wins the argument, and we head south.

8:09: Bonesaw wonders if he lost his cell phone.

8:10: Bonesaw finds his cell-phone in his book bag.

8:12: To deflect attention from his own carelessness, Bonesaw begins making fun of Hoag for “not being good at crossing the street.”

8:12:19: Smell joins in on the fun and tells Chito about the time Hoag admitted to him that he is not a good street-crosser.

8:12:45: Hoag conquers his fears and successfully crosses the street, with a bit of a flourish, as the video will show…

8:17: Smell and Hoag secure permission from the Cupcake lady to play on their property for passersby.

8:18-9:15: Perform a collection of numbers such as “Tennessee Traveler,” “Imaginary Girl,” “Gymnasium,” “Hi-Ho,” “Ramona,” “Clock Ticks,” “Oh Kill Me,” and a surprisingly well-executed version of “Multitudes.” Hoag and Smell at first struggle to fill in the spaces with their stripped down set of drums and percussion, but by the end they are able to find their groove and do more with less.

8:22: An older gentleman in his 60’s approaches and asks if we know any oldies. We play “Rave On” by Buddy Holly and “Stand by Me” by the Drifters. The gentleman sings harmony over top, and we all have a moment together. He thanks us and says he is a “fan for life.”

8:25: A little boy dances freestyle to “The Pieta.” It is the kind of dance adults wish they could pull off. Pure, unfiltered joy.

8:26: The boy’s mother says he plays drums. Hoag asks if he takes lessons. She says yes. Hoag says he bets he can beat his instructor’s price. They exchange figures and indeed, Hoag’s prices are better. The mother will be contacting Hoag in the future!

9:15: We wrap it up and head downtown to put up some fliers at the Flamingo Cantina. It’s been a good night.

 

May 25, 2009
Back in the Midwest... already?

Dallas—House of Blues

Before I begin this update, let me first make an announcement about The Whale (our van). On Sunday, May 17th, as we watched Scotty Don’t and Badfish perform at Emo’s, somebody broke into our beloved Physeter catodon, stealing iPods, headphones, phone chargers, and (perhaps worst of all) all of our Red “Whale” t-shirts. I was thinking about it, though…Maybe the dude will sell those shirts to make some money. Granted, we won’t make any profit, but I hope he sells out of them, as that would mean 55-65 more people in Austin walking around with a Full Service shirt on. I was also thinking, perhaps we should think about donating FS shirts to homeless folks in Austin. It would be great advertising, considering how many cars pass by panhandlers at busy intersections, and it would simultaneously be a good deed. Everybody wins, right? Just a thought.

Anyway, back to the shows. So we rolled into Dallas with only 20 minutes to spare until sound-check, which meant that as I was mic-checking the kick-drum, I was also placing my dinner order (Rosemary Chicken with veggies and mashed potatoes) with the hospitality girl. Nevertheless, we got it done in time, and were able to start our set promptly at 8pm. It was a great set. In an effort to liven up dead air-time while Bonesaw tunes his guitar between songs, Smell and I thought of a game to play called “Words That Rhyme With Blue?” I said “True,” then Smell said “Crew,” then I said “Slew,” then Smell said “Brew,” then Bonesaw publicly ridiculed us for being “stupid” (even though I really think he liked it). In any case, it definitely seemed to entertain the crowd, as I heard some people shout out their own suggestions (“Glue” and “You”).

We opened this show for Scotty Don’t, who were making their headlining debut (as in, no “Badfish” performance that night). Their set was fantastic, and I was impressed how many people they had, being so far from their home state of Rhode Island. Here’s some video footage of Bonesaw guest-shredding on their song “Movies on T.V.”

Tulsa—Cain’s Ballroom

Back in Tulsa! Same venue, too. Strange being there twice in one week. Interesting fact about Tulsa, by the way? There are signs all over the city that say “Up with Trees,” which is part of a tree-planting effort by the city I suppose. Sick thing is, the signs are made of wood.

Anyway, the show was fantastic. A bunch of fans that we made on the 311 tour came back out to see us. Smell and I chilled with a handful of them at the Sound-Pony bar next to the venue. Had us a couple of those 11.5% abv Flying Dog beers. Killer. Also, met a dude there who looked exactly like Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul. He gave me a novelty drumstick the size of a walking cane, which I used as a prop during our set that night. Just before Bonesaw started “Don’t Deny” I said “Oh no, I broke a stick! Hold on, let me grab another one…” then I pulled out this giant baseball-bat-sized stick to much hullabaloo and laughter. The crowd pressured me into trying to use it, and I made what I thought was a valiant effort, but ultimately it proved to be too heavy to execute the snare rolls, so we had to stop and start over again with my real sticks, which ended up feeling like pencils.

Here’s some video of the scene in the club after the show:


Kansas City—Crossroad’s

First time in K.C. It’s actually a very cool city, I had no idea what to expect. I took a run before the show and was impressed with the layout and funky vibe of the downtown area. The venue, “Crossroad’s” was modeled after Austin’s own “Stubb’s,” as these photos show. The owner of the place was a very eccentric character named “Stretch.” Not sure why he was called “Stretch,” because he definitely wasn’t tall and skinny or anything. He a short stocky dude. Anyway, he’s also a sculptor, so he’s very into the art scene in K.C., and he told us all about what he’s done to make “Crossroad’s” a happenin’ place. He commissions muralists to paint on the side of the club in exchange for pizza and beer. They’re beautiful. And kinda freaky and unsettling.

The backstage at this place was amazing. There were massage therapists and hair-stylists on hand, which was rather astonishing. The hair-stylists kept asking me if I needed a hair-cut, but I was able to scare them away by showing them the giant dreadlock-trunk in the back of my head. They stopped asking me after that. Scotty from Scotty Don’t got a crew cut though.

Our set was awesome. Played “Tomatoes,” which we haven’t done in a while. Always fun to do those vocal falsettos and that stop-time break in the middle of the song. But yeah, the response from the crowd was pretty hype, especially considering it was our first time there, we were playing when it was still light out, and people hadn’t gotten a chance to get their buzz on yet.

So, the big news is that we left Smell in Kansas City! Scotty Don’t/Badfish’s merch. guy Colby had to fly home for a family emergency, so Scotty D asked Smell to travel with them for a week doing merchandise. In typical Smell fashion, he accepted the mission with an enthusiastic “I’m in!” He texted us from their tour-bus a few hours later saying “On the bus drinkin’ Sierra Nevada watching ESPN!” He’s having the time of his life. Hope he doesn’t get used to the comforts of that big bus though. He better remember his White Whale roots.

So take care of our Smelly, Scotty Don’t! Feed him twice a day and take him out to pee in the morning and night…

Here’s some video of our time in KC:

May 20, 2009
311 and Full Service Tour: Takeover Tour reunited

For 5 glorious days, the Full Service 311-Takeover Tour crew reunited for the culmination of an experiment 1 and a half years in the making. Back in early 2008, we came up with the idea of following a band around on their summer tour and playing in the parking lots while people tailgated before the show. 311 turned out to be the band we followed, based on a similar demographic and an ’08 summer touring schedule that made sense with ours. Fast forward about 15 months and we find ourselves invited to play on the big stage as direct support for the touring machine that is 311. What follows is a recounting of this recent adventure. 3 shows, 3 cities, 5 days. The story is told through NUMBERS.

Austin

20:2: ratio of vehicles, 311 to Full Service (assuming 1 huge tour bus equals about 4 White Whales…)

18:3: ratio of guitars and basses, 311 to Full Service

14: 5: ratio of drums-on-drum-set, 311 to Full Service

13:13: ratio of drums-on-drum-set, 311 to Full Service (adding Smells percussion set-up to Hoag’s drums BOOYA)

19:13: ratio of drums-on-drum-set, 311 to Full Service (adding 311’s all-inclusive tribal drum set-up on “Applied Science” DOH!)

100: guesses we would have needed to accurately predict the design concept of the 311 Spring Tour VIP passes. (Kobe Bryant flying across a sparkling yellow background on his way to a nasty dunk.)

100: percent disapproval rating among the FS crew of the design concept of the 311 Spring Tour VIP passes. (Would have preferred a sparkling red background with Brad Lidge celebrating the last out of the World Series with Carlos Ruiz.)

4: Number of options on the dinner spread backstage. Penne Pasta, Portabella Mushroom with Polenta, Chicken Stir-Fry, and Salad.

0: Number of options that were acceptable to Bonesaw, who instead heated up 2 packets of Uncle Ben’s Rice and Vegetables.

75: Approximate number of Full Service shirts in the audience at the Austin Music Hall.

50: Approximate number of Full Service shirts stolen from the Whale later in the week upon our return to Austin. The poorly lit section of E. 5th street on the other side of I-35 shall never again be considered a viable option for parking downtown.

1: Times that Full Service came dangerously close to an irreversible on-stage screw-up. First song (“Rocketships”) of the first show (Austin Music Hall) of the tour.

8: Measures of dead silence experienced on stage when Bonesaw’s guitar cable came unplugged during the first guitar break in “Rocketships.”

150: Increase in BPM of Hoag’s heart when he realized FS might fall on its face in front of 4,000 people in their hometown huge-venue-debut. (Bonesaw was miraculously able to plug back in just in time to re-enter the verse on time. Amazingly, several people told us that the gaffe almost looked intentional, and it actually kind of “worked.”)

4: Minutes after the Rocketships mess-up that Hoag again thought the band may have to stop a song in the middle. (Bone’s guitar-strap broke and he almost dropped it whilst playing “Don’t Deny.” He had to run and grab his back-up and then tune it to the appropriate key.)

15: Seconds it took for Bonesaw to switch out his guitars.


3: Minutes it felt like to Hoag, Smell, and Twinky-P.

50: Percentage of people in the audience who shouted “Ramona!!” after Hoag said “This is a song about a baby who took a long time to be born.” That was alarming. And encouraging. And it prompted me to ask again who the song was about. And I think I may have asked a third time. Each time it got louder. Mobs are strange…

2,000: Approximate number of people in the audience who booed the Lakers when Bonesaw called out 311 for being Lake Show fans. It helped that the Lakers were in a heated series with the Houston Rockets at the time.

1: Number of times 311 guitarist Tim Mahoney came into our dressing room to check the Lakers score.

1: Number of times we told him to get the hell out of our room you rotten Lakers Lover. (Just kidding.)

TULSA

4.5: number of “stripes” Hoag answered when Conman asked him how much honey he wanted on his peanut butter sandwich.

6: Times that Bonesaw got “Dylan”ed by Hoag in a minute and twenty-two seconds.

(Getting “Dylan”ed is when someone tries to get you to say the word “who?” so that he may reply with the name “Dylan.” Example: “Hey Bonesaw he wants you to call him back.” “Who?” “Dylan!” Bonesaw sucked at this game.)

3: Times Cakeman (cameraman, roadie, wierdo) said he hoped we’d see a tornado while driving through Oklahoma.

4: Times Smell warned us about the lightning up ahead towards Oklahoma City.

0: Times we listened to Smell when he kept warning us about aforementioned lightning.

7: Times momsaw called to check up on us and deliver up-to-the-minute weather forecasts, which called for baseball-sized hail and tornadoes.

100: Percentage of Smell’s driving shift that was negated when we decided we’d have to turn back to Ardmore, OK and avoid the Hand-of-Zeus tornadoes and hail-storms in Oklahoma City.

2: Number of rooms booked at the hotel in Ardmore.

9: Number of people in our crew.

2: Number of beds per room.

5: People that needed beds in our hotel room.

1/8: Thickness, in inches, of Slammer’s makeshift palette (made from the cushions of two of our porch chairs back home in Austin).

24: Hours it took for Smell to forgive us for ignoring his warnings about the storm. His bitterness abated at precisely the moment we sat down at the bar next to Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, at which point the bitterness of the hops in his Bridgeport IPA delivered him to a happier emotional place.

12: Times Cakeman tried to talk about the “hoppyness” of Miller Genuine Draft while chilling at the bar next to Cain’s Ballroom.

11.5: ABV % of the Flying Dog Double Dog Pale Ale beers that somebody bought Smell and Hoag before the set in Springfield.

2: Sips it took to start feeling a legitimate buzz

35: Minutes of nasty-wet-field Ultimate Frisbee played before our sound-check in Tulsa.

6: Number of hours later that Smell was able to wash his dirty feet. I bet Tim Mahoney loved coming out on stage and putting his pedal-board over all those muddy footprints.

200: Approximate number of handbills we saw around Cain’s Ballroom advertising our show with Badfish a mere 7 days later.

2: Number of times we’ve played in Tulsa in our 5 year career as a band.

2: Number of times we’d be playing in Tulsa in 7 days.

Springfield

55: Number of portraits on the wall at the Shrine Mosque of old white men wearing fedoras.

0: Percentage of FS crew that actually knows anything about what the Shriner community/club/society is all about.

100: Percentage of FS crew that kind of wants to join, but realizes we may have to wait another thirty years.

1: Number of times 311 drummer Chad Sexton said “Hi, I’m Chad” to Hoag.

1: Number of times Hoag had to fight the urge to say “Uh….yeah dude I know your name I used to be kind of obsessed with you and your drum parts and I kind of feel like a little school kid right now because I can’t believe I’m talking to one of my heroes ohmygod this is so crazy how the hell did I get here.”

1: Number of times Hoag decided to go with, “Chad, you say? Nice to meet you. I’m Hoag. Thanks so much for having us on these shows, what an opportunity and thrill it’s been.”

2: Number of times Chad said “Of course, man, absolutely. Everybody really seems to like you guys.” (Hoag didn’t hear him the first time because Tim Mahoney was sound-checking in the other room).

5: Minutes early that we started our set, per Bonesaw’s orders. “I asked the sound-guy, he said it’s cool…”

1: Extra song we got to play because of Bonesaw’s savvy “let’s-start-early” move.

1: Number of people who requested Blueberry Farm in a personal email to Bonesaw two weeks before the show.

1: Number of times we played Blueberry Farm at Shrine Mosque. (Small technicality: we in fact played it at sound-check, but not during our set when the requester was actually in the building. A cruel joke if ever there was a cruel joke).

3: number of people that asked Hoag for a drumstick while we mingled the crowd after our set.

0: number of times Hoag was able to oblige, on account of his being too cheap to endure the loss in monetary value of one drumstick.

3: Number of times Hoag had to explain that being on tour with 311 does not translate into a comfortable financial situation for Full Service, and that everybody should watch out for our percussion player Smell, because it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he will approach them and ask for spare change with which to buy peanut butter.

OVERALL

2: Number of times that the White Whale made it into the 311 video tour-diary clips: LINK

1: Number of times that Bonesaw and Chito made it into the 311 video tour-diary clips: LINK

3: Number of shows that Blue Team (Smell and Hoag, stage right) out-rocked Red Team (Bone and Twinky-P, stage left), unless you feel that the 6-Pack-Deep horn section gave Red Team an edge in Austin.

3: Venues with floors that—when empty before doors opened—would have been perfect for a game of 4-on-4 floor hockey

3: Times we regretted not bringing our roller blades and hockey sticks. (And goals and goalie pads and street hockey balls and cones).

0: Times that anyone checked up on us or made sure we were where we were supposed to be or that we were ready to take the stage when the time came.

3: Times we wondered to ourselves if we were even supposed to be here…

??:  Number of days until our next tour with 311

May 6, 2009
Very. Strange. Corpus Christi.

Just came home from a very strange trip to Corpus Christi. I can’t explain why I just italicized “very” and used “strange” to describe the trip. Something to do with the flute performances, the swank hotel accommodations, the giant turkey legs, the amazing pastry-art, the windsurfers crashing through walls, etc etc. It was just a lot of little things that came together to make this weekend unlike any other. I shall arrange this update in timeline form. I will also be using the 3rd person voice in reference to myself, FYI.

Bone, Twinky-P, and Hoag start to load the Whale.

Smell shows up just in time to miss 80% of the loading. Bonesaw gently ribs him for his timely arrival and Smell responds like a betrayed Pterodactyl.

55 miles into the drive Hoag proposes that instead of splitting the 220-mile drive into 110 miles between two drivers, the band splits it into 55 miles between all four drivers. He is met with scoffs and ridicule, and a “pssh, whatever”-style agreement from the rest of the guys.

He becomes silent and wonders why this is such a stupid idea. He scratches his head. He resolves to wash his hair that evening.

Hoag finishes his shift and he and Smell go into a small country store to use the bathroom. At the front door to the store there hangs the most basic map in the history of human-kind. Hoag snaps a picture of it:


Drive resumes with Smell as driver.

Arrive at Buc Days Festival and approach the band-entrance. There is a laid-back looking security guard eating a bag lunch and drinking from a juice-box. He approaches the Whale and asks “Where the girls at?” He sticks his head in to see into the back of the van but only sees the two monsters that are Hoag and Bonesaw. Security guard makes a face equivalent to the sound of “eeek!” and withdraws his head from the window. He then radios in to the stage hand.

Stage hand comes and has the band unload all their gear onto a huge golf-cart. “Is this one of those ‘Mule’ things?” asks Hoag. “No,” replies the stage hand, “it’s a ‘Bobcat,’ man.” “Cool,” says Hoag.”

Hoag turns on his video camera as they drive the stuff over to the stage. It’s more carnival than music festival, as the following footage shows:

The guys unload their gear and begin wandering the grounds to see what’s up. Walk past several shriveled up carnies with missing teeth and cigarettes in their mouths. They gruffly mumble “3 tokens, only need 2 to play, winner every time [spit].”

Stumble upon the “Asian Heritage” tent, which turns out to be a gold-mine.

Watch the Tai-Chi performance:

Get minds blown by a flute player performing “Horse Traveling With Oats”:

Watch some sort of group dance performance that could either be Native American or Hawaiian:


Bonesaw notices that the dancers have bells sewn onto their clothing. He resolves to sew bells on his clothing when we return to Austin. Hoag and Smell enthusiastically support this resolution.

Smell and Hoag return to the band stage to see what kind of beers the festival has loaded into the band cooler. They shriek in horror when all they can find is Miller Lite.

Smell and Hoag take 20 minutes to work up the nerve to ask Jamie, the event coordinator, if they can perhaps trade in all those Miller Lites for just one premium beer apiece from the concession stand.

Hoag stumbles through a clumsy speech, but amazingly Jamie agrees. Hoag chooses an Imperial Stout (which turns out to be 9.2% ABV) and Smell goes with a Boulevard IPA.

Begin playing the show. Open with “Trumpets.”

It is an intimate crowd of 45 people inside the tent. Hoag and Bonesaw engage in various witty exchanges.

Play several more songs. There are more witty exchanges.

Bone grows tired of the witty exchanges and tells Hoag to “shut up and play the &*^$in song!” Hoag’s feelings are hurt.

Smell consoles Hoag. This show of Blue Team camaraderie carries Hoag through the rest of the performance, and fuels his desire to out-rock the Red Team duo-of-villainy known as “Bonesaw” and “Twinky-P” (who, earlier in the show, raised the ire of the Blue Team when he abstained from yelling “AYE!!” during the call-and-response portion of “Hi-Ho”).

Wrap up the set and talk to the fans. Isaac and his mother are very cool, as is the group that came to see them who heard about them through their old friend Patrick Gallagher from College Station. Oh, and CJ. She was cool too. A heavy metal fan, but she really dug “Gymnasium.” Interesting.

Roam the grounds looking for something to eat with the tokens provided by Jamie. Smell has trouble because he’s a vegetarian.

Hoag and Bone find giant turkey legs. As if they didn’t look enough like cavemen:



On the way back to the Whale to leave, the guys spot are summoned over to The Gravitron by an enthusiastic carnie who says “Hey, you guys rocked! C’mon over I’ll get you on for free.” Bonesaw and Hoag and Smell stare long and hard at the Gravitron:


Bonesaw accepts the offer but Smell and Hoag think better of it. Bonesaw brings the video camera onto the ride with him:

Bonesaw disembarks the ride. It lasted 2 minutes and 25 seconds. He walks over to us and says softly, “huge mistake.” Laughter ensues.


Head back to the hotel that Jamie comped for the band. Turns out to be the Omni. It’s mad elegant. The guys become giddy.

Smell chastises Hoag for “grooming himself” (combing his hair with his hand) while passing through the lobby. Hoag is surprised—and dismayed—at Smell’s sudden attention to etiquette. Who the hell is HE??

Throw their stuff into the room (feather pillows!) and Smell and Hoag head back out on the town in search of a good beer.

Walk into the hotel bar and ask the guy how much a beer is. He says $6 and they say “oooooh.” Bartender seems to sense that Smell and Hoag are not staying here on their own dollar (otherwise what would $6 mean to them?) and says “your best bet is the gas station down the street.” They thank him and get on their way.

Smell and Hoag receive a text from Twinky-P asking to “see if the breakfast brunch is free.” With a $4 water bottle in the room and $6 beers at the bar, Smell and Hoag text back “doubt it.”

On way to gas station, Smell says he hopes they have single bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale for sale. Hoag insists that there is absolutely zero chance of this. Smell accuses Hoag of being a naysayer. Hoag accuses Smell of being naïve.

Hoag and Smell continue the rest of the walk in silence.

Arrive at gas station. There are no single bottles of Sierra Nevada for sale. Hoag resists the temptation to say “I freakin’ told ya so you dumbass.”

Outside the gas station, Smell asks a police officer where he might find a bar that sells good beer. Without looking them in the eye (?) the officer suggests “a place called Dr. Rockit’s down on Chaparral.” Hoag and Smell light up with excitement, because this is the bar they will be playing at tomorrow night.

Smell and Hoag are received into Dr. Rockit’s with great enthusiasm from the staff. They are given a Fat Tire and a cup of Tequila (Hoag had a change of heart on the beer.)

A blues band hits the stage. They are gooooood.

Smell and Hoag head back to the hotel. When they arrive back to the room, Smell mistakenly climbs into bed with Bonesaw, who is and always has been Hoag’s sleeping partner. Smell is a bit freaked out, but manages to calm himself and make the switch.

The morning comes. Bonesaw goes running. The four band members cook eggs on the skillet and decide to hit the beach until their radio interview at 3:30pm.

Temperatures reach over 100 degrees inside the Whale on the trip over to Mustang Island. Pressure is put on Hoag to open his window more, but Hoag resists, complaining that he doesn’t like how the wind whips his hair all over the place. “Sometimes,” he says, “it flies into my mouth and I choke.”

More pressure.

Hoag relents and opens his window a little more.

Approach the beach access road.

Bonesaw remarks that “it smells like poop outside.” Smell replies, “Welcome to Corpus Christi.”

Bonesaw and Smell and Hoag get out of the van and run towards the water. Twinky-P stays inside and talks on the phone.

Bonesaw and Smell warn Hoag of the big blue jelly-fish (“Portuguese Man-O’-War”) that are sometimes in the water. Hoag is freaked.

Hoag looks left.

Hoag looks right.

Hoag looks behind him.

Hoag looks ahead of him.

Hoag looks left.

Hoag looks right.

(etc., etc., etc…)

The guys change out of their wet clothes, hang them on the back door of the Whale, and make their way to the Texas A&M Kingsville radio station for an interview.

The guys spend half the interview arguing, Blue-Team/Red-Team style. The DJ seems to enjoy it. They also perform “Ramona” and “Gymnasium” live.

Head back to the Omni for some poolside lounging.

(Editors Note: Bone and Smell engage in lengthy heart-to-heart while overlooking the palm trees and the Gulf of Mexico. Hoag misses this because he is pumping iron.)

Stop at a “Super H.E.B. Plus” grocery store and bear witness to some of the most amazing pastry-art in the history of man:

Hoag and Smell are stopped in the Beer Aisle by two people from the show at the Buc Days Carnival the other day. “Yo!! Full Service!”

Hoag and Smell walk away feeling like big shots.

Hoag and Smell finally find their Sierra Nevada—the new Torpedo IPA—despite being temporarily stonewalled and discouraged by the following monstrosity:


Hoag and Smell are brought back down to earth when they realize “big shots” don’t stress out about being barely able to afford a $7.49 6-pack of beer.

Finally arrive back at the Omni for that poolside lounging. Bonesaw is stopped upon entry to the hotel and questioned by the head of security about whether he is a guest at the Omni. Head of Security grills him in room number, where his room key is, what the name of the receptionist is, who else is in his party. Bonesaw laughs at the Head of Security and goes back to talking to MomSaw on the phone.

Poolside, Twink, Smell, and Hoag reminisce about Nintendo and Sega Genesis. It is decided that Nintendo is the best video game system of all time. Hoag twitters about the conversation. It may be his lamest twitter ever.

Walk over to the “Executive Surf Shop and Restaurant” for dinner. Sit down and notice that a wind-surfer has actually windsurfed through the wall: PHOTO

Head to the show at Dr. Rockit’s.

Run into Isaac and his mom from the Carnival show the night before. Dr. Rockit’s manager—Squirrel—lets them in for free.

Hoag and Smell and Bonesaw sit down with Isaac and his mom. They turn out to be deeply fascinating people. Hoag and Smell and Bonesaw walk away from the conversation wishing they too could see into the future.

Play a two and a half hour set, broken up with only one 20-minute break (during which the guys notice the Executive Surf Shop staff and some of their patrons buying CD’s) and a brief intermission in which Twinky-P and a lucky audience member compete on-stage in a staring contest (first one to smile/break their stare loses). Twinky-P never loses, and he doesn’t lose to this guy.

The band becomes delirious on their last song. The heat and the sun from earlier in the day are blamed for this.

Begin packing up gear. Hoag comments that he thinks he may have actually fallen asleep with 30 seconds left in the tune. Bonesaw replies that he thinks he did too. Hoag and Bonesaw exchange high-fives.

Wake up at a time too early and offensive to mention.

Stop at McDonald’s for some hotcakes. Hoag wants eggs with his, not sausage, and wants the value meal price. The lady says no. Hoag tries to reason with her. “It makes sense,” he says. The lady says “no” again.

Hoag takes out his frustration on Smell. Smell absorbs it nicely. He is a good Blue Team member.

Arrive home a few hours later and suffer through an immediate equipment-unload. Nobody wants to do it, but they do.

Later in the day, Hoag goes wakeboarding:

May 1, 2009
Hoagman on Twitter?

Say it ain’t so! Hoagman succumbed to the mind-numbing mindnumbery that is “Twitter”? Does this mean he’ll be typing out all the exhilarating details of his life 140 characters at a time? Does this mean you’ll know precisely when he’s brushing his teeth or putting on his socks? Yes! It does!

No, he will mostly use twitter-land as a quick-strike updating tool while the band is on the road, mixed in with bits of FS news that may arise when the band is back at the Austin HQ. After a jam, a band meeting, or mere moments after Smell says something funny, like “are there two y’s in ‘knight’??” rest assured, there will be a tweet.

So go ahead and “follow him” or whatever it is they say. http://www.twitter.com/hoagman

April 27, 2009
Sunburned in Amherst, MA . . .

Toursaw XIII is a wrap! We ended the adventure with a trip up to Amherst College to play their Spring Weekend Festival. It was a scorching and highly unseasonable 90 degrees or so, and Twinky-P and Smellman suffered some slight sunburn in the forehead region, and despite my best efforts, I fell victim to a mild case of dehydration (which most likely contributed to my losing the mid-set tug-o-war moon-bounce battle against Smellman.) Bonesaw was not without his share of problems either, as late in the set he felt the onset of heat-induced hallucinations that most certainly was responsible for his meltdown during “Brazil,” in which his ratio of wrong chords to right chords was roughly 10:1.

Many thanks to the ladies from the social council for having us, and for giving us those sweet Spring Weekend 90’s-style beach tank-tops. Smell looks so cool in his. You can see him wearing it in some of the videos posted on this diary. Try to ignore the tomato sauce stains, he’s really upset about those (post-show pizza.)

It was a long drive back to Philly, but we made it. Chito and I even had one last hurrah—a ridiculous drinking game you can experience:

Woke up the next morning and Smell, Twinky-P, and Chito set sail for Austin. Bone and I are flying back on Tuesday. Smell gave us endless grief for it too. Here’s a video of the guys leaving…and coming back 10 minutes later to pick up Smell’s forgotten cell-phone.

Next weekend, two shows in Corpus Cristi, TX. After that, the mini-tour with those 311 dudes!

April 25, 2009
The Whale returns to Philly. . .

After the 5-day New England run, we settled back into Momsaw and Dadsaw’s house as our home-base for our shows at Germantown Academy (me and Bone’s old high school), New York City, and Philadelphia. But before we get into all that, a brief treatise on the art of email retrieval.

One of the most important parts of playing a show is getting email addresses from new fans after the rocking has concluded. This is a tricky business, because there are so many things conspiring to work against us. Let’s bullet the obstacles, shall we?

1. It’s dark. Usually this obstacle can be overcome fairly easily with a little help from our cell-phones, especially my ultra-wide, ultra-bright I-phone screen. Simply hold it over the paper as the signee does their thing. This solution, however, requires a pre-show charging of the phone battery, and I am not known for my attention to battery levels (or gas levels.) Therefore, it is strongly suggested that you bring along an email retrieval teammate so that in the event of a dead battery, you can use his phone as a back-up.  
2. People are buzzed up. This, plus the darkness in the clubs, equals bad handwriting. Not much you can do about this besides urging the signee to buckle down and focus. Encourage them to hone in on legibility and get the job done. Another option is to offer to sign for them, but this should only be used as a last resort. For one, it’s often just as hard to understand the words coming out of their mouth (it’s loud in these places) as it is to understand the words coming through their ink. For another, they must shout their name in order to be heard, and this can lead to a sudden expulsion of saliva from the signee’s mouth, which inevitably lands either in your ear or directly in your own pie-hole.
3. You are approached by a signee-to-be and you are without the clipboard. You could tell the person to find Bonesaw and Chito, but you fear that if this person doesn’t sign now, they may never sign at all. So you do the only responsible thing. You reach into your pocket and pull out that sharpie you happen to have on you, and you tell them to write their email on your arm. Sure it will stay on there for a few days, but you’re not concerned with that type of thing, because you’re the kind of guy that has a gigantic tattoo of his dog on his left arm.
4. After all the emails for a particular show have been retrieved, it’s time to input the names into the database. Then we all play a little game called “What-the-hell-does-it-say?” Does it say sarah001@yahoo.com or sarahool@yahoo.com? Your best bet is to organize a round-table analysis group so that some consensus can be reached. If the email comes back with a “Mailer-Daemon” message, it’s back to the drawing board. If you get the Daemon message a second time, you cut your losses and watch that new fan swirl down the abyss of guess-we’ll-never-know-land

Check back in a few days – I’m putting together a mini-documentary we put together on the fiasco that is the “Email List.”

So anyway, our down-time at homesaw this week has been characterized by more street hockey (with the addition of Chito Bambino as our 4th player, playing on feet because of the lack of a 4th pair of roller blades); beers (Green Flash IPA and Brooklyn Intensified Coffee Stout mostly) at the Drafting Room with Morgan Gtori Manderson Betz (producer and engineer of “The Earth Still Wants You”); metaphysical interactions with his stare-through-to-your-very-soul Siamese cats Gomez and Leah (as regal a pair of felines I’ve ever seen); deep listening sessions involving such rare recordings as a vocals-only version of the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds”; the retrieval of buried B-Side recordings from “The Earth” studio sessions that were recorded at the end of random takes of final-cut tunes (there ended up being 8 total: “Raven King,” “You’ll Pay,” “Cuba,” “Battleship (revisited),” “Oh Kill Me (revisited),” “Pieta (revisited),” “Freezing Dub (revisited),” and “Freezing Dub (slow)”; and household chores (performed mostly by Smellman and Bonesaw) such as the building of two garden box-plots, the fixing of a toilet, the repair of a severed electric fence wire, the weeding of several flower beds, and the power-washing and staining of the deck. Check back for some video of Smell at work.

As far as shows go, there have been some great ones in the past week. We went back to Germantown Academy to play in the Student Center, which ended up being totally packed. I wish the students wouldn’t sit down though, it would be so sweet if they got a little rowdy. At least some fist-pumping, ya know? Footage coming soon.

Thursday we headed up to New York City for a show at Sullivan Hall. Crazy coincidence about this show actually: After our Takeover in Coney Island during the Takeover Tour, some dudes came up to us and told us about their band called “Maui Waui.” They gave us a sticker and we put it on Smell’s bongos. Anyway, through no arranging of our own, these guys were on the bill at this Sullivan Hall show on Thursday. AND, it turns out, the bass player’s brother was a cell-mate of Twink and Smell’s in the Brooklyn jail on that same fateful night last July. Bananas!

Anyway, the show was a lot of fun. Oh, and ANOTHER strange coincidence, the stamp they put on your hand for entry is a little circular peace sign, and they actually don’t put it on your hand, they have you turn our arm over so they can put it on the soft part of your wrist. This is a highly unusual place to stamp patrons, and it turns out that when Chito went to get his wrist stamped, they already thought they had stamped him because Chito has the EXACT SAME THING TATTOOED IN THE EXACT SAME PLACE ON HIS WRIST. Crazy. Anyway, here’s some footage from the show. There’s also a short review of the show on the CMJ blog:

On Friday we had a double-header. First show was at Montgomery County Community College, where we reunited with Takeover Tour veteran Brett “Cakeman” Williams. He was wearing a huge Bart Simpson shirt and his old beat-up Nike Hi-Tops. I mean, the guy looked great. Gtori Amos got a great recording of our set, and we’ll probably have it up on the website for free download in the very near future. Video footage shot by Matt Porter:



(Too bad we don’t have a clip of Bonesaw forgetting to switch back to the verse on Multitudes, which, incidentally, I ended up doing later that night at the Electric Factory in Philly. I guess I made too much fun of him for his mess-up and Karma came along to even things out.)

Speaking of the Electric Factory, we headed over there around 4pm to set up and get acquainted with the place. Actually a big reason we got there so early was because we wanted to have plenty of time to set up the ping-pong table (which we brought up from momsaw and dadsaw’s basement) in the backstage game-room. This was all in preparation for the epic best-of-3 series between Scotty Don’t czar Joel Hanks and Full Service czar Bonesaw. Joel actually DEFEATED our man, but it was very competitive and well-fought. I gotta say I’m really surprised Bonesaw lost. Nothing against Joel, for I had no knowledge of his ping-pong skills, it’s just that none of us are used to seeing someone beat Bonesaw at something. I mean, SMELL and I are used to it, because we’re on the Blue Team and we beat the Red Team at most things, but we’re not used to people outside our circle coming out ahead of our Mufasa. Congratulations Joel, you’ve shattered his Herculean image. To Bonesaw’s credit, this was the first time Joel had ever lost a match (he won 22-20, lost 21-15, and won the rubber match 21-18 after going up 9-0).

Footage from the show coming soon. . .

Up to Amherst, MA for our last show of the tour. To be continued…

April 20, 2009
Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachussetts get served.

Vermont

Have you ever been to Vermont? We have, baby! First trip to this funky farm fresh mountain syrup earthy wonderland, and we had “mad fun” as our Whitney friends would say. We knew this state was of a woodsy/naturalistic mind when the old lady who took our breakfast order at McDonald’s (yes, we eat breakfast there sometimes, because it’s not hard to mess up hotcakes and it’s affordable) said with a smile as we paid her in mostly quarters, “Ooh, cold coins, you guys been campin?” We answered no, but we were going hiking after we digested these hotcakes. Actually we knew we fit in here even before that, when this middle aged dude with a beard and a leisurely gait approached us in the hotel parking lot in the morning and asked us “where you hippies goin today?” I told him he was the hippie, walking out to the parking lot in this cold-ass weather all barefoot and whatnot, and he responded with a laugh and an affirmation. “Yeah I suppose I am!”

So later on we took a hike up Abbey Pond Trail in the Green Mountains. Here’s some footage…I can’t believe Smell didn’t wipe out on that ice…you’ll see. (COMING SOON)

Met up with the Scotty Don’t/Badfish guys later on at the venue in Burlington, and we did a big dance and celebrated the reunion of our adventures together. The venue was amazing. So over-the-top accommodating. Check out this footage from our sit-down dinner backstage. That’s Ben from SD/B sitting with us. (He’s the dude that plays trumpet for us when we play Trumpets at these shows.)

Aside from Bonesaw breaking his high-E string on the first song (and having to drastically adjust his solo from “Rocketships”) the show went off wonderfully. Here’s some footage.


Interesting piece of SD/B trivia: Colby, their roadie/friend/stud-muffin helper-dude, is a super-fan of all things “Disney.” I asked him how many times he’s been to Disney World and he looked off into space and then quickly back at me and said “This year?” So the dude goes a lot. And he is dating... (THE REST OF THIS STORY HAS BEEN SENSORED DUE TO SENSITIVE CONTENT!!!!)

After the show at Higher Ground in Burlington, we got into some late-night antics with the SD/B dudes at their hotel. Actually, that sounds a lot more dangerous than it really was. It was just a bunch of dudes sitting around having some beers and talking about how awesome Megadeath is, and how funny that James Brown Interview on YouTube is. And then at one point I think we broke out into a “Winds of Change” sing-a-long. Shhhh.

Played Thursday at a small college in Putney Vermont called Landmark College. Our friend Kevin put the whole thing together and it ended up being a huge success. We did some guerilla promoting in the cafeteria before-hand, and a bunch of people ended up coming out to the show. Kevin did such a good job putting this together and promoting it, and everybody we met there was so helpful and supportive and into the rocking. Many thanks Kev, and also Geoff for video-taping and helping load. Here’s some footage.

The only drama of the night came when I got a gnarly splinter in my finger from the two-by-four merchandise screen thingy. But Bonesaw took control and pulled that sucker out with the focus and skill of a surgeon. The guy’s a freaking super-hero.

Rhode Island

Woke up the next morning and high-tailed it to Providence to pick up Takeover Tour alum Chito Bambino! Yeah baby, he’s on board for the rest of the tour, selling mad merchandise. Pretty much drove straight to the venue after the airport (I say pretty much because we actually went 45 minutes out of the way on account of inputting the wrong “Washington Ave.” into the ole’ i-Phone GPS) and met up with a whole bunch of other old homies (Slampiece, Conman, Whit, Bri-Bri, Whalens sir and madame, Carusaw, Syd, etc---man we have a serious crew in RI.) By the way, Syd—that shirt you gave to Bonesaw is awesome. “Build” on the front and “Destroy” on the back? I’m making one for myself when I get home.

The set at Lupo’s was bananas. There were like 2,000 peeps there. Here’s some footage.

Connecticut

U-Conn party the next night, hooked up by Carusaw. As some of you may remember, Storrs, CT, where U-Conn is located, is actually the town that banned us from visiting last tour. So this was our triumphant (illegal?) return. (For the full back-story of this drama, click here) Anyway, very very cool show this time. Small dank basement, heavy amount of chaos. Perfect. I heard a great joke while I was there too. It’s from “Buffalo” Kate. She asked us “What kind of pants do the Mario Bros. wear?” and the answer was “Denim Denim Denim” sung to a portion of the video game theme song. You know what part I’m talking about? Anyway, it totally works, and it’s my new stand-by joke now.

Here’re some clips from the party.

Stayed the night at Whit’s house. Wonderful accommodations but the dude recently got a kitten and this kitten is—how do I say this---he’s actually a terrorist.  And he doesn’t eat cat food, he’s on some sort of dreadlock diet. Smell didn’t get much sleep.

Massachusetts

On to Northampton, where Smell and I had the biggest slices of pizza we’ve ever seen in our lives. We’re talking quarter-of-a-pie here folks. Absurd. I wish I had footage of it, but I do have footage of us having way too much fun with a storefront video camera that rendered passersby into thermal images. Also, Smell and I had a pretty interesting conversation with this security guard from the Venue (Pearl Street). He had some pretty awesome things to say about Austin.

Pearl Street show…very hype. So hype that I think I actually picked up Smell’s cowbells and banged them against my cymbals while Scott from Scotty Don’t came on stage and played drums during “Freezing Dub.” He did this for us in VT and RI, too, and it’s great for a lot of reasons, one being that he kicks ass and he wears the headband I made him which is such an honor. But it also frees me up to move around a little bit on the stage. It’s amazing what can elicit crazy energy and screaming from fans in the front row. Shake a freaking tambourine an inch from their face and they go APE, it’s unbelievable. Anyway, it was a great set last night. We played our favorite Scotty Don’t song “Movies on TV,” as both a tribute to our buddies and a protest that they never play the damn thing live. I’m pretty sure we butchered it, but....well it was fun. Here’s some footage from the show.




Next stop, Philly!

Hoag

April 14, 2009
30 hours in the Van and some fierce street hockey

The tour has begun but the shows have not. It’s been two straight days of non-stop driving, one day at mom and dad’s, and now we’re back in the Whale on the way to Vermont. Today’s been rough so far. Bonesaw is still on the first shift after recovering from a major gaffe. He took 202 North but somewhere along the line merged onto 611 south, which took us in a big horseshoe, so basically we returned to the same latitude we were one when we left. The question is, does he add these useless miles to his 83 mile shift requirement, or does he still just go 83 miles, regardless of his scooby? Everyone’s
afraid to ask, but he’s a fair guy, so we’re counting on him tacking on those extra miles. 

Ate “Easter Dinner” in Lexington, Kentucky on Sunday. Bonesaw heated up some microwave rice at the gas station and bought two (2) chicken patties from (gulp) McDonald’s. The guy tried to charge him $7.98, but Bonesaw said “No, it should be $1.98,” and amazingly the guy said “Oh” and charged him $1.98. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for…
           
As for Smell, he heated up his vegetables and rice at the Food Lion supermarket break-room. I wasn’t there so I don’t know how this went down, but I imagine he just owned it and walked right in. I think he said that if somebody had come in he would have told them he was the owner’s son; a fool-proof plan unless the person who comes in is, in fact, the owner.
           
Twink and I got a large five (5) topping pizza at Papa John’s for $14.98. Not bad. Smell had warned us of their “weak sauce” but we found the sauce to be at least tolerably weak.

We made it all the way to Momsaw and Dadsaw’s house that night. Pulled in around 2:40am. Twink drove the last 130-mile homestretch while Bonesaw slept and Smellman stole cars, killed innocent civilians and officers of the law, and sold cocaine in his “Grand Theft Auto” fantasy world. I watched “Point Break” on NetFlix. What a great flick. Some of Gary Busey’s finest work, I would argue. He was made for that “beleaguered agency veteran” role. It’s common knowledge that “Fast and Furious” was a direct rip-off/spin-off of “Point Break,” right? I hope so, because it’s undeniable.
           

Monday morning we slept in then set up our equipment in Momsaw’s living room and jammed a bunch of songs. (No, the parents weren’t cool with this. They weren’t actually home. There’s no way they would be cool with this, but Bonesaw said “dudes, it’s cool,” so…e pluribus bonesaw, right?
           

The rest of the day, Twink watched TV, Bonesaw went on at least two (2) jogs, and Smell and I vowed to combat boredom by exploring old toys in the garage. We uncovered three (3) pairs of roller blades, countless (  ) hockey sticks, and one (1) water-weighted, anti-bounce street hockey ball. We skated up and down the street to see how the blades felt, and happened to run into an old couple that lives down the street. They used to watch us play street hockey in their cul-de-sac ten years ago during the summers. As we skated up to them, I executed my best hockey-stop and declared, “You’re in a time warp. The year? Nineteen ninety nine…” They laughed and we talked about their new golden-doodle puppy, a handsome little thing whose curly hair kind of resembled mine, only cleaner and better kept. Whatever, so what.
           

So after we warmed up, we decided it was game-time. We pulled two of those large big-box trash cans out to the street and flipped them over on their front sides so that the open hole would be the goal. Then we skated to center-“ice” and slapped our sticks together three (3) times and “game on!” I was a big roller-blader when I was growing up, but Smell wasn’t (“pssh…fruit-boots.”) so I was basically skating circles and squares and rhombuses around him. Enter Bonesaw. He came jogging down the street from run number two, and immediately inquired as to how he could take part. We found a pair of goalie leg pads and a goalie stick and stuck him in Smell’s goal, hoping that this would even things out a bit. It did, and they ended up winning 8-7. You can watch some highlights HERE (well, soon).
           

Well that’s all for now, my legs are numb from this laptop so I’m gonna call it a day. More in the days to come.

April 11, 2009
Hoag gives some deep insight on the lyrics on "The Earth Still Wants You."

(Editor's note: This is Hoagman's best entry of all time. To buy the album, visit the store page)

“Rocketships” is all about separation. The separation can be physical—in terms of actual distance and space between two people—or it can be emotional in terms of worldview and how two people’s philosophies of living change over time. Where is my friend? Where is my lover? Why did he/she make that choice? Why did he take that path? Why did I take mine? I chose the imagery of “outer space” because it’s infinitely vast. There’s a lot of distance covered out there, and sometimes the distance between two people can feel just as astronomical and mysterious as the distance between a rocketship and the earth it came from.   

This image of space-to-earth as an example of distance also helps illustrate one of the main themes of the album: the human race’s increasingly weak connection with mother earth.  Human beings have not lived with the earth for some time now. We've lived on it, but not with it. But as the cover art shows, it’s not too late. No matter how far we’ve traveled from our primal, mystical, natural connection with “the earth,” we are forever joined to it. It still “wants” us. This is what that tether/rope thing on the back of the rocketship is all about. And as relates to the song “Rocketships,” this tether is a symbol of the enduring connection between our old friends/lovers/family members who we think we’ve grown apart from forever, but whom in fact are always at the other end of that rope. 

One particular lyric in “Rocketships,”—though it was written long before my dog Nessie died—was later used on the inside cover as a tribute to that beloved creature: “Look for you in outer space, the earth still wants you, pull you back…” I guess I sort of believe that Nessie has turned into star-dust that is now floating around in outer-space. Maybe she’s a star.

Let’s go back for a second to what I meant about the space that separates people in terms of worldview and life choices, because that issue comes up in several other songs on the album. When the presidential campaign was going on, it was every liberal in the country saying, “If Obama doesn't win, I'm gonna move to Europe or Canada.” “Rocketships” is partly about those people who would give up and just run away. And I thought that was weak to just run away and give up on the system. I would hope that if Obama lost, people wouldn’t give up, they’d continue to fight for change and to commit themselves to taking back the system and turning it into something we can believe in again.

But sometimes it’s hard. It’s easy to get excited during a campaign, to believe that this is our one big time to exercise our “civic duty,” but getting “our guy” elected is really just one small part of our duty. The big part comes when we get the dude elected and we have to stay involved and keep working. That’s what “Sit at the Table” is all about. “I believe in the theory, believe in it dearly, but I ain’t got the time. I believe in the new day, believe in the new way, but it’s all in my mind.” Sometimes it’s hard to stay energized after a campaign. (“I believe in the campaign, believe in the refrain, but it’s all in my mind.”) And sometimes, you feel like a hypocrite for believing in these grand, wonderful concepts like “peace” and “diplomacy” and “bi-partisanship.” Sometimes you find that you can’t even practice these things in your own small life. Hence “I believe in a sing-song, believe that a war’s wrong, but sometimes I fight. I believe in opinions, I read about millions, but I’m always right.”

Similarly, the song “Ride Your Bike” talks about how we should all drive cars less and start riding our bikes when possible, but once again, this is often a hard ideal to live up to. Sometimes you know you should ride your bike to go grab those groceries a few miles away, but “sometimes a screw’s loose and I’d much rather drive,” as we say in “Sit At The Table.” (PS—does anyone notice the verse in “Ride Your Bike” that we borrowed from Guns ‘N’ Roses’ “Paradise City?”)

In Gymnasium, the verses are about makin’ love (in case you couldn’t tell) and the choruses are about the other side of the ebb and flow of human relationships. Sometimes you are blessed with extreme intimacy and sensuality, and other times it's a lonely life. But the lonely life lines resonate more with me when I think about them in a non-romantic context, like when I see a teenage kid with bad acne sitting at a table at Applebee’s with his grandparents on a Saturday night in a small rural town in the middle of Alabama. I imagine him walking the trash out to the street later that night as part of his chores, then brushing his teeth and glancing at the mirror before bed. How do the kids at school treat this kid? Where are his friends? Maybe it’s not this sad, maybe he’s got friends, who knows? But something about the look on his face as he sits there at Applebee’s is deeply, deeply heartbreaking.

In “Hops,” we tell the story of various creatures (like the “green shrike Vireo in the canopy”) whose existence is threatened by human beings who have contributed to “land is owned, life overthrown, a pile of bones now marks my home, hear the drone.” I’ve always thought that Bonesaw’s distorted, droning guitar over this part sounded like the buzzing chainsaw that cuts down the vireo’s canopy tree. It wasn’t intentional, I’m sure, but it ended up working out. And yeah, I know we need to cut down trees because we all need houses and we all need paper, etc etc etc, and that’s part of the difficulty in upholding one’s ideals: balancing our needs with the needs of earth’s other creatures, but the fact remains that we’ve gotten to a dangerous tipping point. We’ve come to believe that no other species on earth is important. This is not what Darwin meant by survival of the fittest. Consciousness gave us conscience, and conscience enables us to look after the planet. We believe it’s not too late for us to make that decision.

“Tomatoes” is about Bonesaw’s recent interest in gardening and self-sufficient meal-making. The first verse (“Remove seed…”) is taken verbatim from the back of a seed-packet for peppers. Note the Jetsuns theme song-like bridge.

“Multitudes” is about a man trying to catch himself some fish. He gets frustrated because he doesn’t catch very much. The “multitudes” are celestial voices (the “heavenly multitudes”) that he hears emanating from the “stars frozen shut.” They tell him, “don’t worry fisherman, go home and sleep, at least you have something, have something to eat.”  He answers them in the next line with “you’re right, they’ll come again, tomorrow I’ll cast my line, they’ll take a bite, and I’ll resume the fight.” And eventually the fish will come…by the multitudes. I always envisioned the crazy instrumental bridge in this song as being a sonic representation of a lot of fish jumping out of the water.

Other songs on the album have less to do with broad themes and more to do with the stories of imaginary characters. “Eyes Like Snow” is about two lovers who struggle to believe in the power of each others’ love. In the midst of a very vague “darkness” that they both feel, one seems to be asking, Where are we headed? Where will this take us? Will we make it out? The other tries to convince them that all will be fine, that this darkness “hides an ocean of hope.” We are headed here, have faith, and in the end we will get there, says the other. Eventually they come upon a winter wonderland with blue elf-puppets and penguins skating around in ponds (??) where all is simply good.
           
“Laundry on the Line” is about an old mother whose flock has left the coup. She’s getting old, and when she hangs her laundry and all the shirts get blown all over the yard, she has to bend down and pick it all up. It hurts her back. She’s tired. But she looks to the sky and she hears music. Peace returns. “Laundry” was inspired by Bonesaw’s efforts to reduce our use of electricity by forsaking the dryer and line-drying our clothes, most of which scatter all over the yard. It was also borne of my own mother’s difficulty in dealing with an “empty nest.” She once told me that she spent 30 years raising the three of her children, and then one day she realized that chapter of her life was completely over (though it’s really not, as my brother’s and I still very much rely on her strength and support). It was a heartbreaking thing to hear, and it showed up in this song.

“Brazil” has to do with a book called “The Underground Man,” by Mick Jackson (not to be confused with “The Invisible Man,” by Ralph Ellison or “Notes from the Underground,” by that Russian dude.) The Underground Man is about a very rich, very lonely, semi-senile Duke of something-or-other in England. He is plagued by countless physical ailments that may or may not exist (his “imagination is a pain sometimes”) and countless metaphysical ailments that certainly do. He believes that his “aura” is broken, and he’s at a loss on how to go about mending one’s aura. It’s an interesting thought: It’s easy to fix a broken bone, but it’s hard to fix a broken spirit.
           
Then we got “Tennessee Traveler,” a simple song about a hitch-hiking homeless person. I received a postcard from a friend one time that said “Tennessee Traveler” on it and featured a cartoon-ish drawing of a hobo and his dog hitch-hiking. I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that so many homeless people have dogs. (“I see you’ve got a dog, but do you have a home?”) But as TV’s the Dog Whisperer points out, homeless people are some of the most well-practiced “pack leaders,” as evidenced by the fact that their dogs are never on leashes yet always stay faithfully and trustingly beside them in the simple but brutal struggle for survival.

So that’s not all of the tunes, but it’s a bunch of them. If anyone has any questions about the others, or about these, just hit me up at hoag@fullservicemusic.com and we’ll rap more!

April 6, 2009
Adventures In Patience: Baton Rouge and Dallas

The night before we were to leave for the Baton Rouge/Dallas trip, Bonesaw sent us all a text saying “Boys! We’re leaving no later than 10am tomorrow!” At 9:50 the next morning, as I was arranging for a friend to take care of our new dog Cornflake and as Bonesaw and Twink were packing food in the cooler, Bonesaw instructed Smell to back the Whale out of the backyard. (We loaded the Whale the night before and parked it in the backyard for extra security.)

            Smell came in five minutes later, walked over to Bonesaw, put his arms on his hips, exhaled, and said “Bonesaw, we got a problem…”

            We all followed Smell outside as he showed us the “problem.” The Whale was stuck in the mud. The following video contains footage of every important detail regarding this event, including a collision with the house.



            So instead of leaving at 10:00 we left at 10:40. No big deal. But during the last shift (Twink’s) we got stuck in stand-still, turn-off-your-engine traffic on the 18 mile Atchafalaya Bridge in Louisiana. But, as with many bad things that happen throughout one’s life, there was a hidden blessing behind this 70-minute delay. The first vehicle to turn off its engine was the 18-wheeler next to us. That made us think; 18-wheelers have CB radios. Homeboy probably got a tip about what happened up ahead and he probably knewt how long we’d be stuck. The fact that he decided to turn off his engine is…a bad sign.

So Smell and Bonesaw went to talk to him and get the lowdown. They started chatting casually and we told him that were going to Baton Rouge to play a show with our band. The dude then asked for a demo, and two days later wrote on our website guestbook saying he loved the demo and was planning on coming to see us play with 311 in May. I’ll trade an hour and ten minute of traffic for a new fan any day. Which brings me to the following point; there may come a day when we make fans 500 or 1,000 at a time, and that’ll be awesome, but it will probably never feel as exciting and important as picking up just one fan during a traffic jam in the middle of a bayou.

            Moving on…we got into Baton Rouge with very little time to spare. Subway was closed (“our computers are down, sorry man…”) so we had to hit up the local deli, which is always a better option anyway, but we hadn’t known about it. (Actually, Bonesaw knew about it because he’s always on top of which restaurants offer gluten free options, but we temporarily forgot that, too). The sandwiches were good. Huge, but good. They were like 14 inches. But competitive with Subway’s prices. They even had a meal deal that included a cookie and a drink, just like big papa. This made me kinda sad. I wish they would do their own thing and not try to copy Scrubway.

            The show that night was fantastic. A lot of new faces came out, because new fans from our last few shows there brought a bunch of friends. That’s a good sign. A good sign indeed. Casey, “Bruce,” Mark, Rainwater, KittyKat, Jeremy “Bayak,” Kayla… more and more brining more and more.

            The highlight of the night came when the horn players from Baton Rouge brass-rock band “6 Pack Deep” came up on stage and did “Trumpets” with us. It was ridiculous. The night before, they had apparently all gotten together and worked out a 3-part harmony horn arrangement based on the recording from “The Earth Still Wants You.” The result was truly astounding. All this time, I’ve held in my head the ideal arrangement for a phantom horn section for “Trumpets.” And without ever talking to these guys, they came and did the exact version I had in my head. Smell and I looked over at each other at one point during the performance and started shaking our heads. I actually completely fell apart during one part of my drumming because I was so blown away by these guys’ execution. Afterwards, we asked them to play “Trumpets” with us at the Austin Music Hall show in Austin this May. I truly hope they can make this happen.

            Unfortunately we didn’t get footage of this, but we did get some good stuff thanks to “Bruce”, a dude from Baton Rouge we met at a show a few months ago. He’s a professional camera man (he used to film the New Orleans Saints games), but this time all he had to work with was my pocket hand-held “flip” video camera. Nonetheless, he did a great job.


            After the show, we headed over to the Days Inn for some sleep, but were completely stonewalled by the lady behind the desk. She hadn’t gotten our reservation from hotels.com, and we ended up having to wait 55 minutes (until 3:45am) to get into our freaking room. Actually, Bonesaw was the one that really had to deal with it, standing outside in the cold (the lady wouldn’t let him in the lobby) while the rest of us cursed and complained in the warmth of the Whale.

            The next morning we were woken up by the cleaning lady at around 8am. Whenever the hotel maids show up, everybody (well not everybody, Bonesaw’s always out on a run), pretends to be asleep so they don’t have to be the one to yell out “No thank you!” Sometime over the history of the band, this strangely became Smell’s job, but then one day a long road trip I started mercilessly imitating the sleepy/semi-polite/semi-annoyed Smell voice saying “No thank you! No!” and ever since then he’s refused to step up to the plate. So now it’s my job. I guess it’s karma or something.

            Anyway, we drove to Dallas, blah-blah-blah, it took a long time, etc. etc. etc. I guess the only exciting thing that happened was when I moved over to the left lane when I came upon a police cruiser and a civilian car stopped on the shoulder. A few months ago in Desoto County Louisiana (which is where we were now) I got a ticket for failing to move to the left lane when a car was stopped on the shoulder ($185), so I was glad I was able to do the right thing this time.

            (That wasn’t exciting at all.)

            The show in Dallas was cool though. Excellent sound dude, excellent crowd. One kid actually brought his guitar for us all to sign. (Editors note: his name is Tray Bishop Hoagie. Come on man, learn the names!). That was bizarre. I felt a lot of pressure. It’s like a tattoo. Unfortunately I think my “Hoag” was a little off center.



            So all-in-all it was a great weekend. Lots of new fans, some valuable exercises-in-patience. When we came home though, Cornflake had done some serious chewing of the sound-proof material in the jam room. That was not cool. Since then we got him a smoke-flavored cow knuckle which has done a lot to curb his chewing tendencies.
             

March 1 , 2009
Top 10 Things About Our Most Recent Tour of the Southeast

10) Watching Smell play with my iPhone. (video coming soon on our YOUTUBE PAGE).



9) Redeeming the gift certificates Golden Corral gave us after they saw the commercial we made for them on tour.



8) The fake parking pass we made for the Whale at Auburn University. Smell and I checked out the one on the car next to us and turned an old FS postcard thingy into a very passable parking permit. But if you looked closely, it said “Hello how are you? I’m not real.” Suckers.

7) Our interview on WEGL radio at Auburn. The host, a man by the name of Spoony, scored a perfect 100% on the “Hot Seat” Game (where we ask a radio host “a or b” type questions and award them points as we see fit). Spoony also managed to leave the microphones on in the studio while he played our new song “Gymnasium,” so listeners heard a bunch of chatter. But that’s why we love Spoony. Oh yeah, he also hung up on a caller. The only caller that called in.

6) Eating at two McDonald’s-owned establishments in one day and managing to make it somewhat healthy. (Hotcakes for breakfast and burritos for dinner at Chipotle.)

5) Watching as Smell nearly executed a rare solo-lift of the hardware bag.



4) Rocking at Grand Central before our friends in the Ugli Stick took the stage. (video coming soon on our YOUTUBE PAGE)


3) Watching “Apollo 13” at our Hotel in Mobile and wondering which combination of 3 FS members would fair best on a space shuttle, and what would each of our jobs be? I’m pretty sure I’d be on the squad considering my super power is backing up large vehicles into parking spaces. Wait…

2) Introducing Smell to the wonderful world of Podcasts, and mutually developing huge man-crushes on Josh and Chuck from the “Stuff You Should Know” podcast from “HowStuffWorks.Com”. Bonesaw introduced me.

1) Resolving, with Smell, to host our own podcast, which we will call “Stuff We Made Up” from “StuffThat’sNotTrue.Com” (Coming Soon…)

February 11 , 2009
Mini TourSaw: Baton Rouge, Pascagoula, Mobile
Smell came over early and we began the drive to Baton Rouge without our 4th wheel, aka Twinky-P, who we actually picked up at a Burger King on the side of the road. I could go into detail on how this scenario came about, but sometimes it is best to leave things to the imagination…

After we pulled into Baton Rouge, we headed over to Reginelli’s, a local pizza joint on campus, which is ironic because on the ride up Smell and Bone and I were talking about a way we could describe our band when people (fans/the press) ask us the dreaded question “So what do you guys sound like? What kind of music do you play?” When you don’t play genre-specific stuff, it’s hard to come up with an answer to this, because saying we play “everything” makes us sound like a bunch of toolbags. Plus, bands that say that usually don’t play everything, they usual just play rock music. So we decided we’d answer the question with a question of our own: “How would you describe the taste of Pizza? Do you like it? Do you like all the toppings? Just a few of them?” So yeah…when we sat down, the waitress asked us what kind of music we play, and sure enough, the first time we use our new little line, it’s at a freaking pizza place, so we end up looking like a bunch of toolbags anyway.

Later on we rocked at the Northgate Tavern to a bunch of fans we’d made at our recent show with Badfish at Varsity Theater. I traded headbands with a dude from the crowd. First time I’ve ever done that. I even got him to sign it. He told me he was gonna be in the movies someday, so I’m keepin’ that sucker, I’ll tell you that. I know enough about success stories to never know where a star can come up from, know what I mean?

What was the lowlight of the show? The video camera falling off the PA speaker and breaking. It really bugs me, because as I was placing it there before our set, Smell told me it wouldn’t fall off. In fact, he shook his head and made a face that said “psshh…you should feel stupid for even THINKING that could happen.”

Highlight of the show? Bonesaw’s “dorky underwear” story. See below:



But the set was great.

Here’s the footage from camera 2, which was focused on yours truly and the Smellman (the late “camera 1” contained footage of Bones aka Malibu, and Twinky-P, aka PG-13.)



That night we stayed at Twink’s friends matt and tiff’s house. Actually Twink opted to sleep in the van, parked out in front of the house. That story is probably also best left to the imagination. Next day we tried to do a takeover on the LSU campus. We unloaded all our gear, set it up, turned on the new electric generator (this would have been his inaugural takeover) when a police officer sauntered up and said “I don’t wanna hear even one note.” Then, like most cops do, he tried to tell us that he really is a good guy, hell even his dad is a drummer. Then he had us fork over our ID’s and sit cross-legged on the ground in front of him. He asked if we were “holding anything” and we all said no, except for Smell who said “just this blade of grass.” Well played Smell. The officer let us go after we came up clean, and we spent the next hour visiting Mike the Tiger, the LSU mascot. He’s quite a majestic beast. Here he is in action:



After our time with Mike, we headed to Pascagoula and arrived with plenty of time to buy some microwavable rice packets and rubbery pre-cooked chicken that we zapped in the hotel microwave. We played for a heavy metal crowd that night at a place called “The Celtic,” so they weren’t too into our more sensitive stuff. They went nuts for "Multitudes" and they went to the bathroom for “Ramona.” We discovered puke near the van at the end of the night. Bad sign or good sign? A case could be made for either, if you think about it.

After our set Smell and Bonesaw made what is sure to go down as the most unfruitful, unexciting visit to the local convenience store. They thought about getting a Snickers bar, but both of them, independently of one another, decided against it. Here is their escapade caught on video:



We spent the night in a hotel room that was close to 90 degrees probably. We couldn’t find the thermostat, and so when we woke up we felt like partially cooked pancakes. Rode out to Mobile and arrived with plenty of time, so we went to the movie theater and saw “Taken”, which was absolutely terrible. We all got a little excited when Liam Neeson finally started killing people with one swift, imperceptible karate chop to the jugular, but other than that it was 120 minutes that we will never, ever, get back. Then we got back into the van and had a fight about who broke the plastic spoon that we use to make our peanut butter sandwiches. (Yes I know what spoons are, but we were out of knives, duh.)



The show in Mobile with ManDown was bad-ass. Those dudes are top-notch and they know how to find it within themselves to rock honestly and purely. Plus I like that band name. I think if Full Service is ever missing a band member at one of our shows, we’ll call ourselves ManDown.

January 27, 2009
TourSaw with Scotty Don't and Badfish
There have been many an amazing tour in the history of this here band. There was, of course, Toursaw I; "the first" always has a special place in the heart. The Takeover Tour, too, was memorable for obvious reasons. But this last tour definitely ranks high. Our friends Scotty Don't (who moonlight as "Badfish: A Tribute to Sublime") invited us to play 4 dates with them in Baton Rouge, Dallas, Houston, and Austin. As the following videos will attest, one of the reasons these shows were exciting was because of the venues and the large crowds (House Of Blues in Dallas and Houston, Varsity Theater in Baton Rouge, and Emo's in Austin). But perhaps more importantly, the shows will forever go down in history because of the bond we formed with a band who proved to be, by the end of our little run with them (they continue on for months after last Sunday's Austin date,) our kindred spirits.

They were into playing soccer, they had a trumpet player who was kind enough to sit in with us for "Trumpets," their merch dude was one of the kindest, funniest people we've ever met, their drummer greeted us at our first show with them in Baton Rouge holding an ice bag to his ridiculously swollen black eye (something about defending Pat Benatar against an angry drunk bully after their show in New Orleans?), their singer pins a photo of The Fonz on his amp and skates around on his ripstick inside the venue before shows, and their bass player repeatedly challenged Bonesaw's manhood with competitive banter on and off the field. And not only this, but they work harder than any band we've seen and they play their hearts out every single night. So, many thanks to these guys for the opportunity to play those shows with them. We made a boatload of new fans and we are greatful for that chance.

Some highlights from the mini-toursaw:

1) In Baton Rouge, the microphone on my tom-tom fell off after the very first hit, prompting me to call over to Smell for assistance. The mic had landed on my snare drum and I needed him to take it off to avoid further catastrophe. As the following video shows, poor Smell thought he had found a spot in the song where I would lay off the snare for a few seconds so that he could sneak his hand in and clear the mic away. However...I ended up smashing his hand as he was doing me this courtesty. He doesn't react much in the video, but rest assured he layed upon me a series of vitriolic epithets that shook me to my very core. I'm sorry Smell.

2) Also in Baton Rouge, we happened to catch Bonesaw on video at Subway making one of his notoriously awkward requests for special treatment because of his food allergy. (He's allergic to wheat.) Enjoy...

3) At a rest stop near Dallas, we had trouble with Twink causing unnecessary delays...

4) In Houston, my bass drum kept sliding away from me. I offered anyone in the crowd $5 to jump the railing in the front row and sit on stage to hold my drum in place. Between the time it took me to say that and reach down for a drink of water, somebody had appeared, seated in front of my kick with his feet holding either side. As we started the song, I yelled "ARE YOU WITH THE VENUE??" He said "NO!, I JUMPED THE RAILING!" I said "COOL!!" After that song, security took him back out onto the floor and replaced him with two 45-lb plates. Bummer, but I met up with him later and made good on the reward.


So, great tour. New friends, new fans, good times.

What's next for El Service? We're heading out on tour again in early February, and the album is coming out in a few weeks (CD Release show at Ruta Maya on Feb. 28th). We also have this, the name of the new album... THE EARTH STILL WANTS YOU

Stay tuned for artwork and track-listing... Love, Vitamin Hoag

December 22, 2008
In the Studio!
The sessions have been going very quickly for the most part. Our producer Moog works at a good clip and has a deep knowledge of the board and all the programs and plug-ins and effects and what not. We ran into some problems in the beginning because Bone’s guitar was having trouble keeping tune. We had no idea why, until Bone put it together that the temperature in the studio is a relatively chilly (and unalterable) 71 degrees. He reasoned that since his guitar is usually played and stored in much higher temperatures (80-90 degrees) it would be reasonable to assume that his axe would have trouble adjusting to a comparatively arctic environment. Since then, he’s been doing his guitar parts in the control room with Moog. He’s had to record over some of the tracks he already did, but such is the nature of record-making; stuff goes wrong.

As it stands now, we have all the vocals recorded except for 4 songs, and about half of the guitar parts down. I don’t want to give anything away, but today when I walked in, I witnessed Bone recording his solo for “Rocketships” and it was utterly nasty. He does this huge neck-bend at the end that will probably launch a whole new set of “tuning problems,” but it’s worth it for the filth he was able to generate on that track.

All basic tracking, including bass (Twink got on a flight back to Houston a couple of days ago) and drums and rhythm guitars, are finished. Still need to do percussion though. That shouldn’t take too long (famous last words.)

We’ve been pulling 12 hour days almost every day, which sounds grueling, and sometimes it is, but for the most part, this is—besides the stage—our favorite place to be. Sometimes after we’re down we and Moog head over to a local microbrewery and have one or two or three or four of the finest beers this country has to offer (Green Flash IPA, Double Dead Guy Ale, Abbey Dubbel, etc.) It’s important to have beers after 12-hour sessions. All work and no play makes the Service and Morgan dull boys.

December 10, 2008
Ladies and gentleman, today we are pleased to introduce a new member to the Full Service Takeover Family. As most of you know, our beloved, gas-powered generator, “Genny,” passed away last month while we were touring through Massachusetts. Though we vowed never to forget her, we also knew that the day would come when we would have to replace her. After all, the Takeovers must go on. We are in the midst of a global energy crisis, and as such, Full Service has committed itself to finding ways to reduce its carbon footprint whenever possible. So, instead of buying another gas-powered generator, we’ve decided to go with the electric Xantrex Power Generator, a 1500-watt rechargeable battery that is smaller, lighter, quieter, and completely free of carbon emissions. It is equipped with a sealed, non-spillable AGM battery, two three-prong AC outlets, a padded grip towing handle that is removable for easy storage, and built-in side handles that allow for easy lifting.




Genny will be missed, to be sure, but we urge you all to welcome Eli the Electric Generator into the extended Full Service family. We know that he has a long future with the Full Service Takeover Team. Thank you.

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December 7, 2008
Hoagie dishes about the band, the upcoming album, songwriting and much more. Interviewed by "The Joker"

Questions:
What were your goals when you started the band? How have those goals changed and/or remained the same over time?

There are career goals and there are artistic goals. Career-wise, we went into this with the hopes of one day being as big as bands like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers or 311 or The Police. We've always believed in ourselves and our artistic capabilities, so in that sense we look at the big boys as our peers, as bands to compare ourselves to. Sure, they're big and famous, but when it comes down to it they're just dudes that make really good music. We know other bands on the small level that we feel are just as good as the big fish, and it's just a matter of getting discovered and getting that chance. Through hard work, intelligence, and perseverance, those small bands can increase their chances or getting that chance. So our goal has always been to take this thing to the biggest level we can, while at the same time preserving our independence in terms of musical integrity, not "selling-out" to radio, being as self-sufficient and in control of our own operations as possible. What we've learned since the beginning is that this is a lot harder than we thought it would be. Talent doesn't automatically give you a chance, there's business saavy, marketing, and luck involved, too.

Artistically, our goals have pretty much always been the same. To continue to expand our musical vocabulary so that we can express ourselves to our fullest potential. This means always trying to improve our individual skills on our instruments, and opening our mind to different approaches to music. One of the best ways to do this is not to think of yourselves as "Full Service" all the time. It helps to sometimes sneak in a new identity so that new sounds come out. Like instead of Hoag singing this one, I'm going to be a fisherman from new england singing this one, or a green shrike bird from the rainforest. This was the idea behind "Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." They gave "The Beatles" a new identity, and new sounds came out. It wasn't "Paul McCartney" or "John Lennon," it was "Billie Shears." Brilliant.

When writing a song, where do you feel more emphasis should be placed? (ie. Lyrics, music, groove, etc.)

An equal amount of attention and love should be given to lyrics, music, and groove, without question. Otherwise there'd be a weak link, right? Lyrics and melodies, however, seem to have the biggest impact in terms of taking a song to a new level. Often times we'll have the music and the groove locked in but no lyrics, and we think "well that's a really cool tune" and then when we put vocals on it we think "well that's a REALLY cool tune. Damn." All of you decide to go by nicknames. Was that a conscious decision? If so, why? I think subconsciously because it helps with that sort of alter-ego identity thing. Tim doesn't play the guitar, BONESAW does, and he's a baaaad man. I'm not sure Tim could come up with some of the stuff that Bonesaw does.

In a relatively short period of time, you have released a number of albums that it takes some bands decades to record. How do you manage to come up with new material so quickly (As in, where do you draw inspiration? Nature, politics, etc.) and continue to keep your sound?

Who the hell knows where inspiration comes from. Out of thin air I guess. But yeah, seeing something or reading about something or experiencing something that is beautiful or terrible or funny or thought-provoking in some way, that definitely helps trigger some synapses. A lot of it is just searching your imagination to find different ways of looking at things or expressing things. Like "Hotter in the House" came about because we were hanging around the house one day talking about how hot it is in Texas, and we started joking about how it could almost cause a hallucination or a citizens revolt. Something like "Hi-Ho" came from a fascination with the ocean and with the lifestyle of pirates, so we wrote about a mutiny on a ship. For one of the songs on the new album "Eyes Like Snow," I wanted to tell a winter-wonderland kind of fairy-tale, so I created some characters and took off with it. What are your thoughts on your own musical output, especially in contrast to current major label releases, especially the new Axl Rose solo release (aka Chinese Democracy), that take years to record? Well Axl is sort of a strange, atypical case. Like Brian Wilson taking all that time to finish "Smile" (which is amazing). But I don't know, we just love to create. We feel bored if we go long periods of time without making something new. This is how we know we're in it not just to "get big and make a lot of money" (there are far easier ways to make a lot of money.) If we were in it for that, we wouldn't be making new songs all the time. It's more of a personal journey, to peel back the layers and see what we can do that is new and exciting for us and for the world. That being said, we don't force it. We never sit down and try to write songs. Everybody know that never works. As we say, "the guitar tells me when to pick it up." Sounds kind of new-agey, but it's true. It's very odd actually. Like "The Force."

In a world of online downloading and myspace, y'all take music to the fans with your Takeovers. How did these performances come about?

Well, the internet connects you to a lot of people, but it can also bring you farther away from the people. Promoting your band exclusively behind a desk, with myspace messages or whatever, has never been our style. We prefer to combine this with real, face-to-face interaction. Takeovers are so empowering. We don't need to book a show or corner ourselves in a particular time-slot, we can just find a place where there are lots of people gathered (concert parking lots, parks, art festivals, etc) and set up and jam. Also, the fans we make from playing takeovers become such hardcore fans, because they've really been a part of something spontaneous. They go home and tell their friends about the crazy stunt they saw that day. They offer to help us unload and hand out demos and all that. Plus, we can talk to them face to face, and we establish a more meaningful connection than the one that exists in the virtual world.

In terms of musical diversity, how does each band member bring something to the table in terms of musicality, performance, and/or musical tastes?

Bonesaw has an odd combination of sensibilities. He's a balladeer but also a shredder. I'm sort of the same way. I also have a deep interest in improvisation (especially vocal) and different melodic traditions, such as jazz (nina simone, billie holiday), qawwali (nusrat fateh ali kahn), even stuff like john denver and old French singers like edith piaf. Twinky-P is very well-versed in funk lines and syncopation. Maybe because he's half Colombian. And smell, like me, brings a sort of primitive approach to performance and music-making. He has a very keen ear for what's interesting and what's sort of normal or stock or unacceptable. Bonesaw writes songs with only his guitar, he rarely writes vocal melodies or lyrics. Because of this, his compositions really could exist without any other accoutrement. His melodies are IN the riffs and the guitar parts. Then I'll go ahead and bring put some vocals on top. I like to think of it like the vocals are hidden in there somewhere, and I have to coax them out. I'll just listen to his parts for a while and wait for the melody to reveal itself. It's always buried in there, and when it peeks it's head out, I put words to it and sing it, and the song rises to a new level. When I write songs on guitar, I write more traditionally in the "chord-changes" kind of way, which leaves way more room for creation of melody. I like both ways of doing things. We're sort of like Voltron. Each individual is great, but when we get together and morph into one huge individual, we become super.

You have a large repertoire of videos online. How did that come about?

Videos are a great way to involve people in the process. They can see what it's like making an album, touring, etc. We just thought it'd be fun to give our fans a glimpse of our life and journey as a band. We also use it to make commercials for our shows, and we've even staged mock press-conferences to announce big news, like the Takeover Tour. Where do you see yourself in the history of music? This may sound egotistical, but I think we all really believe in ourselves, and believe that we have something amazing to offer the world in terms of musical expression. We're not in this to party, we're in it to inspire people, make them move, make them feel, make them think. But I mean, if we never get this music out there to the large number of people we hope to, then that doesn't really change the fact that we made this music. It exists in the world now. We dug deep within ourselves and made music out of thin air. It didn't exist before, and that's kind of cool to think about. Also, it's all about the process...the process of making the sounds and the melodies and the beats and the words, so in the end, no matter what happens, we engaged ourselves in that process, and it will have been a personally fulfilling journey regardless of whether we have an impact on the history of music.

TourSaw XII - South and Northeast November 1, 2008
TourSaw XII Diary Entry 4
Eulogy to "Genny" the Generator
Full Service regrets to inform our fansaws that on October 23rd, 2008, our beloved generator, “Genny,” was laid to rest in Amherst, Massachusetts. The circumstances of her passing are somewhat mysterious. The story goes like this… On October 21st, we staged a Takeover on Boston Commons. Genny did wonderfully, powering us for 5 songs before a policeman on horseback ordered us to stop. We packed her into the Whale and went to the “The Middle East Club” for our official show that night. On our way out of Boston after the club show, somewhere on Interstate 90, we noticed the smell of gas coming from the back of the Whale. When we arrived at our hotel, Twink and Smell unloaded Genny to see what was wrong. Nobody was prepared for what came next. A tube connecting the gas to the engine had been severed, and poor Genny had become a victim of the generator equivalent of “bleeding to death.” We rode with Genny to our show in Amherst, where we took a closer look at our options. After this follow-up inspection, however, it became clear that Genny’s time had come. Repair was not a feasible option. We would have to move on and purchase a new one when we returned to Austin. It seems callous, we know, to simply have left her on the side of a random road in Amherst, Massachusetts. Genny is surely deserving of a proper burial, but touring leaves little room for doing anything “properly” (eating, showering, etc.) Genny’s life was one of dedicated service. I can still remember the day Smell brought her home from the hardware store. In anticipation of doing a Takeover during the 2006 Austin City Limits Festival, Bonesaw had given Smell the job of finding an affordable generator in the next week or so. We didn’t expect Smell to find one so quickly, and at such a bargain price of $250. Bone and I were sitting in the living room of FS headquarters when we saw Smell walk through the front yard with a big box in his arms. I ran over to open the door for him and he carefully set it on the ground. He popped back up, his hands on his hips; the stance of a proud parent. “Look what I got!” he exclaimed. Since that day, Genny has been the MVP of such historic FS Takeovers as Austin City Limits (2006 and 2008,) the Barton Creek Greenbelt, NC-State, Auburn, Providence, Boston Commons, and of course the entire Takeover Tour. She wasn’t perfect. She blew a spark plug at our first Takeover Tour stop in Philly, and a few weeks ago her gas meter became permanently stuck at half full. While she was alive, these failures were annoying; her blown spark plug in Philly cut our set short and made for a rough start to the tour, and her broken gas-meter was an obvious inconvenience (how were we ever supposed to know if we were running low on juice??) but in her passing we can look back on these shortcomings with a laugh. And honestly, her deficiencies probably had more to do with improper management on our part. We pushed her to the limits of what she was able to handle, and considering her demanding schedule, it’s hard to remember her as anything but a true warrior and a role model for young generators everywhere. Though we will soon replace her, she will forever be remembered as The Original Generator of Full Service Takeovers. Rest in Peace, Genny.

October 24, 2008 - Toursaw XII Diary Entry 3
FS gets banned from Storrs, CT

Check off “Stoors, CT” as the first ever city that Full Service has been banned from visiting. Several forces combined to make our show at University of Connecticut a perfect storm; a private party with attendance expected to be in the several hundreds; a newspaper article portraying us (tongue firmly planted in cheek) as a bunch of ragtag anarchists storming college campuses with Takeovers and anti-establishment proselytizing; and a state police force that didn’t find it funny.

Let’s take it all the way back to the beginning.

A few months ago while we were planning Toursaw XII, Bonesaw contacted our cousin Zack, a junior at U. Conn., to see if he could put together a show for us when we came through Connecticut. Zack happily obliged, quickly setting up an “Event” on Facebook. As the weeks went by, the “definitely attending” replies climbed steadily, and after a front-page article appeared in the “Daily Campus” on the day of the show, more replies started pouring in.

But there was a problem. Campus and State authorities were completely freaked out by the newspaper article, which you can read HEAR, and which anyone can tell is completely benign. References to “Takeovers” and “guerilla tactics” and “anarchy” were taken way too seriously (we’re talking about these ideas in a musical context, after all,) and the faculty reps at Student Affairs ended up calling the State Police.

Next thing we know, we have Zack calling us, saying that the party has gotten way too big, State Police have shut it down, he’s been ordered out of his apartment for the weekend (Banishment!? Deportation!?) and the streets around his place have been blocked off in preparation for what the police are sure is going to turn into some sort of counter-culture riot. Zack had also been warned by the State Police that if “Full Service shows up in Stoors, they will be arrested.”

Uhhh…..what? Ok, how did this happen? If all this hullabaloo has to do with underage drinking, then fine. But if this really has to do with a band coming into town with some sort of subversive, “anti-establishment” message, then….wow. I don’t even know what to say.

“Cool”?

October 18, 2008 - Toursaw XII Diary Entry 2

After Raleigh we headed up to Silver Springs, Maryland for a show on Thursday. We booked this one last minute so we didn’t know much about the venue. The only thing we knew was that it was called “The Quarry House” and that bands were supposed to use the side-entrance to “load their gear into the basement.” That last part—the “load into the basement” part—conjured up images of a dank, dark, and dirty grog pit, but when we got there we were pleasantly surprised to find that this place was more hobbit-style Ale House than dive bar. It was dimly lit, but comfortingly so, like the inside of old Bilbo’s hut, and even the low ceilings seemed tailor-made for the short shire-folk.

I knew right when we stepped into this place that this was a house of “good” beer. I glanced towards the coolers behind the bar and was delighted to discover that I couldn’t pronounce any of the brews. Most were imported. And the ones I could pronounce had very interesting labels, a tell-tale sign of a quality beer. (They say never to judge a book by its cover, but I think covers speak volumes.)

When the bartender gave us drink tickets, I knew it would be a fun night. Aside from the free brewskies, we had some old friends in the crowd. Norman Singer, whom Bone and I consider a Grandfather, made the trip out, which is impressive considering he’s 85 years old. I’m not saying 85 year-olds can’t go to bars, I’m just saying it’s impressive when they do, and it’s to be commended.

Our old Nantucket pal Magic Melly-Mel came out (we met her while visiting the island on our very first tour back in 2005.) We were pleased to hear that she is pursuing a law degree so that she can fight white-collar crime and force corporations to become more responsible for their actions.

And finally, little Sully, aka Matt Sullivan. (The song “Sully’s Wedding,” off Recess, was written for his older brother’s wedding.) You might recall seeing Matt and his brother’s band, The Hall Monitors, at this years South By Southwest Takeover on 6th street. And we played with them at Rockin’ Tomato, too.

The Quarry House was a bit slow that night, but we wouldn’t have cared if it was only those 3 great friends out in the crowd. The bartenders kept (unnecessarily) apologizing to us because of the low turnout, and told us to make sure and route through here on our next tour. They’d help promote. They all bought CD's. We told them of course, and thanked them for the free beer.

Onward to Philly to stay with Momsaw and Dadsaw! It’s always fun staying with our parents for a few days. Good company, good food, good beds, good internet access, good laundry. The plan while in Philly was to record a few songs with Morgan (the man behind the Takeover Tour Documentary) at his studio, play a show at the college where he works, do a lunch-time performance at my and Bone’s old high school (Germantown Academy), and play Frisbee golf and whiffle ball.

So first things first; the recording sessions. This video can describe it better than I can, so check it out HERE. Suffice it to say, Morgan has already made “Trumpets” and “Tomatoes” into big, chunky masterpieces, and it hasn’t even been mixed yet. Many, many, many thanks to Mooger for doing this for us in the free time. He also made us record (pssh…as if there was any arm-twisting involved) a slow version of “Freezing Dub” so that he could have something to play around and get crazy with. (Think delay pedals, reverb, effects, effects, effects.)

In between the recording sessions and our performance at our old high school, we did a radio show at Mooger’s college. For a while there wasn’t even an interviewer in the room with us. It wasn’t live, so they just shoved us in there and had us interview ourselves while they recorded it. We spent most of the time playing a game of Full Service “True or False” (True or false, last Christmas Bonesaw got Smell a laundry basket and a redeemable coupon to do Smell’s laundry for one year? TRUE.)

When the game ran its course, Josh and Brian came in to ask us some questions. We happily obliged, and wondered allowed what took them so long to get in here and break up our ridiculous game of FSTorF.

The next afternoon we headed to Germantown Academy for what would prove to be a very strange, rewarding, and exciting homecoming…more to come later.

October 9, 2008 - Toursaw XII Diary Entry 1
(A chance meeting with the Ugli Stick, and shows in Auburn and Raleigh)

You know the story by now. The first few days of a tour are usually all about long drives, rest-stops, and hotels. We left for Toursaw XII on Saturday the 4th, and our first show—a live radio performance on WEGL 91.1 FM—was to be on Monday the 6th in Auburn. Saturday and Sunday held no prospects for fun other than the brief tomfoolery we all somehow manage to engage in at rest stops (the “claw-prize” game, for instance.)

But Sunday, about an hour into our drive from Baton Rouge to Auburn, we heard a frantic car horn to our left. When we spun our heads in that direction, we were met with funny-faces and laughter from our friends The Ugli Stick, a great band out of Mobile, AL. We motioned to pull over at the next rest stop so we could figure out how this uncanny crossing of paths came to be. Turns out the Stick had a show in Baton Rouge the night before (damn, we could have gone!) and now they were headed to play the “Bayfest” in Mobile. Since we were going to drive through Mobile anyway, we decided to follow them there and hang out backstage with them and watch their show. Their set was fantastic and it provided a much needed break from the odor and claustrophobia that is the White Whale.

After the prolonged pit-stop at Bayfest, we continued on our way to Auburn, where we spent the night and planned our on-campus activities for the next morning. Perhaps “activities” is the wrong word. The reader, I’m sure, is aware that when Full Service talks about colleges campuses and “activities,” it is really talking about a…(drum roll)….TAKEOVER.

So we rose early on Monday morning and headed to campus to scope some possible locations. We have been to Auburn before, so we knew that the main quad was where we would find the highest foot-traffic. The real question was, how do we get the Whale as close as possible so as to minimize the uncomfortable, on-foot, transportation of amplifiers and drums?

It actually wasn’t very hard. People never seem to question the Whale being in a place it’s not supposed to be, probably because it looks like a university maintenance vehicle or something. We never shy away from using this presumption to our advantage. Here at Auburn we were able to pull into a restricted parking lot and live park in a permit-only loading dock located 60 yards from our Takeover location.

Once we hopped out of the Whale, though, our true identity was revealed, and the confused, suspicious looks started coming. At this point, however, we were able to take advantage of another presumption: that we were part of some student-activities-board sponsored event.

Within 15 minutes we were set up and ready to go, and we decided not even to bother moving the Whale out of it’s restricted parking space. Usually, after we unload, we’ll park the Whale away from the premises in a legal parking spot, but for some reason we didn’t feel this was necessary this time. (Are we getting a bit too comfortable with this whole Takeover thing?)

We had to wait a while for classes to get out so that we would get high foot-traffic. To prepare for the pedestrian onslaught of the student body, we made a huge “FREE CD w/ EMAIL” sign, and set up a booth near our gear where people could trade their email for a demo. Usually we have a helper on tour with us who hands out demos and collects emails, so we were worried about how effective the sign would be.

At approximately 12:45pm we leaned down to turn on the generator, when a bicycle cop casually rolled up and stopped directly in front of us. Ouch.

At approximately 1:45pm, it was go time again. BUT…Smell was nowhere to be found. He had gone into the student center to read his book (“The Life of Pi”) and he knew what time we were going to Takeover, but now he wasn’t answering his cell phone, so we decided we’d have to start without him. When he eventually joined us in the middle of the first song (“Freezing Dub”), he put the blame on us, saying in fact we had never called him and that we could check his missed-calls as proof. We told him he could check our made-calls as proof, and that he knew what time we were supposed to start anyway.

In any case, we decided to put the whole thing behind us and start another song.

The sign ended up working, perhaps even better than a helper. People formed a long, orderly line, and we ended up getting 98 email addresses. It may be the case that a sign works better than a helper because people prefer approaching rather than being approached. Solicitation is notoriously stigmatized, but a quiet sign kind of lures. Hmm…

The Auburn Takeover ended with a rather forceful shut-down by Auburn Security. First they said the word “no” four times, then they asked to see our permit, which of course we didn’t have (could we get one?—NO), and then they started saying “no” a few more times. You can watch the whole thing HERE.

Our whole reason for being at Auburn, of course, was to do a live radio performance on their radio station, WEGL 91.1FM. The Takeover was just a bonus. You can check out the footage of the radio performance and the interview HERE in a few days (I need to upload it first).

WEGL is a really cool station, they’ve always been great to us. Many, many, many thanks to Chandler and Jill for hooking up this visit. And Jill, you did great on the hot seat.

While we were at the station, we received a call from somebody who had seen us at the Takeover, and they told us that they had put together a party that night for the sole purpose of having us come and play. We of course obliged, and it turned out to be a great show. A lot of people (Chandler, most of all) got on the phone and called up their friends to tell them about the party, and in the end it was a pretty well-attended shin-dig. Next time it’ll be even bigger, I’m sure. At the end of the night I had many of the Auburnites sign my left crash-cymbal in honor of the love they’d shown us throughout the whole day. We came to campus with only a radio show booked, and we left having staged a successful Takeover and having played an intimate party. Thanks guys, we’ll be back soon, I promise.

Wednesday was another long drive. About ten hours. We ended up in Raleigh, where we had a gig the following night at a club (gasp) called the “Pour House.” So many Takeovers in the past few months, not many clubs. But rest assured, when we got into Raleigh on Wednesday night, we began planning out the next day’s “activities” at NC State, located in downtown Raleigh.

The process was much the same as it was in Auburn, only we have never been to NC State before, so it took us a little longer to find the right spot to target for a Takeover. Once we found that spot, it was easy. We again parked the Whale in a spot we definitely weren’t supposed to, and we again carried our gear a relatively short distance to the Takeover spot.

As we finished setting up our gear, however, we were approached by a faculty member (a “collar,” as we call them. They are people to be very wary of) who told us that if we didn’t have a permit, we’d probably get shut down by campus police. The guy was cool, I don’t think he was saying he would shut us down, or even tell on us, I think he was genuinely looking our for us. We told him that Bonesaw was trying to get a permit at that very moment (Smell pointed in a vague direction) and the collar said “ok, sweet.” When he said “sweet,” we decided this was not a collar we needed to be afraid of. We went along with the Takeover, sans permit, and we were never asked to stop. (The faculty member, once he heard us playing from inside his office, probably thought Bonesaw had succeeded in obtaining the permit—otherwise we would not have been stupid enough to try playing, given the warning he gave us. This man grossly underestimated our stupidity. We banked on that underestimation, and it paid off.)

Again, the students formed an orderly line for the email/demo exchange (“the sign” is now an early candidate for Toursaw XII MVP), and again we made contacts with students who could help us reach even more people. A dude named Barfy was actually able to get us an interview on his radio show that night. You can watch a portion of it HERE. (Again, come back in a day and this will be an active link to the video). Barfy is an interesting guy; quiet, unassuming, and extremely passionate about music. He told us that he carries around a little notepad in his pocket, and whenever he hears of a band he’s never heard of before, he writes it down on his pad and heads back to his room to check out their MySpace page. What an active way to find and support new music. His dedication is admirable.

Our show that night at the Pour House was a blast. It was a slow night, because most students had left right after classes that day for Fall Break, but we managed to get some people out who had seen us at the Takeover earlier in the day, and when we got back from the show later that night, we had received emails from students saying they had seen the Takeover and were sorry they couldn’t make it to the show, but they already had plans to go home for Fall Break. Next time we play the Pour House I’m sure it will be way more bumpin’.

And by all means, we’d love to come back to the Pour House, for 3 main reasons. 1) We weren’t able to play with Doco, who was the local band scheduled to headline that night. Their bass player had actually been hit by a car earlier in the day and they weren’t able to make it to the show. Actually, the rest of the guys did make it to the show, just to see us play, which was a very cool thing for them to do. We were somewhat dismayed that they weren’t at their bassist’s hospital bedside, but they assured us that he was fine (aside from some major cuts and bruises,) and that he had wanted them to go check us out. We wish him a speedy recovery and a quick return to the stage.

2) Tim and Kristen are two of the coolest bar tenders we’ve ever met on tour. Tim loaned me $13 so I could get dinner, and he treated us to a bunch of fantastic beers (the Pour House has 30 high-quality beers on tap and I nearly wet my pants when he told us we’d be drinking for free.) Kristen was a sweetheart, too. She played MASH with us before the show and we shared much laughter.

And finally, 3) Jack, the sound-guy, gave us the best sound—hands down—we’ve ever had at a club. Good sound does so much for your comfort level and your confidence. It really affects your playing in a positive way. The top-notch sound was probably the reason we played our tightest, most nuanced show to date. Because Jack gave us such a kick-ass on-stage mix, we were able to do a lot more improvising and coloring. So, thanks Jack.

Ok that’s it for now. Check back in a few days. More tales have yet to be told…

TOURSAW X: EAST COAST DIARY
April 14, 2008
The second half of the tour went by too quickly. On Thursday, we swam up to New York City for two shows. The first one was at Billboard Magazine headquarters as part of their music in the café series. It was a cool little space, a little hospital-ish in décor, but full of close listeners who seemed to enjoy our tunes. We played the Pieta, Ramona, Hi-Ho, and Tennessee Traveler. I’ll post the videos as soon as we get home. Many thanks to Donna and Kristi for having us. Some highly talented artists have done the café series (Common, Matisyahu, Jon Butler Trio), so it was an honor to be a part of it all. The show was bananas. Recently we’ve been selling a LOT of t-shirts, the ones with the White Whale/van on the front, and we feel as though we must publicly thank its designer, Joel Skotak. Without Joel’s brilliant artistry, our merch sales would be stratospherically lower. (that doesn’t make sense, does it? “Stratospherically lower”?) Before the show we broke up into two groups. Bonesaw and I went to throw the Frisbee in central park with our cousin Matt, while Smell and Twink asked to be dropped off at Times Square. Legend has it that from there they went to the Statue of Liberty, ground zero, and radio city music hall, then they took the subway and got lost for quite a while Smell’s famous river-sense—his inner compass—got all spun around and he couldn’t function properly. After some serious deliberations with the Subway maps, they got on the proper shuttle and were spit out onto a street corner where they saw Russell Simmons. (Twink took a picture at point blank range). The next day we played a really dirty, hype fraternity party at George Washington University in D.C. An old friend named Munkey put the show together and I gotta say, he really made it happen. We played in a dank little basement with graffiti all over the walls (we properly tagged it up) and beer all over the floor (we properly spilled our beers). Before the show we did a little sight-seeing. Munkey took us around the White House, which is a very awe-inspiring experience indeed. Smell and I wondered how long it would take for security to jump us (shoot us? taser us? somehow incapacitate us) if we climbed over the surprisingly unimposing iron gate that surrounds the property. We decided we’d probably trip an invisible alarm running along the top of the gate, and we’d be shot at with rubber bullets after the passing of a mere second. We also saw a tent sent up outside the White House where a man (or a group of men in shifts) have been living for more than 30 years protesting the various atrocities this great country has committed against it’s own citizens and those of other countries. 30 years. When we got back to MomSaw’s house in Philly, we rested up for the show at World Café that night. A lot of our old cronies from back home came out and rocked with us. The vibe at this show could not have been more different from the vibe at the party in D.C. In D.C., strangers were ripping our clothes off and screaming and dancing. In Philly, our friends and family were sitting at nice wooden tables two feet from the stage, sipping cocktails and applauding politely. Nonetheless, a shirtless Bonesaw managed to climb up on one of those tables and shred a solo. On our way back home now…Two days of mind-numbing driving. Actually we keep our minds pretty active with discussions about Physics and Space and Politics, it’s really our bodies that get numb. Stayed at one of the best hotels we’ve ever been to last night in Cookeville, TN. It was a Best Western and it was only $45 or something ridiculous like that. Fridge, two sinks, continental breakfast in the morning. Fantastic. The concierge asked us if we were part of the railroad crew. We said yes…we were aboard the Rock Train, next stop, Platinumville, USA. After waffles and cereal (and a strange encounter with a sign on the microwave that said “do not microwave eggs, they will EXPLODE”, more of a temptation then a warning, we all agreed) we continued on our journey back to Texas. Austin Reggae Festival, here we come…

April 7, 2008
Just got through playing two straight nights in Panama City Beach. This is the same place we’ve played before, where we can celebrate the end of our set with a sip or two of rum and a bee-line into the roaring ocean. No joke. And as always, we were co-billed with our dear friends from The Ugli Stick. If you’ve never seen an Ugli Stick show, I feel bad for you, son. I got 99 problems but the Stick ain’t one. Let me try to paint a picture. On the far left you have Dale. He’s a big fella who prefers to stay in the shadows (wears a hoodie and a Yankees cap pulled low over his eyes) but who can’t help but be forced into an “aw shucks, thanks” speech by fans who approach him after a show to tell him how awesome he is and how his solo took you 16 different places and, woah, what’s with his crazy picking techniques? And he can sing too. Hell of a singer. But the main singer is in the middle. His name’s Birdman. Skills: mathematics, freestyle rapping (maybe the best I’ve ever heard), card tricks (off-stage), ability to use iPhone to it’s full potential (off-stage), innovative acoustic guitar soloist, songwriter, main singer. Competing with Dale for “Top 10 smartest people I’ve ever met”. Birdman’s brilliance is more scattered and in-the-moment—as he says “I have an 8 gig processor but like, no RAM”. Dale, on the other hand, is more contemplative and hungry to straight up dig, which must be why he reads all the time. Far to the right of the stage is Quentin. He’s a big black dude with a mo-hawk. Add 60 pounds to the word “boogie” and that’s what Quentin is. Does that make sense? He’s like if “boogie” slowed down a little bit because it stepped in too much funk. Hands down the most amazing, virtuosic bass player I’ve ever seen or heard. He literally invented a new way to play the bass. He puts his right arm under the body and his hand plucks the strings upside down. It’s hard to explain. Search “ugli stick’ on youtube and you’ll find it. Behind the kit is my buddy Tim, who always let’s me use his equipment, which is amazing. He’s got a custom deal with Trick drums, so his set is pretty smooth. Tim is a rock-solid drummer who can play more styles than your starbuck’s has lattes. He’s a self-deprecating, tattooed teddy bear with a heart of gold. Or metal. He loves metal. Anyway, that’s the Ugli Stick, and they’re wonderful dudes. The shows were great. Crowds came out despite the somewhat gnarly weather. I’ll post a video soon. Gibler and Addrienne, you guys were so unexpectedly good at nukem. After that, I knew it’d be a good weekend. Off to Cumberland Maryland to play in the Newlyweds home-town. The Newlyweds saw us on their honeymoon two years ago on Toursaw I, and they’ve hosted us in their town every year. They both have Full Service tattoos and they’re newborn baby was featured on last month’s Wordsaw, wearing a Full Service shirt. It doesn’t get much better than that. See you soon guys.

Toursaw X Band-Member Survey:
(Bone…send to everyone or pass this around if you’re reading it in the whale with us)
1. When we get to the Kepner house, I’m really looking forward to ________________.
2. I’m most upset about the unavailability/short supply of _______________ in the cooler:
3. I am currently reading _____________.
4. _____________ takes the most time at rest-stops.
5. Speaking of rest-stops, when we go to them, Bonesaw is most likely to buy ___________, Hoag is most likely to buy _________________, Smell is most likely to steal ____________, and Twink is most likely to buy ________________.
6. Bonesaw never knows where his _____________ is. (only choose one thing, the point here is to find out if it’s his wallet or his cell phone more).
7. The best on-stage moment so-far has been ___________________ (be specific. Don’t just say “when we played freezing dub with Ugli stick, say something in particular about that experience).
8. _______________ wears the same clothes for the longest amount of time.
9. The most structurally compromised piece of music equipment we bring on stage is _________.
10. When the band gets a free tab at bars, I usually order a _____________.
11. I can always sort of predict when Bonesaw will decide to play ____________during a set, but
12. I can never see it coming when he decides to play _____________. ________ owes me __________ (an amount of money).
13. ____________ spends the least money on tour.
14. Hoag is a bad driver because he _____________
15. The worst thing about cooking eggs on the skillet is _____________.
16. I feel the most safe when _____________ is driving, because _____________.
17. On tour, the first of us to show signs of insanity is _____________.
18. My favorite whale signing is ___________.
19. In the whale, the ratio of non-trash to trash is ____________.
20. Most of what we say to each other on tour has to do with _____________.

MY ANSWERS: 1. Playing Scrabble with the folks. They are chumps and I always win. 2. Balance Bars 3. “A History of the World” by J.M. Roberts 4. Bonesaw, unless he really wants to keep going, then he’ll make us all spend no more than 45 seconds. 5. Gum, temporary tattoo, dr. pepper, water (most likely at a very exciting value!) 6. Cell phone 7. Bonesaw’s second solo on the blues jam he did with the Ugli Stick. 8. It’s close, but I think it’s me. 9. My ride cymbal stand 10. shot of rum 11. Battleship/Legs 12. Smell/$10 13. Bonesaw 14. Is always thinking about something other than driving. 15. It always ends up tasting a little bit like card-board and I have no idea why. Also, the yolks look like plastic. 16. Smell because he’s a professional, followed closely by Bonesaw because he’s careful. 17. Smell. He starts twitching at random times. 18. Par: “Meh” 19. 1-1 20. The location of the whale keys.

TWINK 1. Playing basketball at Wentz Run Park 2. No peanuts 3. “Smuggler’s Blues: The Saga of a Marijuana Importer” 4. Bonesaw 5. Bonesaw. Hoag will buy coffee, and waters all around. 6. To me, they are equal, but on this tour I’ve only heard him ask for his wallet once and his cell phone multiple times, but I still think they are equal. 7. I like the part where Birdman freestyled and both Bonesaw and I were able to compensate for (drummer of US) when Tim flipped the beat around. 8. Me 9. Hoag’s cymbal stands 10. Guinness 11. Tasteless Gravy/Have You Been Listening 12. Smell/$665 (not a typo) 13. Smell 14. He spaces out sometimes. But he can park extremely well. 15. I hate the leftover egg residue. The crispy stuff. 16. Smell, because he’s good with traffic and is quick with the wheel. 17. Me. I crave personal space. 18. “Solomon wuz here AKA “C2”” 19. 1-1, possibly 1-1.5 20. Women

SMELL 1. free food 2. Almonds (ed. There have never been almonds in the cooler) 3. “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel” 4. Hoag 5. Twink buys water, Hoag buys temporary tattoos, I steal M&M’s or Beef Jerkey, and Bonesaw buys gas. 6. Wallet 7. Watching Quentin play bongos 8. Hoag 9. Cowbell stand 10. Red stripe 11. Hi-Ho/Water 12. Twink/$4 13. Twinky-P 14. Because he’s late in making crucial decisions. 15. There is nothing bad about the skillet. 16. Me. 17. Twink. Because he starts to hate us. 18. “Good luck—Jamie B. AKA granddaddy” 19. 6-1 20. Women

BONESAW 1. sports. Sports. Sports. 2. gluten free cookies 3. “The Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett (almost done) 4. Hoag (though on previous tours, definitely Smell) 5. Hoag WISHES he could buy magazines and sunglasses, but settles for postcards and tattoos. I buy gum. Smell steals plastic cutlery and a soda, and Twink buys water. 6. Wallet, despite its higher value 7. Waging a shredder battle on-stage with Dale, Birdman, and Quintin of the Ugli Stick (as 50 Cent says: “If David could go against Goliath with a stone I could go at Nas and Jigga, both for the throne!”) 8. Twink 9. Cowbell stand 10. I don’t usually take advantage of a free drink, but when I do it’s usually a shot of vodka. 11. n/a 12. Smell/$6 13. Me 14. Never knows how he got to where we are, or where we’re trying to go. 15. The fact that is has 3 legs 16. Smell, because he has an innate sense of the rhythms of traffic flow. 17. Twinky-P. Withrdaws into a state of “Must get home and have alone time” 2-3 days before end of tour. 18. Birdman: “To the best bunch of hornswagglers and scallywags I’ve had the pleasure of plundering with” 19. 8-1 20. Location of items (phones, food, books, etc.)

TOURSAW IX DIARY
FEBRUARY 26th, 2008 (videos added soon as we can get a fast internet connection) THURS, 2/21 (cont.): Just after sundown we headed out to Auburn for our radio performance on 91.1 FM WEGL. Many thanks to Chris and Andrew for setting this up, I couldn’t imagine a more hospitable and adventurous student radio station, willing to open it’s doors to a strange group of sailors from Austin, TX. We have video documentation of the whole evening, including a saxophone solo by yours truly. Check out the video: FRI: Left early in the morning to go to our show in Guntersville, but first we stopped in Birmingham to pick up my old college roommate, “Fort”. Fort snuck us into his local YMCA and we rocked a game of pretty intense roundball. Smell and Me versus Fort and Bonesaw (the evening before, Twinky-P had developed some cold/flu symptoms, so the poor guy opted out of competitive contest and slept in the Whale). Anyway, Bonesaw and Fort took the first half 15-11 thanks mostly to the unexpectedly hot hand of Ole’ Fort. Said Smellman at the half, “I can’t BLEEPing stop his stupid BLEEPing mid-range bank shot!!” That, and Smellman’s shooting hand was about as cold as a frozen codish. Nevertheless, we came back fighting in the second half. I attempted to set the tone early with a violent hip-check to Bonesaw in the low post, but Bonesaw answered with one of his own at the other end. Smell and I continued to put the pressure on throughout the second half, but we came up short in the end, losing 30-28. Which means we won the second half, 17-15. So really we split one game a piece, right? Right. (Bonesaw says: “that’s completely bogus. They never had the lead the ENTIRE game. This is just another Hoagman ploy to somehow try to convince people that no matter when he wins or loses, he still wins. –BS). After the game we showered in the YMCA locker rooms which was a terrifying experience thanks to the number of fat, naked, old dudes who insist on roaming around completely naked. When we got into Guntersville, we dropped off Bonesaw at the motel where he set about making his microwave dinner. The plan was for the rest of us to head over to this pizza restaurant, pick up a couple of ‘zzas, and scoop Bone on our way back to the bar we’d be playing at that night. So we placed out order with the hostess and she said “it’ll be ready in about 30 minutes.” After 40 minutes she said it wasn’t even in the oven yet and that they were really backed up. Smell suggested that he and I—with our combined pizza-making expertise, honed from years of quality training at various parlors around Austin—offer to help the kitchen staff catch up and get back on track. I thought that was an excellent idea, but on our way over to the hostess we caught a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror and remembered that we have incredibly long, dready, unruly hair, and that nobody in their right cabesa would consent to our presence in a food-prep work-station. So we instead told the waitress to please do the best she could because we were in danger of being late to our gig. She told us she would, and we waited for another ten minutes before she gave us the unsettling news that our pizza was still not in the oven. We told her we were sorry but we had to cancel the order and take off, at which point she admonished us for “not getting here earlier.” We left with our tails between our legs. It was 8:30pm and we were panicking because Bonesaw told us we wouldn’t have time to eat until after the show. As we all know, a hungry dog is an angry dog, so things got tense amongst the group. We jammed to a packed house of somewhat bewildered 30-45 year-old country folk at “Boondock’s”, and afterwards ate some KILLER cheeseburgers. Those nitwits over at the pizza place told us that Boondock’s had terrible food, but screw them, they’re obviously liars as well as slow pizza-makers, because these cheeseburgers were magnifico y delicioso. After eating, we partied with the locals. Here's the video: SAT: Split town pretty early so we could get to Auburn for our show at “Ale House” with time for dinner, but certain misfortunes befell us on the road that delayed our arrival. It went like this: Hoag (halfway to Auburn): Man, we’re getting pretty low on gas. Bone: What’s “pretty low”? Hoag: We’re at Empty. Bone: We’re at Empty?? Hoag: Actually we’re a little bit below empty. Bone: Can we make it to Alex City in 12 miles? Smell: Yeah for sure… And right at that moment, the Whale sputtered its last gurgling breath, and the verbal assaults on Hoag began. From Bonesaw “You are HELPLESS!” From Smell “(laughter) ohhH! Aaaaahaahahaha! OHhhhh, you dumbass….a-hahaha!” From Twink “Dude I told you before we left to keep an eye on the gas.” I argued that I was doing the band a favor by giving us a “running-out-of-gas-in-the-middle-of-nowhere” story. What’s a touring band without an experience like this? I asked them. They were not buying it, and told me to go with Fort (who, thank heavens, was following us in his own car instead of traveling with us) to pick up a gallon of gas. (Bonesaw adds: “In all our time out on the road, we’ve NEVER had anybody follow us in another car. This is the only time. Further proof that Hoagman, no matter what mess he gets himself into, always finds a miraculous escape route. Gotta love him.”). Video here: So Fort and I drove fifteen minutes up the highway and bought an emergency gallon. We brought it back, shoved it into the tank, and lo and behold….the Whale still wouldn’t start. So again Fort and I drove the fifteen minutes up the highway and bought an emergency gallon. We brought it back, shoved in into the tank, and lo and behold…the Whale still wouldn’t start. But then Smell came to the rescue with a wonderful ignition/gas-pedal pumping display that got the engine revving correctly. He popped it in drive and we were on our way. Total time wasted: 1 hour and five minutes. Big freakin’ deal. (Bonesaw adds: “Hoag forgets to mention that now the Whale has trouble starting”). Auburn was a fun show. Everybody who came out it did so because of our promotional efforts from earlier in the week, so it was nice to see that some of that paid off. Aside from the show itself, there were two main highlights. One was watching Smell take a flaming shot, and the other was this balloon-sculptor virtuoso make us a balloon-sculpture of Bonesaw and the White Whale. Video here: SUN: Fort headed back to Birmingham in the morning, and FS continued on to Atlanta. It was Bonesaw’s birthday, the big THREE-OH! Too bad we spent most of the day driving and then playing a very poorly-attended show late on a Sunday night. But such is life I suppose. We did manage to fit in a game of soccer at Piedmont Park, however. And we all know that if Boneman gets to play a competitive sport, his day is complete and he is content. So we were glad that he at least got that. MON: Since Sunday was kind of crappy, Bone wanted to head to the beach on our way to Tallahassee and spend some time amongst the sand, sun, and water. So we went to Panama City and hung there for a while. He and I battled Smell and Twink in 3 games of Nukem (volleyball kind of, but where you catch it and throw it instead of bump it and hit it). Smell and Twink took the first game (I don’t know how), and Bone and I took the next two to take the best-of-3 tournament. After the game Bonesaw took a run and swam in the ocean, even though it was not hot or even warm outside. I think he had made up his mind the day before that temperature would not be a factor in his decision to get into some salt water. I guess once you turn 30 you develop that sort of “i-don’t-have-much-time-left”, “devil-may-care” attitude. (First 30 joke of the year!) Later that night we got a room at Econo-Lodge, watched Lost on abc.com (mind-blowing), and grabbed some dinner. Bone went to the grocery store, Twink had some soup, and Smell and I went to a local pizza parlor and ordered the biggest pie I’ve ever seen. We couldn’t even finish it. It totally owned us. TUES: Right now we are driving to Tallahassee to promote at FSU for our show at Beta Bar tomorrow night…

FEBRUARY 21, 2008
WED. (FIRST DAY): This day can be characterized by driving, coughing, hocking loogies, nose-blowing, and Rambo. We traveled all day, stopped at a movie theater and snuck in to see Rambo (blood, blood, explosions, blood, explosions, blood, credits), then plopped ourselves into some hotel beds and hoped for a better tomorrow. THURS: We still felt crappy due to our coughs and congestion, so we again snuck into a movie theater in Pascagoula, MS and saw Jumper, starring Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson (Smell’s future wife), and a silver-haired Samuel L. Jackson. It was bad, and we knew that going in. Did it matter? Not even a little bit. Totally entertained. Later that night there was more coughing, and a show at The Celtic. Our voices were broken from our sickness, and it didn’t help that every patron in the bar was smoking AND there was a guy with a hooka set up next to the stage supplying us with a steady stream of throat-irritant. But who cares, it’s a bar, and it’s all good. We rocked it and made some friends (finally got to meet and hang out with one of our most dedicated street-teamers, “Pascagoula Jeff”). You know, the Celtic is a great place. The owner’s name is Ryan and he’s one of the cooler dudes that lives in the Gulf Coast. He’s so punk rock (though he doesn’t look like it) that he puts out a hand-made rock magazine around town, and he interviewed us for it after the show. We did it in the bar kitchen and he asked some excellent questions. (“What’s your favorite Beatles song?” “Bonesaw, what’s your deal with all the exercising?” “Hoag, what did you do for your girlfriend on Valentine’s Day?”). Speaking of Valentine’s Day, Smell was determined not to let the day go by without bringing some warmth to a lady’s heart. So he asked Laurel, the bartender we met on Toursaw VIII, to be his valentine and presented her with a tiny bouquet of “flowers” (they were mostly weeds he picked from the concrete out in the parking lot…It’s the THOUGHT, people!). Laurel was very appreciative and stuck the bouquet in a vase that was already home to a dozen roses given by a bar patron with perhaps a little more cash-flow than our hero Smellman. FRI: To Uncle Tim’s and Aunt Lori’s in Mobile. Our third stay here. We checked in then went to a park and watched a random soccer game. Smell rooted for the black team, Bone and I for the orange team until we realized they were a bunch of underachieving cry-babies. So we went over to join Smell’s black team and lo and behold, he had become their hero-mascot. They were cheering his name in the huddle and everything. Apparently this team was the laughing stock of the league, and the orange team was ranked 8th in the state, so they were having a blast and got quite a kick out of this random dreadlocked dude cheering them on. They came to love Bonesaw and I as well and it was all very heartwarming. They lost on double overtime penalty kicks, but to them it was a victory. Afterwards, we ate some pasta and headed over to Grand Central for the first of two nights. This is the place where we play for the whole night, one of those behemoth 3 hour deals. Bonesaw and I were a little intimidated because we knew our voices were weak like Screech Powers thanks to the cough, but upon entering the club we were immediately lifted by the discovery of our old FS banner that we had left behind on toursaw VIII. The show proved to be…fair. I’m not sure we “sang” so much as we had “intense fits of cough”, but overall it was a good show. Perhaps the highlight was not having to unload, because we’d be playing there the next night too so we could leave all our stuff on stage. SAT: We went back to the park to root for the black team but they weren’t there, so Smell and Bonesaw played Frisbee golf in the woods, I went for a run and did pushups and coughed stuff up, and Twink read his Van Halen biography and slept in the van. The show that night was way better. Huge crowd, lots of love, and my voice was back in business. Our last set was actually the best, which is a testament to the partying stamina of mobilians. At freakin’ 2:45 in the morning and there was no sign of the audience quitting anytime soon. Twink and Bonesaw seemed to get a second wind from a beautiful girl in a gold dress dancing in the front, Smell stayed in the game thanks to a beautiful girl with dreadlocks dancing in the front, and I—as ever—needed only the love from the rock to keep me on task. SUN: We went to bed at 5am on Saturday, so we slept well into the day on Sunday, which means Bonesaw slept until 9am, and Twink and I slept until 2:30pm. I don’t know what time Smell slept until because he wasn’t anywhere to be found. Sunday was pretty slow. Aunt Lori made us some lasagna and Reagan (the 5 year old daughter) made us pretend ice-cream, chicken, fruit salad, turkey, French fries, and boiled carrots. Fisher Price style. MON: When Smell got back to the house we said our goodbyes to the Taylor family and headed out to Alex City, AL to spend the night at the Royal Inn. We had nothing to do until Wednesday when we’d go promote in Auburn, so we grubbed on some Subway and rented Miami Vice with Collin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. (Does his last name have two “x”s or am I making that up?). Anyway, this movie was pure garbage and though only Twink stayed awake until the end, we loved every filthy minute of it. TUES: After Bonesaw and I drank our morning motel-coffee (coffee tastes different and weird out of a small Styrofoam cup), we hit the road for Mama Anne’s (Smell’s Grandma’s) house. We had a mountain to climb, so we dropped off Twink at Mama Anne’s (on the disabled list thanks to a sprained ankle), and headed to Cheaha National Park for 4 solid hours of trail-hiking, off-trail hiking (i.e. getting lost), creek jumping, eating lunch in the bamboo forest, getting our shins torn to shreds by thorned creepers reminiscent of barbed freakin’ WIRE, and finally, in the end, fort-building. The fort turned out to be a legitimate structure that could provide cover and shelter from the elements. I know what you’re thinking. “Show me some proof”. But it just so happens that the video camera battery died right before we finished, and my camera phone memory card was full, so unfortunately there is no proof of the integrity of our “fort”. I guess now it’s just a question of how much faith you have in our survival skills. But I’m telling you, this thing would stay standing in a (very mild) rain sprinkle. Anyway, Smell and I made a documentary about the whole experience and I’ll edit it and post it online as soon as we get back to Austin (maybe sooner if I can find the right type of cord at a radio-shack while on the road). WED: We drove the whale over to Auburn for the day to promote for our show on Saturday, and ended up scoring a live on-air performance on the college radio station, 91.1 WEGL-FM. We then set up shop with an acoustic takeover and handed out a ton of demos to an extremely receptive and welcoming student body. Two Sociology students even interviewed us for their class. I think it was because we looked weirder than everyone else on campus. But I can tell you this, those two students were way weirder than Full Service. Sample question: “When was the last time you went to the grocery store, and did you buy condoms?” I’m not complaining, the stranger the questions the better. You know how sick we are of hearing “How did you become a band?” and “Who are some of your influences?” Stay tuned for more. It’s dinner time at Mama Anne’s… November 30th, 2007 - You may be asking “why have there been no funny updates recently? Why isn’t there lots of new stuff up on the website?” well, the answer is that we’ve been totally obsessed with rehearsing and writing for our new album due out January 19th and it has taken over our lives. Particularly Hoagman’s life as he has the most complex parts (drums and vocals) and also practices about 100X more than the rest of us in the band. But even I, Bonesaw, have been practicing hours a day in my seat by the window in my blue bedroom, working and reworking all my solos and riffs. Hoag and I, after an hour or two (or three or four in his case) of solo jamming will then get together in the jam room and drill over the parts. So like a swimmer getting ready for a huge meet, we’re now peaking and ready to hit the studio, which we will do at 9AM on Monday morning. Here’s a little video clip from a jam between Hoag and I on the new song “Egwene” (though it will probably be named something else on the album). And no, that's not a yawn from me, i'm just singing along! So hang tight and get ready for “The Dig” – 15 tracks that will soon be legend. and now, back to the jamming. . .
Love, BONESAW

TOURSAW VIII UPDATES
October 21, 2007
Toursaw VIII has hereby come to a close. We played the last show of the trip last night in Hattiesburg, MS, and now we’re inside the belly of the Whale headed back to Tejas. But before I offer you a wrap-up of the 4 remaining cities in these Toursaw VIII diaries (Atlanta, Gainesville, Tallahassee, and Hattiesburg), allow me this brief foray into the art of equipment loading. It’s the end of the night, usually between 1am and 3am. With so many thoughts of cereal and sleep fluttering through your head, it’s almost impossible to keep your eye on the prize of packing the Whale. But it’s a challenge, and we in Full Service love a good challenge. The question is, can we turn our brains off (to keep from feeling the pain/fatigue/frustration that accompanies such an arduous task) without also turning our bodies off (so that the physical exertion required by this task remains possible)? Athletes must do this all the time. They get tired, but they refuse to listen to their tiredness. And the great thing is, we are all there for each other when we see somebody’s body turn off. Smell fell asleep while standing upright next to the Whale last night, and I reminded him that he must only let his brain go dead, not his eyes, legs, arms and back. (Although, since my brain was appropriately turned off, what I actually said to him was something like “grunt grunt, ooga booga, naaa!”) Not surprisingly, our smelly hero snapped to, and resumed the hustle. Anyway, we left off with Atlanta. A beautiful town, truly. We managed to find a huge park in the center of town to hang out at before the show (Piedmont Park). Twink practiced balancing the soccer ball on his head while Bonesaw—the greatest hucker this side of Neptune—threw 300 yard Frisbee bombs to me and Smell. On the walk back to the club we found a sidewalk of wet-cement and wrote “Full Service rules!” in it. Hopefully it becomes a landmark some day, huh? When we actually got to the Whale we realized that the back door was wide open. WIDE open. We all hung our heads in shame. We played with some great bands that night, including a band we played with way back on Toursaw I: The Original Tour, at a really crappy place in D.C. called “The Grog and Tankard” (admittedly, a very cool name). I forget the band’s name right now, but we both remember each other, and it was utterly bonkers to be meeting up again 2 years later in Atlanta of all places. Anyway, our set was properly righteous, as the sound guy was awesome and got us all in the mood by playing Mastodon on the P.A. before we took the stage. Mastodon hails from Atlanta, and we were all hoping they’d come to the show. I have no idea why they would, but…they didn’t. Bonesaw wore his Mastodon T-shirt his friend Dallas (from Lonestar Pornstar) got him for his birthday, just in case. Many thanks to Fabulous Abby, our Atlanta myspace commander for coming out to the show with a bunch of people. I’m gonna keep sending you demos and stickers so you can further spread “da word”). Also, Shake, it was great meeting you man. This guy Shake was so on point with the Service, he just GOT it. He told us that while we were soundchecking and playing all these metal riffs, he knew we would eventually play one-drop reggae during our set. He said it wasn’t the dreadlocks that tipped him off, it was the way Bonesaw dipped and dodged to the music. And to that other dude, the one who said he really dug us and works for BMI…well, first of all I don’t believe that you work for BMI. You bragged about it too much. But you were a nice guy and we really appreciate your generosity with the vibes. One more noteworthy note about the Atlanta experience (“noteworthy note”…such poor form): we’ve all heard horror stories about touring, but this one might take the cake. One of the bands that night, Endway, asked to borrow our flashlight because they had locked the keys in their van. When I went down to the parking lot at the end of the night to get it back from them, they were still working on it. Two dudes were on the roof, one prying open the door with a much-too-small screwdriver, and one jabbing a much-too-thin clothes hanger inside the window to pull up the lock. The third member of the band was on the other side of the van shining our flashlight on the lock opposite him. It was 2am, and as I spoke to him about their bad-luck, he began to explain that this was only one in a series of misfortunes. First, their van broke down completely, so they had to rent this one. Then, they crashed this one into a deer and busted up the front grill. (I walked to the front of their vehicle at this point, and indeed, the deer had done considerable damage). They play in Austin at Momo’s on November 16. We’re supposed to meet up with them to get our flashlight back. Next up for us was Gainesville, Florida. Ever heard that song about the “Suwanee River”? Waaaay down yonder on the suwa-NEEE rivERRR!” Well we stopped at Suwanna River Park to play some soccer. Smell and I rolled and evened the Toursaw VIII series to 3 games apiece. Gainesville’s always a good time. The day of the show we always head over to campus to do an acoustic takeover and hand out demos and flyers for the show. It’s usually pretty safe on campus, but this time Smell got attacked by a zombie. Instead of helping him, I decided to bust out the video camera and document the terror. I’ll post it soon. Anyway, our musical home in Gainesville is a small reggae-flavored bar called “The Sidebar”. The guy who runs the place, Anthony, pulled a fast-one on us and advertised us on their myspace page as being an “Emo band”. When I got to the club I accosted him for this gross misleading of the public, and he just started laughing his ass off. I gotta admit, that’s pretty good. Anthony’s a good dude. He had Austin heroes Grimy Stiles at the Sidebar a couple weeks ago, and as we were loading in, the bar was actually jamming their CD on the P.A. We all kinda teared up with Austin Pride. Their CD is really sick, by the way. If you don’t have it, I recommend getting it somehow. It’s pure dub and it’s delicious. To our good friend Laney, thank you for wandering the parking lot looking for a different club and taking Smell’s suggestion that you instead hit up the Side Bar for our show. We’re so glad you dug it, and we’re eternally grateful for you help in carrying the equipment out to the Whale. Good luck becoming a tiger-trainer and realizing whatever other zoological dreams you may be nurturing. From Gainesville to Tallahassee it’s about 7.5 hours, and along the way you can feel a distinct change taking place. Gator license plates give way to Seminole ones. Blue and Orange paint jobs yield to Red and Gold paint jobs. The FU-FSU rivalry is not a joke. It’s a real hatred. It’s worse than Jerry/Newman; it’s worse than coyote/roadrunner, it’s even worse than Hoag/Smell. Our good buddy Pontsaw got us a show playing at a small $5-all-you-can-drink bar on campus called “The Tribal”. Best show of the tour, easily. We used our own P.A., our own small string of Christmas lights, and had no monitors, but it was by far the most hype show we played this past two weeks. Thank you Pont, and thank you for letting us stay at your pad. Pont lives with 3 of the most Joe-College dudes I’ve ever met. When we woke up the morning after the how at 9am, they were already drinking bloody mary’s, filling flasks for the tailgate later that day. I also overheard them talking about Halloween costumes. They planned on being tampons. That’s just gross. (Bonesaw note: it was actually these guys MOM who was making the bloody mary’s, much to the horror of Smell, who had been sleeping on the couch until the whole fam busted in at 8am with drinks and breakfast. He wasn’t happy). Before we left FSU, we played the final game of the Toursaw VIII soccer Tournament in Pont’s perfectly manicured, on-all-sides-gated backyard. It was wet, which neutralized our speed advantage, so it was a very close game. Overtime in fact. But in the end, as is most often the case, Smell and I prevailed, keeping the crown of “best two-man soccer team in the world”. Basking in this glory, we headed off to Hattiesburg for one last show before our return to Austin. Shows in Hattiesburg are always hit or miss. Our first show there, during Toursaw IV, was jam-packed. Our second show, during Toursaw VI, was empty, because everybody was out of town for Easter. Our third show, during Toursaw VII, was packed, and last night there were probably 50 people in the club. It probably would have been 200 had most students not been out of town for fall break. But Superfansaw Lori Long, from the show in Auburn was there, and she brought a crowd of about ten. She’s such a sweet girl and so supportive of our efforts and the efforts of other independent bands, she’s really an example of the reason we do this stuff. She spreads the word, listens closely to the subtleties, brings crowds, and best of all, dances her heart out. We love you Lori, and we’ll definitely be in touch. Come visit Austin, you’d love it here. I leave you with this list of ways in which Toursaw VIII changed the Full Service set: --Our new song “The Tea Has Bubbles” has become a band favorite and will be played with increasing frequency at Austin-area shows. Same goes for “Blue Glass Lake”, “Hotter in The House”, and “Blueberry Farm.” (Bonesaw adds: “Blasted Lands is clearly the best FS tune in the new set, it’s just that only the most heavy crowds, such as Houston, can handle the rocking.”) --The “get down reaaaal low” part of Stand by Me has reached a new level. Last night Hoag was on his knees, and Smell was actually splayed out on his back. So next time you see us play this, which for all you austinites will be at the Flamingo Cantina show on November 3rd, make sure you get as low as you can possibly get. We all need to be on the same level, people. And getting high is too easy. It’s time to go subterranean. --Bonesaw has developed a mental block which for some reason disables him from remembering to play the last four bars of the first verse of Ramona. This mistake has serious consequences resulting most often in extreme dissonance between my vocals and the chord he plays on guitar. Last night he did it correctly, but it remains a concern. --Smell has a cowbell solo during which he sometimes solicits assistance from the audience. Plan accordingly. --I have recently decided to give myself the freedom to not play drums when I only feel like singing. Of late I have taken to singing sans drumming at the beginning of “Legs” and “Never be Saved” and “Broken Women”. See you soon everybody, Hoag

October 15, 2007
Smell won the 2nd Car Bingo list. We were stopped at a red light in Goodwater, Alabama (home of Smell’s Grandma “Mama Ann”), and he said to us very calmly, “Ohmygod…calvin…pissing….” And sure enough, barely visibly, in the middle of a much bigger chevrolet sticker, we all sadly, hesitatingly, acknowledged it’s presence. It was all sort of anti-climactic actually. I don’t mean to diminish Smell’s victory in any way, I’m just saying...I don’t think any of us wanted to accept that the greatest, most competitive game of car bingo ever played…was over. Anyway, we started a new list, hoping to repeat the magic. It’s been a good game so far. Smell and I both only have 2 left. Smell has “Person on bicycle” and “honor roll student sticker on back of car”, and I have “double wide mobile home being carried by 18-wheeler” and “honor roll sticker”. It should be an interesting finish because, as smell noted, there’s probably not a lot of honor roll stickers floating around small-town Alabama. Speaking of Alabama, we knew we were in Guntersville when the bar owner apologized for the low turnout (even though it was fine) by explaining, “This is the first day of huntin’ season and everybody’s out shootin’ this whole weekend”. But no disrespect to ‘Bama. It’s a beautiful place, full of beautiful people. The most beautiful of whom, is Smell’s Grandma, “Mama Ann” (which is really pronounced “Ma’man”). Ma’man has been so nice to us, cooking us hearty home-cooked dinners like chicken with broccoli and spaghetti with meat sauce. She’s done our laundry, made us eggs in the morning, put out cookies for us, watched football with us, laid out bath towels for us, gotten directions to Atlanta for us…and all we’ve done is change a light-bulb in her garage. We love you Ma’man. Can we come for Christmas? As I said, ‘bama is a beautiful place. Today we hiked the Cheaha Wilderness in the Talladega National Forest. It was brutal. It was awesome. Legs hurt. Mostly around the hip joints. Total walking time: 4 hours, 35 minutes. Total amount of water consumed (as individuals): ½ Liter (that’s not very much) Total number of peanut butter and honey sandwiches consumed: 4 (that’s also not very much) Total number of totally awesome walking sticks found: 2 Total number of totally awesome walking sticks put in the whale and kept for posterity: 2 List of animals seen fighting: 1) Wasp v. Wasp 2) Hawk v. Hawk 3) Dog v. Deer 4) Twinky-P v. Fly-In-His-Face Tomorrow we head to Atlanta as the shows continue after these last two days off, which were joyously spent watching football and playoff-baseball and Dante’s Peak, starring Pierce Brosnan. Until next time, ye dogs! Hoag October 13, 2007 - Two bad things about these travel bingo games. 1) the driver keep his eyes on the road for a far lower amount of time than he should. 2) You can’t sleep in the van for fear of missing out on any items. Twink and Smell and I have only one more item to cross off: a sticker of Calvin taking a pee. The atmosphere in the van right now is extremely tense. We are all on edge. I can only imagine the celebration that will ensue whenever one of us chances upon this holy grail. You’ll probably be able to hear it from where you’re reading this right now. Especially if it’s Twink who wins. He is by far the most vocally enthusiastic participant in this game. Tranquilizers have crossed our minds. Last night we were in Auburn for a show at Rooster’s. Auburn is a beautiful campus, by the way. Maybe it was the time of year, but it just felt good being in this town. About 6 degrees to chilly (Bonesaw and Smell and I had to pick up some $7 fleece jackets at K-mart), but otherwise perfect. Tonight we play Mugshot’s Bar in Jackson, MS. Our old friend “Mississippi Erin” is putting us up, so she gets today’s MVP award. Apparently this place gets packed on weekends, so let’s hope for a bumpin show tonight.

October 11, 2007
Well you salty dogs, I was hoping to hit you with a hilarious video-diary, but I am unable to transfer video to this laptop. Apparently they don’t make a 4 pin DV to USB firewire cable for these things, so I’ll have to wait until I get hope to edit all of this tasty road footage. We shot a killer Cribs episode of Twinky P’s childhood home in Kingwood, TX, and we chronicled our desperate search for a Golden Corral in Slidell, LA. We’ve had three shows so far. In Houston we opened up for Lonestar Pornstar, Faceplant, and the Dirty Wormz. We all knew that LSPS and Faceplant could throw down, but we’d never seen Dirty Wormz. Those dudes are pretty sick. DJ Crash and Smack (the MC) are an unstoppable duo. We talked to Crash afterwards and we’re gonna hook up some shows together in Austin. After Houston we headed to Mobile, AL, where we again descended upon the Taylor household (Smell’s relatives) for 4 days and 4 nights. Twinky-P went out with Uncle Tim to his office poker-night, thinking he’d win some big money, but it wasn’t his night. He lost $20. I can only imagine what Tim’s co-workers thought when he introduced them to his friend “Twinky-P”. We did a takeover at the University of Southern Alabama student cafeteria to promote the show at Fabacher’s on Monday, but after 2 songs a big scary woman named Ursula came up to us and asked us if we had permission to be here, even though she obviously already knew the answer. I’m kidding, I don’t know if her name was Ursula, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. There’s nothing nice about that name, and there was nothing nice about her. screw it, the damage had already been done by the time she kicked us out. Smell had gotten rid of all the demos and stickers and got some chatter going about the show. After that we went to the local high school to find a pick-up game of soccer. We ended up playing against 6 other High School studs who had way superior foot skills. But as we suspected, we were able to beat them with mind games, trash talk, brute force, and unrelenting hustle. “I didn’t think you guys were gonna be so intense, you look so chill” one kid said, to which Smell replied, “not on the pitch, buddy!“ Anyway, after the game we made peace, and they all signed to Whale and left with Full Service demos. Yesterday we headed out to Pascagoula for a show at a small-town bar called The Celtic, where I immediately won over the crowd by saying “Thank you Pensacola!”. A few notable things happened at this show. 1) we met a dude with the coolest nickname on the planet: “Apple Sauce”. 2) some drunk butthead threw a chair at somebody, and the bartender, Laurel, came over and strangled him and told him to leave. But the big story of the tour so far has been the new game we’re playing in the Whale during our drives. We make lists of things we must find, and the first one to spot all the items on the list wins an as-yet-undeclared prize. But rest assured, it will be very small and relatively worthless. We’ve done two lists so far. Bonesaw won the first, and I’m going to win the second. road kill fireworks stand can or bottle of beer on the side of the road a non-texas of US flag yellow school bus orange car motorcycle dog tractor 2 boats a sign with the word "cajun" on it car with a broken window a band sticker license plate of a northern state and then here's the new list we're working on now: one of those stickers of calvin (from calvin and hobbes) pissing a chinese buffet a car bra (one of those leather things that fits over car headlights) propane/septic tank brown highway park/historical/scene overlook sign jet ski car with two window flags car with one headlight (something we call a "padiddle") dollar store 3 different farm animals car with hazzard lights on fraternity/sorority sticker a car with audible sub-woofer noise coming from it a billboard with a photo of an insurance/real-estate agent two yellow cars and the rules are, if you make two mis-calls (like if i say "padiddle" and it turns out to have two headlights), you get one thing taken from your list that you've already gotten. also, you can play "defense" by calling out something you already have, thereby preventing somebody else from getting it. Gotta head to the gig. Talk to ya’ll later. -hoag

TOURSAW VI UPDATES!
JULY 4, 2007
So yes, we went to Shipwreck Island! And it was great. How to relay the magical experience? How to adequately convey the speed of the slides? the perilousness of the heights? the sharpness of the curves? It's impossible. Suffice it to say, we had a rip-roaring time, and rest assured we broke every rule in the waterpark book about hands-and-feet-inside-the-tube-at-all-times, don't-go-down-head-first, no-running, etc. . The only thing bad about it all were the life-guards, or as we like to call them, "Fun-Preventers". They are constantly trying to keep the awesome-level at the lowest possible setting. And why did they look so freaking miserable? You're on Shipwreck Island!, people! Put on a happy face for the people! Now for a quick numbers game about Toursaw VII: Number of times we were asked if we were twins (when in pairs), triplets (when a trifecta--as at Shipwreck Island, from which Twink stayed home for reasons unknown). or--I swear--Quadruplets (when rolling all together): 4 Number of times a manager at Golden Corral asked Hoag if he could "please pull up his britches": 1 Number of times the existence of God was reaffirmed: 2. The first time, a chilly beach breeze was making bonesaw uncomfortable in the whale late at night, and he exclaimed, "God! Please close the window". He was talking to Smell and I, seated amidships, but before we had a chance to react, the window blew itself shut. The second time, we were lost in Pacagoula, Mississippi, and we were trying to decide if we should turn back around. At that moment, we passed a sign that said, Church of God: A Good Place to Turn it Around". We obeyed and found the club. Number of "Live Bait Shops" we saw on the side of the road: 34 Number of Live Bait Shops that had signs up saying "Now Serving Pizza": 1 Number of shows that had incredible sound-systems: 3. The Peachtree in Atlanta, Grand Central in Mobile (thank you Bobby, yours was the best), and Mugshots in Hattiesburg, Mississippi (what the hell is the abbreviation for Mississippi, anyway?) Number of times Hoag did an interpretive, poetic reading of 50 Cent's "In Da Club": 2 Number of times people responded favorably: 1 Number of times we played a show where a Sega and a TV were set up within 10 feet of the stage: 1 Number of times the plastic knife broke off in the peanut butter jar: 6 Number of times Hoag and Bonesaw beat Twink and Smell in Nucem: 7 Number of times we played Nucem: 7

JULY 2, 2007
The last you heard from us, we were at the mini-golf course trying to decide--via ruthless competition--who would do the dishes at the beach house that night. Have I even told you about the beach house? It's quite something. Whenever we play in Panama City Beach, Club Spinnaker let's us stay in a house they have near the beach for bands from out of town. Our show was on Sunday, but since we didn't have a show anywhere on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, they told us we could stay there that whole time. Pretty sweet deal. The only thing is (and it's a minor thing), we tend to have nightmares while staying there. Mild nightmares. Nothing terrifying. Under normal circumstances, we probably wouldn't have even noticed, or attributed it to being in that house. But when we left town on wednesday morning, we noticed the name of the street we were staying on; I swear to god it was Elm St. That's not funny, it's weird. But this is not the end of the Panama City Beach Narrative. There is still one thing left to discuss. Something so grand, so fantastic, so full of adventure, you might want to sit down before you start reading about it. (Then again, who really uses a computer standing up? Besides Bonesaw. Did you guys know that Bonesaw is on the computer for at least 3 hours a day and he does it all standing up? I think he does it for the challange. Amazing.) Back to the big thing I was going to tell you about. The thing so grand, so fantastic, so full of adventure....Shipwreck Island! It's a waterpark, and it's awesome. We passed by it on the way to and from the mini golf excursion, but it was closed. And expensive. And it looked like we'd never be able to go. Ever in our lives. Then, on Tuesday, Smell and I went out to a used book store. He got a Sci-Fi book called "Time Storm", I got "The Princess Bride" which is easily the funniest book I've ever read. But that's not important right now. What's is important is Shipwreck Island! On the way home from the book store, Smell and I started talking about how cool it would be to go to Shipwreck Island! Too bad none of us could afford it, we kept saying. It sure would be awesome to spend an afternoon on Shipwreck Island! But it wasn't gonna happen. We've all been spending too much money as it is, we kept saying. It was a lost cause, we kept saying. Then, we stopped "saying" and thought of something. Was there anyway Bonesaw would dip into the band account to fund a field trip? No, we both decided. Then "No" changed to "Well, maybe". Then it changed back to "No.". Then a "Definitely not". There was simply no way we could convince The Saw that this was a wise use of band money. I mean, the best thing we could come up with was, "Hey listen Bonesaw, I think morale is a little low, I think the guys need a little pick-me-up." But that was no good. We'd been lounging on the beach, playing Nucem, sneaking into movies for the past two days. Morale had, in fact, never been higher. (As an aside, we've become really adept at sneaking into movies. We did it five times this tour. Here's how it works. Smell just walks in the theater and owns it. Walks right past ticket-takers, managers, janitors, etc. He acts like he's talking on his cellphone, trying to find somebody in the theater (who, presumably has bought him a ticket). Then, he goes to the back of the building, opens the door, and just lets us in. It's almost impossible to get caught sneaking into a movie theather when you have Smell running point. One time an employee walked out of a back office at the very moment Smell was ushering us through the back exit. The guy looked us straight in the eyes and just ignored us completely. I don't know why, but we just never get caught. Not that it doesn't weigh on our collective conscience. Actually it doesn't really. But one time while we were at the back of a theater waiting for Smell's head to pop out the back door, we daydreamed about arriving at the gates of heaven, and St. Peter scrolling down his little profiles on us and saying "Well, you guys were--for the most part--good people. But this movie theater thing is just too much". Then he'd say, "But it's not enough to send you to Hell per se. I'll send you to like a Junior Varsity hell. Some place that's perpetually 99 degrees, not 4,000 degrees. Someplace miserable, but tolerable." "Oh sweet jesus..." we'd reply, "you're sending us back to Houston!") But back to what's really important. What's really fantastic and full of adventure and grand. The story about Shipwreck Island! As I said earlier, there was no way we could convince The Saw that this was a wise use of band money. Then we thought of something. By allowing us to stay in their beach house for three nights, Spinnaker saved us a bunch of money on hotel rooms. About $100. Why not blow it all on Shipwreck Island!? We'd use differently language of course. Instead of "blow it all on", we'd say "treat ourselves to". It's all about how we approach him, we decided. We couldn't act too excited or gung ho (which would be hard. Smell and I were pretty well amped at the mere possibility of it all). We'd have to mention it as a kind of passing fancy. A "hey, what do you think man?" He shut us down. Firmly. Then a strange thing happened. He came out of the bathroom 10 minutes later and said softly, "I could be convinced". He then made us explain to him again why we thought he should permit this seemingly heinous misuse of funds. All we could come up with was a kind of pathetic "'cause it'd be fun." Unbelievably--and I do mean unbelievably--it did the trick. What a coup! Smell and I could not believe it. We were going to Shipwreck Island! And we were going in five minutes... (To be Continued...) Unrelated news flash: We are back in Austin and have a show this Friday @ Rockin' Tomato. Our friends from NYC "Fortress of Attitude" play at 9:30, and we play at 11pm. ALL AGES. Fortress of Attitude is a hilarious, brilliant, and absurd band possessed of a high level of musicianship and a goal worthy or your appreciation and support. Here is their bio: Fortress of Attitude is a ragtag band of rock extremists, willing to spread rock and roll through ANY MEANS NECESSARY. When the four founding members of Fortress of Attitude (Bomb Threat, Sniper Kitty, Butch Deadlift and Dr. Genius) were thrust together in the infamous rock work camps of Country Radio City, they vowed if they ever found a way out, they would dedicate their lives to absolute rock liberation. It wasnt long before Dr. Genius assembled a master escape plan, and the quartet fled to safety in the sewers beneath Rocktropolis, the last free city in the Union. There, they erected their mighty Fortress of Attitude, welcoming all those who still believe in the freedom of rock. From the Fortress, this group of radical insurgents coordinates tactical strikes wherever rock is oppressed in an effort to spread their doctrine of a free rock society. Thank you for joining the fight. You are a dutiful soldier and will be rewarded handsomely upon the liberation of rock and roll. To find out how you can further help the resistance, please visit www.foamissioncontrol.com. See you on the march!

JUNE 28, 2007
Dear Jack,
So before I hit you with the recap of the mini-golf game in Panama City Beach, let me first brief you on our crappy time in Atlanta, or as I hate to call it, “The A-T-L”. (I don’t know when this trend started—referring to cities by spelling out their airport abbreviations—but I’m not down with it for some reason. People do it with Austin, too. “The A-T-X”? Austin is such a beautiful name, why must we corrupt it so?) Anyway, we got to the club in ATLANTA, moseyed into the door (past a sign telling patrons that sleeveless shirts and backwards hats were not allowed—??), found the booker and asked about set-times and load-in: Bonesaw: “Hey man, I’m Bonesaw from Full Service” Booker: “Awwww…..awww dude……shit…..I totally forgot you guys were coming” Awesome! So Beavis decided the best he could do was give us a 9:30-10:15 slot, since he’d promised the headliner the 10:30pm-2am slot. (That’s a 4 and a half hour slot for anyone who’s counting). It’s all good though, shit happens like this sometimes. At least the sound-guy did a killer job, and though I thanked him twice from the stage, I’d like to again extend my gratitude for scrubbing the microphones with a toothbrush covered in Listerine. I’ve never seen anyone do that before, but it makes total sense. Those things get nasty. Despite the mix-up, we’re glad we went to Atlanta. Otherwise, we never would have had occasion to spend the night with Smell’s Grandma “Mama Ann” and—on the way back—his Aunt Jan and Cousin Danielle, who taught Bonesaw, Smell, and me that with a little determination and chutzpah, we could accomplish things on a trampoline we never even imagined. At this point, we’ve met nearly every member of Smell’s mother’s side of the family: Uncle Tim, Aunt Lori, Landon, Reagan (Mobile, AL) “Grand Daddy and Mama Wadene” (who came to visit us at Aunt Jan’s), Aunt Jan, Danielle (La Grange , GA), and Mama Ann (Goodwater, AL). The only one we haven’t met is Uncle Barry, who lives—I swear—in Austin. That’s preposterous. Where you at, Uncle B?? So…back to the mini-golf game. As I said before, Eric from The Ugli Stick treated us to a game (and later to dinner, where a man and his Russian mail-order bride asked for a picture with us based solely on our unusual appearance). The stakes were this: whosoever comes in last shall do the dishes the next morn, and whosoever finishes first shall win himself a beverage of choice from each of the other players at a rest stop—also of his choosing—on the way back to Texas. I jumped out to an early lead and played with ice in my veins. There were threats to my standing—from Eric and Bonesaw--but these were short-lived. After three holes Smell was averaging a 4 or 5, the fires of frustration filling his every blood vessel. Bonesaw’s strange breed of condescending smack-talking didn’t help. “Tough bounce, Smellman. Tough Bounce” and “Can’t make those mistakes, buddy. Can’t make ‘em.” Anyway, though Twinky-P flirted with the idea of playing worse than Smell, he never quite made the decision, and going into the 18th hole he was up on Smell by nine strokes. Desperate to rid himself of the burden of doing the dishes, however, Smell proposed the following. If he—on the 18th hole—hit the ball into the frog’s mouth (an impossible shot involving a no-way-in-hell bridge that might or might not spit the ball into the frog-mouth) and if Twink did not, then it would be Twink, not he, who would have to do the dishes. I would not be explaining all of this to you if Smell ended up missing the shot. He made it. He rejoiced. Twink missed it, and cussed. Also of note is the fact that I almost crapped my game away on this God-forsaken hole. I somehow got a 4. All I had to do was hit the ball up a tiny little hill, and even if I missed the bridge to Frog-Mouth, my ball would disappear into a trough below. But nay! The first time, I hit it too hard, and bounced it off the frog’s face. The next time I did the same. The third time—as you may imagine—I compensated too much and hit it like a 4 year old might. It rolled back to me slowly. Then on my 4th shot, I made it. All Eric had to do was make it in one shot, but he too choked, and shot a 4. Thus, the beverages are mine and the dishes were Twink’s.
Love, Hoag

JUNE 27, 2007
Dear Jack, (Jack Bauer is the name of our cat - ed.)
How are things back at the house? I hear from your Daniel and Amber that you’ve been carousing around with that orange cat from down the street. Do I hear wedding bells in the distance? Catch any lizards lately? Any birds? Small rodents? That’s my boy! The cats here in the south are the same as you Texas cats except their accents are thicker. Instead of “meeeeowww!” they have a much thicker drawl, like “maaaay-eeeeeeeeeee-owwwwwwwwwwww—uhhhhhhhhh”. Things have been real good on the road lately. The show in Tuscalossa was fun, there was even a little doggie in attendance, just roaming the bar. I don’t know what his real name was, but we named him Captain Barbosa because he looked like he was drunk (and sea-weathered). For the past few days we’ve been hanging out in Panama City Beach. We had a show here at Spinnaker Beach Club on the beach with our fellow hornswagglers “The Ugli Stick”. After the show, Smell and I owned on the email list, and now Bonesaw put us in charge of it for the rest of the days of our lives. It’s cool though, because we found out that—as a team—we’re actually really good at it. Every Batman has a Robin, every Salt has a Peppa, and every Sherlock has a Watson; it just makes sense to go after ‘em as a duo. During The Ugli Stick’s last set of the evening—round 2am—Smell and I decided to shoot some Captain Morgan then head down to the water to swim in the ocean. (Don’t worry mom, we stayed within 10 feet of the shore, and we could stand the whole time). We tried to summon the Kracken (famed sea-beast who allegedly swallows ships whole) by taunting and cussing him, but the scurvy mongrel was too scared to show his face. (That, or he was hundreds of miles away, in the middle of the sea, busying himself with much more challenging prey). The next morning Eric, the lead singer of The Ugli Stick (a.k.a Birdman), treated us to a game of mini-golf. I’ll talk about the drama that ensued in my next letter. Love you, Hoag

JUNE 21, 2007
Greatest moments of Toursaw VII (so far) These updates have never been about the music per se. When the shows go unmentioned, it usually means we played really well, for a decent amount of people, and had a lot of fun. The updates, we all know by now, are about what happens between the shows; on the highway, in the hotel rooms, at rest stops, at the beach. So here they are, the greatest moments of Toursaw VII (and we're only 1/3 of the way through it). 1)Louisiana Lightning: Twink, magnet-o'-bad-weather, was driving, Smell was dozing in the co-captain seat, Bonesaw was working on the computer, and I was watching "Lord of War" starring Nicolas Cage. All of a sudden…POP/CRACK/BANG! Maybe it's just 'cause I was watching a movie about guns and AK-47's, but I was convinced we were under attack from those Libyan terrorists from the first "Back to the Future". We weren't. In actuality, a bolt of lightning had struck the ground maybe 5 feet from the Whale. It was so close to hitting the whale that it splashed mud on the windshield. We all screamed every cuss word in our lexicon, regrouped and went back to what we were doing. Smell to his doze, Bone to his emails, and I to my movie. 2) The old guy at Café Firenze in Birmingham: When Bonesaw introduced himself to this friendly patron, the man replied "Bonesaw, eh? (pause). Hell, took me 'til I was 18 to realize my name wasn't dumbass." Later, he offered his thoughts on love and marriage. "I never understood it…$3 to get a marriage license, $350,000 to get divorced." 3) Hi-tech rest-stop in Louisiana: I swear to you, they were selling lap-top computers in there. Real-ones. Not like those cell-phones and blackberries that look real but turn out to be some kind of weird candy. These were lap-tops. This is the same place where a black woman in full African head-dress said to Smell, "A white man with dreadlocks…I love it!" 4) Billboard Evangelism: Somewhere in Alabama, we saw this Billboard: "Go to church...or the devil will get you." There was even a really scary illustration of the devil. We started driving faster. 5) A true band of gypsies: With so many trips to the beach during the day, and no washer and dryer available to us on the daily, we've turned the back and side of the whale into a clothesline. Underwear, bathing suits, and towels flapping in the 60 mph wind. This is the life. 6) Drill-Hole: His evening performances on the roof of the whale have become the stuff of legend. But everything he's done has paled in comparison to what he delivered two nights ago on our way to the show in Ft. Walton Beach. As he gets older, he gets more daring, more exciting, more progressive. He has truly proven the "less-is-more" philosophy. 7) A conversation snippet: Here is an actual excerpt from a conversation between Smell and me in the Whale. I include this not to show how stupid we are, although I'm sure that will come across, but rather to offer an un-biased sample of Tour-Dialogue: Hoag: Whatever Smell: I'll burn your hair off Hoag: I wouldn't doubt that Smell: What's that supposed to mean? Hoag: It means that you'd probably do something like that Smell: Why would I do that? Hoag: Well, you said you would, for starters… Smell: (pause)….psshh… That's all for now. We're headed to Guntersville, AL, where last night in Birmingham, a hick told us we didn't want to go to Guntersville because it's too hick. This from a guy who told us the best way to catch catfish is to stick your arm in the water, wait for the fish to bite and latch on, then pull your arm out and whack it on a rock. Yaaaaaaay….. Love Hoag PS-When I tried to log onto myspace just now, it said our account had been temporarily shut down due to too many failed log in attempts. To the spam hackers out there trying to get figure out our password, we want you motherfuckers to know that you will NEVER GET IT. It's too fucked up. Your machines are no match for the randomness of our numbers and letters. Go to church or the devil will get you. Love, Twink, Smell, Bonesaw, and Hoag

JUNE 10, 2007
Hello everybody. I come to report that the pLarty was a huge success. I don’t know if you guys knew this, but acting is fun. Everybody really showed up and brought their A-game. Many thanks to Elizabeth Cobbe and Aimee Gonzalez for writing it, and to Laura for coming all the way from NYC to act in it, and for helping Twink, Bonesaw, our neighbors Daniel and Dominic, and I in our first ever stab at acting. I have video of it that I just need to capture onto youtube, gimme a couple days. I’ll make an announcement. It was so much fun, as a matta-o-fact, that we’re gonna do this maybe once every couple months. If anybody would like to participate in the next one, just let us know. We went to see the bats come out from under the congress bridge the other night and Bonesaw and I realized that something….those bats are total rock stars. People wait and wait for them to come out, they usual go on late, everybody freaks out when the little “Scout” bats do a pre-fly (read; soundguys doing soundcheck). This particular night they pulled an Axl Rose and just never came out. This Saturday we leave for Toursaw VII: Coasting The Gulf. If you are reading this, and you live in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Atlanta, or Florida, make sure you come to the show. And if you wanna help us spread the word by handing out some demos to your friends, email me at hoag@fullservicemusic.com with your mailing address and I’ll send you a package of demos. Working on some killer new songs. We’ll start playing them at shows but it could be a little while until we cut another record. Take it easy
- hoag

JUNE 5, 2007
"greet, buddy!" that's how a german person who knew minimal english addressed an email to me one time. another time he wrote "salute, chap!" anyway, hello everybody. here's what my dog Nessie has to say about what Full Service has been up to lately... "Papa said the show at the Flamingo Cantina was a huge success. I cried and cried when he left to go to the club. I begged him to smuggle me in, but he said I was too big to fit in the bass drum, and that the club owners had some sort of "policy" against pets. They call it a policy, I call it an agenda. But anyway, the dudes have been really bus