DAY 3!
“Jimmy put that God Damn thing away!” -everyone
Today seemed like forever. Although we know it has only been three days it feels like it has been much much longer. We woke up bright and early at the Mulligan Farm, to hit the road. Today I woke up to the sound of Max talking about a demon cat. Apparently there was a kitty with a momma cat who had killed a mouse. The kitty was then devouring the mouse carcass and in between doing that it would scratch at the door and stare at max through the window with its demon eyes, with fresh mouse blood dripping from its lips. No Satan Kitty you can’t come in here! Maybe it was a sign of bad luck.
There would be no lolly gagging today! No, today would be a day of wrong ways and turing around. First off we started off down the road going towards a dead end, then turned around. We continued down the right way and then missed our exit to the highway. However this seemed to be just fine, because Jake had forgotten his pillow. So we turned around to go back to the Mulligan Farm. Jake picked up his pillow and we drove back into Grand Forks to get some gas. I sat in the car, while everyone else went into get breakfast. Jake and Andy crawled back into the van and we waited for Max and Jimmy. The next thing I know Jimmy is grinning from ear to ear carrying a big black stick, but its not a stick. It was a Katana. Because everyone who sees a Japanese Katana made in China and sold in a gas station for 30 bucks should get one! But we had more pressing matters at the moment.
We had to stop at a music store. Luckily Poplars music is open at 9 a.m. Something strange happened however. There was a whole bunch of bikers in the parking lot huddled around a giant trailer. They were all wearing identical gear and had really nice Giant road bikes. I didn’t think too much of it going into the music store on a mission to find a new guitar strap and some more picks. I found a really nice strap in a ‘used pile’ for 3 bucks, and that was perfect. When I went back outside I decided to ask a few of them what the deal was. To FIND OUT GO HERE! http://www.bikeandbuild.org/cms/content/view/109/230/ … Anyways they let me write on their trailer and we huddled around it and took a good ole happy group picture! Which hopefully will be updated on their site and one of ours too.
We wished them good luck and got the hell outta Grand Forks! We drove and listened to more music. (what a surprise). We yelled at Jimmy to keep his katana in its sheath. We actually made really good time today and decided to have lunch in Bemidji. By the time we reached Bemidji it was my turn to freak out. I had to PEE! And everyone else was busy debating where we would have lunch. I plugged in an address to a Coffee shop known as Cyber Spider Super Dooper Coffee Cafe or something lame like that, into Tom Tom. Tom Tom guided us straight to the most wonderful place in the world! A large patch of trees in the middle of a neighborhood, that had no coffee shop or restroom. Thanks a heap Tom Tom. Then we opted out for the nearest Caribou Coffee, and I finally used the restroom. We had a small lunch in the Caribou and then continued on our way to Duluth. I slept a little bit on the ride and by the time I woke up we were almost there. So we plugged in the address to the venue and followed Tom Tom again. Tom Tom led us to a lovely alley way in a residential area in Proctor MN, 12 miles away from where we needed to be. Then after refocusing and yelling at Tom Tom. We went on our way to Duluth. A really pretty city reminiscent of a much more industrialized Portland. However, once trying to get into the City we made a number of wrong turns and almost went to Wisconsin.
We eventually got turned around the right way, back into Duluth which basically is one town on a giant hill. Our little van chugged its way up the hill and we pulled over to a side street to let it cool down and rest. I called our host Mike, and he explained to us the best way to get to the show. When the van was good and cooled down we drove down the hill and reached the downtown area where we wandered around until we finally found the venue. Bohemia Arts, which is a super nice art store and in the back is a large area where they host artist workshops, a gallery and most recently live music. In other words it was super rad! We ran into Mike who told us the show would start at 7 and we would play first. We were just fine with that as long as we could find something to eat first because by this point everyone was absolutely starving.
Pizza Lucé, is the best food we have eaten this entire tour so far! Finally pizza that didn’t taste like I was gonna weigh 500 pounds after I ate it. Jake and I shared a delicious vegan pizza while Max, Andy and Jimmy devoured a pizza covered in a ton of meat. We then hurried back to the show and unloaded our stuff. The Ooblecks played first, to a pretty large crowd. The show was a little bit awkward until everyone moved up closer and although no one danced it seemed like everyone enjoyed it, but they didn’t quite to know what to make of us. We played all of our songs really fast which made for a pretty quick set that was really a lot of fun. After we finished a crust punk kid with a really crazy bad ass dread mullet, named Duncan came up and gave Jake and me huge Hi-5’s and was really stoked about us. I set up our merch on a table next to a kid named Sam running the door who also was really stoked on the Ooblecks.
“I was so happy when you all were playing. Like I was supposed to be watching the door but I just couldn’t. I had to get up and then you all gave me the biggest smile.”- Sam.
The Diabolic Octopus then played for another fairly large crowd, and as usual they ruled face. Again the crowd seemed awkward, but many of the people had smiles on their faces which is always a good sign. Andy’s bass playing was as usual out of control, but I thought Jimmy was really on top of things with his drumming. Unfortunately , I couldn’t hear much of Max singing because the P.A. wasn’t the loudest, but his guitar sounded really good. They also played a really set full of older and newer songs that I really enjoyed.
After we finished the show turned into an entirely new beast. Indulge, High Life and then Born Bad from Winnipeg all played. I felt like I was in D.C. or L.A. in the early 1980’s at a Black Flag show. Speaking of Black Flag there were a large number of people who had either a Black Flag shirt or a Black Flag tattoo, which should have been a good indicator to what we should expect. Indulge played what seemed like 25 incredibly fast and loud songs in about 25 minutes, while stuffing their faces with pizza and potato chips. Each of the members looked like pro wrestlers, but without the spandex. The show exploded into a huge mess of food and bodies flying all around the room in circle pits. Then High Life played another batch of blazing fast thrash hardcore. They had a crazy dancing bass player and his super rad mustache, a really good drummer in pink and red zebra striped spandex and a bald shirtless singer who looked like he could crush your skull with one hand. Both bands were definitely home-town crowd favorites and had Mike shredding on guitar. We made a number of deals with kids who didn’t have much money but really wanted some stuff and they definitely walked away happily with new music and patches.
Born Bad from Winnipeg created a very similar atmosphere, but were twice as loud and maybe even faster if that is at all possible. They were really awesome. After the show we talked to the drummer, of the band who was a really nice dude, and we exchanged emails. I invited him to come play in Minot, since I felt they would go over really well, and he invited us to come up to Winnipeg, sometime in the future. We were invited to go over to a house party with all the other bands but opted out to go back to Pizza Lucé get some more good food and fall asleep at Mike’s House, and that is basically what we did. The only other thing I did before we got some pizza was bomb down a hill into downtown on my skateboard. HEE YAH!
