August 2. Drive day - to SEATTLE
August 02, 2005 05:57 AM
Hey people of the City...
Driving 15 hrs to day - all the way to Seattle.
We left Santa Cruz last night and drive about 2 hrs into the night... landed in Vallejo. We're tired, but want to get to the needle city...excuse me, the coffee city so at least, when we wake up in the morning, we can go to some rad coffee shop. And hopefully see James from Ester Drang and hang out. And Aaron Sprinkle, of course.
Well... lookie here. The Yahoo eblast is going to go out today. Listen up hard. When you receive that blast, click the link IMMEDIATELY... if you're wanting to attend one of those shows. Especially if you're in LA since there's only 500 tickets and a bigger Eisley market. But honestly, even in other markets, I'd try to procure one of those on line tickets from Yahoo's website immediately.
If I get the scoop or the link early, I'll get it posted on the "YAHOO EISLEY TOUR CENTRAL" thread by one of my henchmen, right here on the tour blog section or whatever I called it years ago. It's in the top slot, as you can see... cuz this tour is all but over.
cool. ok. Take care.
boyd
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BLORBED OUT ON THE ROAD:
Goodmorning and I'm Walter Boydcrete reporting in from the road - 2 hrs outside of Seattle at 12:40pm. John "battle axe" Alderman faced the road alone while I worked today. He's currently managed to peel off all but 75 miles of the 780 mile conquest he began with.
Points to John for enduring and allowing me to get vital work done. Points to Mark for making Eisley sound great night after night. Points to all the band members for learning how to enjoy being stuck in a van for 15 hrs at a time (and for writing songs that make me happy), Points to Garron for being initiated without reservations or complaints on the road, points to Christie for being the little sister who doesn't get the attention of 1000's, points to Chad for being a rock star but behaving like a faithful grunt, points to me for giving everyone points.
Right now the lines on the highway are hypnotic. I can't look up. It feels like we've been on the road... for months. Feb. March. April. May. May. June. July. and now August. Yep. That's months.
"You and me are floating on a tidal wave.. together you and me are drifting into outer space..."
I can't stay awake.
Now we're about to pull into our hotel 10- mi lujt side
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It's weird how that happens. I slide off and my hands keep typing as if I'm doing something productive.
We're here at the SeaTac Comfort Inn. It's 3:15am. Everyone is so toast. What else could we have done? NOT drive to Seattle? I'm bummed because James (ester drang) doesn't fly back to Seattle until Thursday. The band was going to record a song or so, but aren't now... so we'll be leaving Thursday morning. You can't let it seap in... you can't let it get under your skin... you can't afford to stay when you're got no business. No show, no go. Time to hit the road.
Tomorrow is Jon's last show. I can't comprehend this fact. I'm not in reality. On one hand, I'm freaking out... on the other I feel normal about it all...the change and all. weird. well... sleep now. bd
August 1, 2005. Santa Cruz, CA. The Catalyst
August 01, 2005 07:35 AM
Leaving San Fran - headed South
Only 60 miles to beautiful Santa Cruz. We were there with NFG only a few months ago. Thanks again to everyone who came out to the Fillmore last night. What a great venue. Ok. gotta go. The van just pulled around. bd
Scattering
Scattered mind... scattering people
We were here in Santa Cruz in a flash. I didn't even have time to work in the van since I was on the phone trying to figure out why i can only receive but not send mail thru Entourage or Apple mail pop accounts. It's so annoying. Using server based email app's for business is a joke. Thomas says it's local servers blocking users because they don't want to open their servers up to spam. Standard is port 25. You can't bypass it. grrrrr...
Anyway, we loaded in, and scattered. Some are watching movies, some are eating, some are asleep in the dressing room... I saw John Alderman asleep on this couch in the loading room - which is like a temporary shack. (reminds me of the shot I have of Chris Martin asleep on a road case on stage in Cleveland, OH). Anyway, I cleaned out the van super good, took care of tons of little stupid details, powered up my new Apple and walked by myself across the street to this rad indie, coffee shop: Cafe Pergolesi. I got a coffee for a change. Nice.
Dependencies
I wanna go home and spend the evening with Kim. Or, I want her here with me now. She's an addiction i just can't give up. I talked to her a bunch today... but it's not the same. If Eisley gets a bus one day, I want her out with us more often.
I miss Collin. He's a cute little bugger - always listening to his jams. You'd probably be embarrassed if he talked to you about bands. You'd be like..."uhh, I think I've heard of them though...just haven't heard the music yet..." but he'd know you were just saying that.
E-blast Alert. Heads up
I have to write an important newsletter - e-blast. I'd better do it now. We'll soon release the Yahoo dates and instructions on how to get free tickets. I want to appeal to hard core Eisley fans in the LA market. The tickets will go super fast. Advertised on KROK - a cool spot about the show - with clips of Marvelous Things and Telescope Eyes... They have a big budget to blow on radio promo. That spells a fast sell out. First 500 get in and that's it. I hate it. Why not move to a bigger location? oh well... I'm not in charge of these things. But when you get that blast, you'd better click the url and get your ticket fast.
Tonight is going to be wonderful. That's my prediction. It's already wonderful. A little relaxation... catching up makes my head clearer. Drinking a simple cup of coffee whilst typing on my beautiful silvery G-4 makes me thankful... if only Kim were here, then life would be perfect.
Also, in the newsletter, I have to decide if i should talk about Jon leaving. I hate to relegate...consign something as sensitive as this to a communication form as commercially boiler-plate as an "e-blast". On the other hand, it's important that fans know... so there's no disconnect at the Yahoo shows... What do you guys think? The forum is more intimate. But it's also limited...it's a small city. population: 6630. But the e-blast list is way, way more.
-------------------more later. gotta write that e-blast that'll hit on the 3rd.
Hey! Back in the coffee shop next door. It's 10:46pm. The show is over... well, Eisley's show. I'd give it a 7. Good sound, good room, good PA, good everything. The band is showing a little wear, I think. It'll be good to even have 7 days off. Well, 7 days of hard rehearsing with Garron. But... sleeping in our beds, drinking coffee at our very own Starbucks, going to our awesome Vineyard church, hanging out with our awesome friends, catch a few movies at the local theatres... all that stuff. But anyway, yeah... they didn't sign tonight. I think the long lines and boof, boof, boof; the Metro was long, long. Such a long line. They're not tired of people; but it's hard to really have quality time with one person. It's just getting harder and harder. Anyway... i hope you guys got signatures at previous shows... anyway. they're closing the coffee shop. i gotta go. More later. The show was pretty good. The crowd was very responsive. We're heading off to Seattle tomorrow. Not even sure where we're staying tonight... might just drive into the night and get as far as we can. It's like 16 hrs. with stops. See you guys. Thanks Santa Cruz! boyd out
July 31. 2005. San Francisco, CA. The Fillmore
July 31, 2005 01:59 PM
COLD IS COOLOne thing I want you all to understand: it’s COLD in San Francisco in the late afternoon. At least it was where we were. How is this? It’s August. Since we arrived, we’ve been freezing. When the sun went down and the fog came in.... it got even colder. I needed an Eisley hoodie. I’m telling you, something is wrong with this picture...in a good way. And most of us had no jackets or even long sleeve coats. This is truly amazing. From now on, we’re bringing hoodies to sell... so we can wear them if we get cold.
Live from The Fillmore
We're eating in that amazing room I told you about last time... the entire library of rock posters from the early 60's until now are are surrounding us as we eat gourmet food. It's amazing just being in this room; I wish I could hang out for hours and look at the art.
Tired. (always?) Slept a few hours after we got home last night. The band was up for hours after I tried to go to sleep. We left on schedule at 8:05am (well close). I got up at 7:00. We stopped at Starbucks, gassed up and headed North to drop off Luke (who had all our signed vinyl and posters to drop off at the label) before the ascent. (you go up forever....to about 4,000 feet).
8 Hours later, we pulled into the venue at 4:10pm. There's been no stress, the band has already done a photoshoot and we're going to have some chill time I think. Stay tuned for more. bd
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Dressing Room Noises
We’re hunkered down in the Eisley dressing room at the Fillmore. There’s an amazing spread of foodish assortments - trays with pepper jack cheese, turkey’s, chicken, bell peppers, carrots, dips... there’s raisin bran and soy milk, raspberry jelly, some kind of liquid peanut butter that Sherri and Stacy are dipping banana’s into; on ice, there’s Sobe’s, Odwallas, Perrier, Red Bulls, juices and drinks of all kinds.. On another table, there’s a bag of coffee, a coffee pot, half n half, etc. This is the nicest we’ve seen on this tour...sometimes there’s water and towels.
The FILLMORE
Right now, 1,150 girls are screaming for HHHeat to come back out and do their encore. Those same people were very tolerant of Eisley... some really liked them. Eisley’s set was very decent... not perfect , but respectable. There were great moments and moments where I remembered how much more exciting their headlining tour was...
Man alive, we’ve been touring since February; I have to say - Eisley has certainly toured the US. It’s true, right? Starting last year, there was 1. the West Coast Tour. Then there was 2. The Snow Patrol Tour 3. The Winter West Tour. 4. The New Found Glory Tour, 5. The Summer Scenic Tour and now the HHH Tour. That’s just what comes to my mind right now. I believe there’ll be only 3 more opportunities this year - 4 Yahoo shows, ACL, and...the Switchfoot tour will be the big blow out tour to end the year. Next year, there’ll probably be some oversea’s development, we’ll come back for one big tour as an opener, and there’ll more than likely, but not assuredly one final headlining tour before this record is put to bed.
Touring has been so vital, so key to the development of the band. There’s nothing that develops credibility than touring (if your shows are good and you sound good live). Radio creates instant fans, but... unfortunately most of them probably don’t care if you can play your instruments or not as long as you’re famous and they can bounce in their cars to your jams. The label is thrilled with the way things are going... there’s love for eisley in every hall at WB. I don’t say that lightly or take it for granted.
There’s so much to say in regard to all of this. You old school fans remember how I kept you saturated in behind the scenes detail. It’s just background fodder really... not anything newsworthy; but i know how you guys are. Like me, you like to know things.... be in the loop. At some point, when it’s appropriate, I’ll download some of this.
Show’s over. We should plan to go soon. bd
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