Saturday, 12/4/04 Mississippi Nights (St. Louis, MO)

‘Twould be a Very Ludo Christmas! Ninjas came sailing in from all corners of the country to bear witness to the exclusive spectacle of a Ludo acoustic show. Even though civilians were not even being let in the venue until 7:00, there were already 150 people lined up to come inside by 6. Ninjas and friends shuffled into our sparkly, cheery holiday dreamland, their mouths gaping in wonder like children into Bill Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Pine roping, fake snow, a delightfully illuminated tannenbaum, wreaths, poinsettias, a levitating Star of Bethlehem, and an animatronic angel were among the chorus of kitschy Christmas crap positioned to delight the cheerful throng. Traditional selections from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Mannheim Steamroller, and various public television animated Christmas specials played over the P.A., as did Burl Ives, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Mr. Garrison and Run DMC. It was like listening to a cult intoning their messiah, as a hundred or so young adults manically sang Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer along with the claymation characters in their collective nostalgiae. Then Tim Ferrell and I mounted the stage to play a blazing acoustic set for those lucky dozen-dozen who had ninjaship, or knew someone on the inside. I was wearing a short-sleeve dress shirt, a clip-on tie, and boys’ size-16 (Husky) slacks. Ferrell was wearing a Santa hat, a red sweatshirt with a picture of a Christmas teddy bear and bells on it, and no pants. Just kidding! He was wearing pants. They just weren’t funny pants. Meanwhile, wandering the party were Ludo favorites: Tim “Green Corporate Blazer” Convy, Marshall “Holiday Turtleneck” Fanciullo, and Matt “Antlers” Palermo. There was also cake for Matt’s forthcoming 21st birthday that was enjoyed by all. Interestingly, no one made cake for Jesus’ birthday. Which I guess is appropriate. Those Oriental Kings didn’t bring the Christ-child cake, and I don’t see Mary or Joseph (played) doing any baking in the desert cave-stable. And that’s why we didn’t make Jesus cake. There. Our bases are covered. Anywho, the acoustic show brought forth much sing-songing and mirth as our collective thank-you to our beloved ninjers. The show ended, seven o’clock rolled around, and the civilians were allowed in, so the ninjas had to act all cool like nothing interesting had happened at the Secret Holiday Party. By the time the first band, our supa-friends Holden, hit the stage (and they hit it pretty damn hard), there were 350 people inside the venue ready for hot holiday rock. They did California proud. Then Swizzletree made their STL debut with a jiggly saaranging of the sweating undulations of crazy Christmas crowdage. At one point, things got crazy: they accidentally knocked over a poinsettia, but it was cool. Bert fixed it. Then, D & E blasted through their set: as always a delightful blend of awesome and cool, loud and good, short and tall. When it came time for Ludo to go on, the lights dropped, the crowd roared and through the blackness and over the din, Danny Elfman’s gentle swelling theme from Edward Scissorhands crescendoed – when suddenly, the Christmas tree onstage lit up for the first time, much to the childlike delight of 550 Mississippi Nighters. Then as the music climaxed, Ludo ran onstage, the Star of Bethlehem over Matt’s head lit up brightly, and the animatronic angel began to dance. Just as Christmases past had begun! Wha? Opening with the, the, the sarDONically irreverent, uh, theme from Gremlins, right into young women bouncing on trampolines, we spewed so much thick rock nog onto the eager faces in the crowd, we were afraid they would never find their way back to Whoville at the end of the night. We played a brand-new song we’d just thrown together that week, as well as all the standard Ludo musickisms. Complemented saucily by Bert’s light extravaganza, we got through most of our set and had just finished rocking Air-Conditioned Love when what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a four-and-a-half minute shredfestive guitar solo from Tim “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” Ferrell. Alone onstage in the foggy spotlight, he took us all somewhere we had never before known we wanted to go. And it was good. Just when people thought it couldn’t get any more absolute, I retook the stage in a tuxedo alongside my friend in low notes, Marshall. In classic presentational operatic style, I stood centerstage and with guitar and bass accompaniment, belted out an emotionally charged and stirring rendition of “O Holy Night!” When it came time for the ethereal legato of “fall on your knees___,” from the dimness of stage right appeared a holy visage: the silhouettes of Tim Convy, Dan Monahan, and Jim Dietzen wearing white, flowing gowns and fuzzy halos, standing erect, arms outstretched, eyes to heaven, as they sang the glorious falsetto parts of the seraphim chorus. The whole spectacle was so far beyond what one should see at a rock show, that I’m almost certain we won 2004’s Best Christmas Performance By a St. Louis Rock Band Award (cross your fingers!). That Pavarotti ridiculousness right into “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!” with full band explosivo and no remorse, finally finishing up with a wham-bam Christmas ham of Good Will Hunting By Myself utterly decimated any chance of those present NOT having a Very Ludo Christmas. Hitting the last note (like Ike, Tina), we immediately began throwing out the hundred or so wrapped gifts from the stage that had sat beneath our Christmas tree. Yes. Of course we found random crap from our houses, wrapped them up all pretty-like and then gave them to the crowd. The guitar-shaped Elvis coin bank filled with caramel popcorn was a hit, as was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Burger King Kids’ Club video. Not to mention the 30 or so Harlequin Romance novels donated by my little sister. It was wonderful fun. And everyone wanted everything signed afterwards, so in an unexpected development, Ludo spent quite a bit of time signing paperbacks with titles like “My Husband, My Babies,” “Swashbuckling Passioneer,” and my personal favorite, “The Bodice Rippeth.” I’ve read that one – it’s true: on page 117 the bodice does indeed rippeth. It was an amazing night. Mississippi Nights went out of their way to let us do all the insane crap we could think of, which in my book, makes them good people at a great venue. Sure some people there got hit in the face with small, hard presents that may or may not have caused lacerations and/or minor head trauma, but we look at it this way: if you’re going to get hit in the face by a small, hard object, wouldn’t you rather it be a delightful Christmas bobble than, say, a rock or even a bullet? I know I would. It’s like, “Ow! Sweet shit! I just got cracked in the face with a stabby little projectile! God DAMN it! Oh look, it’s a ceramic ornament shaped like a duck… that’s awesome! The cuteness alleviates the pain! I love Ludo!” What a show… I guess I’d like to leave you all with this Holiday Message: lawsuits are for heathens. And the son of God wasn’t born on Christmas Day to save heathens, now was he?
Happy holidays! J

Tuesday, 11/9/04     Luther’s Blues (Madison, WI)
 
Oh what a dandy adventure it is to drive from California to Wisconsin!  And by “dandy” I mean “long.”  From motion pictures to dairy products with a brief night’s nap under that Gateway to the West.  References, references, references!  We teamed up quite buddyingly with our old stand-bys, Anything But Joey, and the delicately wonderful Jupiter Sunrise fellows to rock the people in the church AND the steeple.  It had been a long time since we’d played anywhere near the Midwest and there were quite a number of Ludo faithful who trekked in on a pilgrimage to their temporary mecca, Luther’s Blues in sunny Madison, Wisconsin.  Delirious from road-weariness, we took the stage like ancient deities and perpetrated some monastic song ejaculations upon the awaiting throng with the kind of furious abandon that nomadic poets only elude to in writing each other's obituaries.  By the way.  This whole playing Madison on a Tuesday crap has gotten WAY out of hand.  How about a weekend for these hard-working badgers!  Lord knows they’ve earned it.  Christ.  Ludo’s earned it.  Maybe even like a Sunday.  But Tuesday?  I’m out on that mid-week jibber-jabber.  Anywho, Jupiter Sunrise and the Abbages spewed out a fine spray of performance as Jupiter Sunrises and Abbages often do.  And we got to see a lot of people whom we had not seen in quite some time.  That night we curled up soundly in the hotel rooms of friends and slept like gentle children dreaming of dandelions and sunny hillside bingo parties.  I love sunny hillside bingo parties.  And I love backgammon.  Call me sometime.  I have racquets and hors-d'oeuvres.

Saturday, 11/6/04     Thousand Oaks Teen Center (Thousand Oaks, CA)
 
So we drove tempestuously from Tempe back across the great states of Arizona and California to arrive most punctually to check in at the Thousand Oaks Teen Center.  We had a fine and delicious dinner, and then made our way back over to the center where we loaded in, and sound-checked rather voluptuously in the venuey area.  We’d been told that Yellowcard had played there.  It certainly was a-rockin for a gymnasium, what with the crazy party lights and good sound and stuff.  We got to play with three cool bands, including the young lads who went right before us, Cicada (pronounced seh-KAH-dah, as in “Jon”).  The guitarist went into an extended Yngwie Malmsteen shred-fest solo extravaganza that was jaw-droppingly awesome and five minutes long.  Then Ludo rocked off a rapid-fire superset for the good kids of Thousand Oaks, California.  Kids who’d never heard of us stuck around just because of the wonderful gentlemen of Cicada, who went around as the local favorites, demanding that people check us out.  It worked!  Such a clever tactic from a smart, sassy group of rocky rollers.  Everyone at the Teen Center was awesome and the show was good times.  It was our last night in California so Domino bought a whole case of beer, opened each can, and poured all 24 cans into our merch bins to commemorate his contribution to the trip.  All in all, Domino would be missed of course.  But not before we got to ride with him all the way back across the country to Madison, WI, where he would have a whole new set of breweries from which to select his merchandise-destructing ales.  I joke!  Ha ha ha ha ha ha.  Seriously.  No!  Ha ha ha ha ha ha.  Yeah, Domino’s alright.  He makes a great scapegoat though.  Anywho… yo Cali, peace!  (I don’t think people should call it Cali.  That’s pretty dumb.  Sorry.)

Friday, 11/5/04 Minder Binder’s (Tempe, AZ)

Vegas, Vegas, Vegas, Vegas, Vegas. Vegas. So we spent a couple days and nights in Las Vegas, Nevada. We stayed in a motel that had American stripes on the roof and a star on each room’s door. We ate all you-can-eat buffets in the middle of the night. We played nickel slots. We had some meetings with important people. We did some work at Kinko’s. Domino finally got around to rolling the goddamn T-shirts. Then we drove to Tempe, Arizona, where we were to play with the band Holden (from Santa Barbara). It was at a cool place, called Minder Binder’s that looked like a giant barn, and served good food on the inside. In most barns, there’s only hay and animal shit inside. But not at Minder Binder’s! They have delicious burgers. It was really cool. There was a big stage set up outside with big sound, and a huge fenced-in area for show kids to stand, and then a 21+ area beyond for all the celebrated drunks. There were seven bands on the bill and Ludo would be playing right before our new friends in Holden, the biggest draw of the night. It was gonna be great. A great spot and a pretty damn good crowd. Ludo had even brought out about 15 friends and fans our first time in Arizona, which was a pleasant surprise. We had thought we were playing around 9 PM, so we had people there by 8:45. All was going according to plan. Time for a bunch of crap to intercede and ruin everything: five more bands showed up, and at 8:30 we found out that we were getting bumped. Even though none of them had confirmed the date in advance, the venue said the other bands were going to play. Uh. Okay. Because they were local. You know, local. Uh. What. Okay. It was cool. Our peeps would wait. We would end up playing later than we expected, but we’d still be right before Holden, so all was right in the kingdom. Ludo was gonna rock Arizona! Sun Devils, here we come! Fast forward to FIVE HOURS LATER. It was 1:30 in the morning. Everyone cleared out after Holden was finished. Then a band from Chicago had rocked the stage to just about nobody. Then Ludo, who was 1,600 miles from home, had the golden opportunity to break into the Phoenix market by playing to: the members of Holden, two people who happened to still be drinking, and five of our friends who had been waiting there for FIVE HOURS to hear our six-song set. Oh wait. They cut our set short. We only played five songs. Six? That’s ridiculous. We had loaded in promptly at 6 PM. Eight hours later, our set was over. By the time, we played, the bartenders, bouncers, and door people were long gone. The kitchen had been closed for three hours. All patrons were at home. And most people’s parents had picked them up at least an hour before we played a note. I’m surprised they didn’t ask us to lock up on our way out. Maybe sweep the floor. It was ridiculous, like we were performing at some sort of lock-in, except someone forgot to lock the kids in. It was one of the most royally obnoxious dick-dances in the history of Ludo. Had we known all this in advance, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have made the 6-hour trip to Phoenix, or included an Arizona date on our California tour, what with being 2,000 miles from home and needing to make every show count. I guess you could say… Minder Binder’s made us suck fat, fat, nasty duck breasts. That night, Ludo split up: three staying with the lovely Bridget in her hotel room, and three staying with the formidable Shanti in his apartment. Their hospitality eased our pain, but all in all, the Tempe show was not a winner for Ludo. It came up snake-eyes. We had much better luck playing video poker and watching Wife Swap in the Vegas motel room. And we might actually have sold more records that way too. All grrr aside, Holden is a bunch of super troopers for sticking it out just to catch our set. Great guys, not to mention a rocking-ass band. Watch them do it down at A Very Ludo Christmas. That is, unless you hate the birth of Christ.

Tuesday, 11/2/04 Westlake High School / Channel 17 T.V. Performance /
The Wildcat (Westlake / Santa Barbara, CA)

After completely ramming Walt Disney’s utopian vision full of Ludo goodness for an unabashedly vociferous 12 hours, we retreated to Pinocchio Lot 6 to re-enter the van and ride it back to reality. But a million and seven thanks are in order to the Robertsons for making our trip to the Magic Kingdom and California Adventure possible. See, they’re scoring big points here, people. Take notes: Ludo loves to be sent to theme parks. You know, to do like, rock research. On things that rock. Please put all theme park admission ticket donations in your closest Ludo van or in the hand of your closest Ludo member. Thanks and God bless. And so we did ride back to reality. And incidentally, the part of reality we drove to first was a high school in Westlake, California. (DISCLAIMER: I do not vouch for, nor do I deny the “realness” of West Lake High School; as far as I know, it is just as real as other places.) It was high noon, and lunch was forthcoming at the 9-12 school of one thousand. Ludo had fifteen minutes of rocking to convince these kids to come to our Teen Center show on Saturday. Throwing out liberal doses of Hum Along, Love Me Dead, and Good Will Hunting By Myself in their little outdoor lunch area, we certainly got people’s attention. It was awesome. But it was kinda strange playing at a high school. I felt like a lot of the kids were scared to talk to us. Maybe it’s because our rock is so terrifyingly powerful that if you look at it for too long, your face will turn into a pancake-face and no one will ever talk to you again because of the way you look. Or it was the fact that Convy was gyrating the entire show. Okay, okay. All jokey joker jokes aside (seriously, Convy), the kids were super-cool, and so was the school for letting us set up and play. We got like 7,847 e-mail addresses. Which was weird because there were fewer than 3,000 people within a half-mile radius of the e-mail sign-up sheet. I may have inflated that number a bit. All in all, a great time. My only complaint in the whole West Lake High School experience is as follows: THERE WAS NOWHERE TO “PEE.” All the bathrooms were locked. And it’s not like I was tracking down oubliette bathrooms in obscure parts of the school. I was finding bathrooms in crowded areas that had tons of potential urinators, defecators, and hand-washers all standing around. All locked. I finally found one young gentleman in the lunchroom area (who was apparently a part of “the-social-group-that-sits-together-on-the-floor-in-front-of-the-locked-lunchroom-bathrooms-after-lunch”) whom I could enlist to help me. After repeated questions of, “Where are there unlocked bathrooms in this school?” and responses that smacked of uncertainty and confusion, I dropped the question to answer all questions: “If you had to use the restroom right now, what would you do?” This was apparently the secret key. His eyes lit up, and he said, “I would go pee by the office.” Thank you. Ah yes. The “office.” Where they “send” you. He wasn’t speaking of an office where people close deals or conduct business. He meant THE office. Where serious shit goes down. Where people get detention rammed in their keisters. Where things go on your record. Where that little ass-kisser goes and talks to the principal for an hour (I hate that bitch). And also, apparently, where you “pee.” With some extremely intense directions and two young Sacajaweas (freshmen girls) to guide me through the thick Continent wilderness of high-school-between-periods to the Oregon of the boys’ restroom, I found the facilities and used them liberally. It was amazing. In a school of 1,000 kids, there was “a” unlocked bathroom. Shocking. Where do they “pee?” Naturally, since it was the only bathroom, I assumed that I would walk into a warehouse-sized facility where hundreds of grimacing kids stood in perestroika breadlines, waiting and wanting desperately to “go.” But no. There were maybe five other kids in there. And they were urinating very coolly. What was the secret? Do they all walk around with catheters? Are they robots? Perhaps. That’s interesting. Maybe that’s how come they won the National Blue Ribbon School status for Academic Excellence. Maybe the administration cheated their way to the top by replacing kids with really studious, non-peeing, non-pooping cyborgs. Unlikely to be sure. But still, one must wonder. No. What probably happened was the administration commissioned the building of plenty of bathrooms (because, obviously a thousand kids gotta go somewhere), but then realized that kids might go in the bathrooms to do drugs or fornicate or gamble or hold cockfighting tournaments or commit arson or run elaborate online pyramid schemes or even lift entire passages from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass for their creative writing essays. The bathrooms would be havens for miscreant ballyhoo. So they built the bathrooms and then they locked them. They realized they had to have bathrooms; they just couldn’t let anyone use them. I understood. In that, it makes no sense, but okay. Whatever. Off to Santa Barbara we rolled! But not before we had to stop to pick up a P.A. Ludo needed a P.A. for both the television appearance and our club show that night. In retrospect though, maybe we didn’t need that P.A. as much as we needed the $150 we spent on it. Regardless. Channel 17 was good enough to have Ludo out to perform live on their show, The Music Café. We did nine songs, and talked to the host in between about this, that, and the other. It was really cool. Then we packed up and headed over to the Wildcat, where we unloaded and prepared to play our third show of the day. A Senegalese man played pool with Marshall and said that he had seen us on T.V. that day and thought we rocked. Nice. In turn, I told him I liked franco-phonic African countries. Then we got pizza. Then we played to four people who were listening by accident. The rest of the bar was just trying to drink and watch Fox News misreport election results. Marshall played the entire show from the floor in front of the stage. Ha ha. Silly Marshall. Matt played Epic with his brand new transparent drumsticks that light up blue when you hit them. Yeah. He got ‘em at Disneyland. The Wildcat was really nice for having us out. But man oh man, was Rudo sreepy! So then a nice bartender named Meredith took us into her home and let us sleep all over her floor. And sleep we did. We had to wake up the next day and go to Vegas. What a buncha bullcrap!

Sunday, 10/31/04 Rusty's Surf Ranch (Santa Monica, CA)

We ran around the Santa Monica pier all Saturday night passing out CD's and flyers to promote our Halloween show at Rusty's. Then we split up, half of us seeing Team America: World Police and half of us seeing Ray. I saw Team America (the puppet sex is exceptional, as are Kim Jong-Il's exchanges with Hans Blix), and then walked down the hall and watched an hour and a half of Ray (Jamie Fox will win Best Actor). That night we crashed at Marshall's friend, Brian's house in the OC. In fact, they actually live like a mile from where they film the OC. I felt so current. Brian and his gal, J.C., took us in hospitaliciously and we slept like babies. The next day, we got up and went costume shopping down the street. Trick-or-treating began in like three hours, so the place was a madhouse and there was only a random grab-bag assortment of stuff left. After some careful shopping, we had it. I was a firefighter with pretty butterfly wings. Marshall was a wizard with a long gray beard and a starry cap. Matt was a swashbuckling buccaneer. Ferrell was a bunny with a bleeding mouth. And Convy had a crazy wig, Elvis glasses and a giant meat cleaver. I don't know what he was. We drove down to the pier and were told we couldn't park on it, because we would fall through into the ocean and die. Which is not the kind of situation we wanted to deal with. We loaded in, and Domino set up all the merch, deciding this time to spare our shirts a dumping of beer. Shafter was already there setting up, so we sat down and had some dinner. Yum. Then all kinds of friends and fans came out to see us which made it really cool. One ninja, Bear-Explosion had made a Halloween costume that was a giant television that had a nametag on it that said, "Hello, My Name Is Your T.V." She was track 7 from our album! And she was adorable! Shafter rocked it in superhero costumes, followed by Morning Ritual, who rocked it as Tom Cruise from Risky Business, Barry Sanders, a Chicago Cub and Slash(?). Then we took the stage and rocked out a hefty line-up of Ludo jams, all in our Halloweeny gear. It was tons o' fun. After we were finished, the band Gaskit played. They were in the middle of a record-breaking tour - playing all 50 states in 48 days or something crazy like that. But the ghosts of Halloween, tragically, terribly, had something else in mind. Two sections of the stage slid apart and the guitarist accidentally fell through the gap, and broke his arm, effectively ending the show and their tour. That sucked. The ambulance came, we said goodbye to all our peeps, and then we retreated to Brian's house en masse, and slept like gentle, loving babies, ready to wake up refreshed the next day, ringing in the month of November with a trip to... Disneyland!!!!!! That's right. The happiest place on Earth, bitches!

Friday, 10/29/04 Mr. T's Bowl (Los Angeles, CA)

After a bountiful sleep-in, we packed up our belongings and said goodbye once again to Chez Robertson. We drove into L.A. and guided by mapquest, followed Figueroa far south in search of Mr. T's Bowl. Unexpectedly (adorably), our friends at mapquest sent us not to Mr. T's Bowl, but South Central Los Angeles. Which is cool if you want to make a hip movie filled with social commentary (see: John Singleton), but if you're trying to get to a rock show, it's kind of just not awesome. I will say though, as far as bad neighborhoods go, it could look a lot worse. At least they've got standing buildings, and some people even had lawns, whereas certain bad neighborhoods in the Midwest look like they've been carpet-bombed. But I guess at the end of the day, it's probably like the drugs and violence that hurt property values more so than the local architecture. And the bars on the windows are always a dead giveaway that you're not on Sesame Street. So after realizing where we were actually supposed to go, we drove to Mr. T's Bowl, which is an old bowling alley that is now just a bar/venue where all kinds of musicians and hipsters hang out. When we got there, an all-chick (minus one dude-drummer) band was rocking and the place had a few dozen people in it. It was a cool-ass place. We loaded in and watched the other bands. Domino set up merch and got himself a beer. He then proceeded to dump the entire 12 ounces of the beer into the medium T-shirt bin that we had just restocked. Seven demerits for Domino. Then we got up and rocked. It was fun. The crowd was cool and responsive, and they actually bought a lot more stuff than I thought they would have going in there. On our way out, we found a gnawed-up still-wet corn cob on the ground. In exchange for $20, I sucked on it for thirty seconds, much to the horror and delight of my bandmates. Then we gave a puking man water. Then we went to IHOP and waited for a table for an hour. Then we left and drove back to Menifee, stopping at Denny's on the way. That's where I drank plenty of orange juice to boost my immune system. Then we drove back to Chez Robertson and slept on our faces.

Thursday, 10/28/04     Caravan (San Jose, CA)
 
After hanging out in Sacramento at Convy's Uncle Tom's and Aunt Jackie's place (which was a delightful treat by the way), Ludo gathered themselves up and drove prudently back to the Bay Area, where we met up with our friends in the band Shafter at their San Jose home.  From there we drove together to Caravan, a small bar with one of the oddest mixes of people ever assembled.  The Shafter boys had been kind enough to hook us up with a slot on the show they were playing there that night.  But once we saw the dimensions of the bar and the "performance area," we decided a full-band show might be a little much, so we made it an acoustic show.  The assembled patrons were a stunning amalgam of pan-American multi-socio-economic cultures, none of whom seemed to have (a) anything to do with each other or (b) any interest in us.  Drunk Corporate Man At Bar kept sreaming "Yee-ha!" and patting his girlfriend's ass.  Then there were Cubicle Working Office Space Thirtysomething Girls On the Town who just wanted to get drunk or find a husband or something.  Then there were the Chic Asian Punk Assemblage, scoffing (naturally), sitting next to the Homeless Veteran Contingent, who were just down the bar from the Fratty Sports Enthusiasts who were drinking more expensive beer than the Patriotic Apparel Wearing Guys Who Love Nascar.  The Motorcycle Crew didn't seem to be hitting it off with the College Girls who really had no idea what to do with the Young Saggy-Panted Urban Outfitted Representers.  And lest I forget, there was the affeminate, skinny young African-American fellow wearing a kilt around his waist and a pacifier around his neck, who was rave-dancing four feet in front of where Ferrell and I were sitting.  Needless to say, we went over like a tree falling in an empty forest.  All in all, about 45 people were there, and 25 of them were looking for rolling papers.  Fortunately, there was one friendly face in the crowd, besides the Shafter guys: Lauren (Texas Queen who goes to Stanford) was there to support us amidst the bizarre spectacle.  We played our songs apologetically while the jukebox continued pumping out songs (background music that we had to compete with).  It was a sadly bewildering playlist of Metal, Country, Hip-hop, and 80's Dance Hits.  As Marshall, P-mo, Convy, and Domino watched the ridiculousness unfold, the question on all of our minds was: what the hell is going on in this club?  Why were these people here?  We would never know.  We started to play Hum Along at one point and just stopped because in a band member's words, "no one in the entire bar [was] listening."  That's when we threw out the playbook and Ferrell and I performed some Elvis and then the Clarence Carter epic story song, Patches.  That's the song that seemed to get the biggest response of the night.  Where once he had just sat staring blankly, a mysterious, haggard-looking, elderly gentlemen at the end of the bar, in the back of the room, suddenly came to life, stood up, and sang along, every soulful word to the entire song.  It was a minor victory for us as performers.  Had that man had the funds, I'm pretty sure we could have gotten him to purchase a CD that night.  Not one of ours - more likely a Clarance Carter record, but a record just the same.  In retrospect, the place was not ideal for a Ludo acoustic show.  For a lack of audience interest, you could say.  We could have told that bar that Ferrell and I had magic wands for penises.  We could have told them we were planning to barricade the doors and burn down the bar with everyone inside.  We could have said anything and no one would have paid us any attention.  It was hilarious.  Then Shafter got up and played a full-band set, and it seemed like they at least got people's attention if not by sheer force of volume.  But the scene just kept getting weirder as more and more disparate social groups kept coming into the club and looking confused and lost once inside.  Weirdness.  At the end of Shafter's set, we said our goodbyes and our thank-you's and hit the road for Menifee - seven hours away.  We arrived at Marshall's mama's house at 7:00 in the morning and went to sleep.  We didn't have to be at the club until 11:00 that night so we were able to sleep in that Friday day.  Which was exciting.  In closing, I would like to say that San Jose has a hockey team.  God bless. 

Tuesday, 10/26/04 The Boardwalk (Sacramento, CA)

Ran around San Francisco all day Sunday. It was SO great! Five out of five Ludo members and one Domino agree: San Francisco is one of the greatest cities in America! And that's saying a lot. Sourdough trolleys and gay pride and the Golden Gate Bridge and the largest settlement of Chinese people outside of China and the hit sitcom Full House. Hell, I felt like Dave Coulier. And it felt like the rest of the guys were Danny Tanner (Convy), DJ (Ferrell), Michelle (Palermo), and Uncle Jesse (Marshall). Oh and Domino was Stephanie. Pier 39 was so A-1 awesome that I just crapped my pants thinking about it. Speaking of which, we should pull over next rest stop. I need to uh, how you say, freshen up? On Monday night we went down to Pier 96 to a hot, hot rock show, the Suburban Curse tour, featuring our friendly Chicagoan buddies, Lucky Boys Confusion, whom we hadn't seen for many moons. The other bands on the Suburban Curse tour were superdoo good. We'd heard a lot about both Army of Freshmen and Plain White T's, but we had never seen them play before. They rocked the bitch like it was made of cardboard toy bricks, and not real bricks. Army of Freshmen were all kinetic and shit, bouncing around the stage, selling it like it was half-price, flipping picks to and fro - just basically rocking. Then the Plain White T's got up and dropped some bad-ass tunes in a shamelessly dorky celebration of rock. Then LBC closed it out in classic Lucky Boys fashion, led by the Stubhinator himself. It had been awhile and it was great to see their show again. Afterwards, we were hanging out, keeping it real, when suddenly and without warning, all of Lucky Boys screamed out, "Holy buckets of birdcrap! The T's can't play tomorrow's show in Sacramento! What ever will we do?! Who will stand in at this, the eleventh hour and maintain the rock integrity of this lineup?! Who will save us?!" Ludo stepped forward, five-strong and declared in unison, "Stubhy! Adam! Joe! Jason! Ryan! The gentlemen in Army of Freshmen! Do not worry! We have heard your cry! We know now that you need a band to step up and play tomorrow at your show at the Boardwalk in Sacramento, in the spot where once the great Chicago songsters, the Plain White T's were to play! We are that band! We, Ludo, will save you!" And with that, there was much rejoicing, and a banquet was held in the center of the town square. Actually, the T's realized not long before that they had to miss that show, and LBC was like, "You guys should play the show with us." And we were like, "Cool." But my story was far more exciting if there was lots of unison talking and banquets and stuff like that. So we excitedly packed up our little traveling circus, crashed on the floor of a super-nice gal named Darby, woke up the next day, and headed to the capital of Coddy-phone-ya: the only state governed by a cybernetic terminator made of living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. And he's from Austria (Fun fact: Schwarzeneggar is actually German for 'black black-man'). On our way out, we crossed the gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge and P-mo cried tears of utter joy - it was beeyootiful! We stopped by 33rd Street Records (the people who were super enough to distribute our record to Tower and other stores across the country), and hung out with our boy Eli for a bit. We saw Aaron Neville's and Peter Frampton's gold and platinum records and picked up a Maxim swimsuit DVD. Because we wanted to study the changing trends of the swimsuit. Anywho, we were so delightfully tickled to have the opportunity to play a show on our record release date. We rolled in to The Boardwalk, and even though Good Charlotte was playing down the street in Sac-town that night, we played to a good crowd and got to meet all kinds of stupendous Sacramento peeps. Great people! Army of Freshmen had to duck out early, but not before being awesome on and offstage. Cool dudes. Then we retired to the hotel where LBC was staying. Stubhy secured us a suite, and there we proceeded to play guitar and talk of times past. Some nice gals from the show came along and hung out stridently with us. They even brought us treats! Super-fun. The Lucky Boysies are a goddamn riot and a sweet pile of cake to hang out with. It's funny... you go all the way to California to find that what you were looking for... was with you all along (turns away, wipes a tear from his eye). Maybe sometimes... we need to get lost... to find ourselves. Dance like no one's watching... Cali's hot, I don't give a shit. Speaking of shit, the Cardinals lost the World Series upon a comprehensive and utter collapse in pitching, hitting and defense. Johnny Damon looks like he should be hunting and gathering. Well, now that they've won the World Series, I'm sure he'll be able to get plenty of berries and squirrels. Damn it, Boston! You break-a my heart.

Saturday, 10/23/04 Tower Records - Rumble Invasion (San Mateo, CA) and Santa Clara University (Santa Clara, CA)

In retrospect, those four hours sucked ass. Mostly because they were preceded and followed by hefty bouts of "not sleeping." We crossed the pretty, pretty Bay Bridge, much to P-mo's delight (he loves four things in this world: family, friends, rock and good bridges). This one was a doozy! Happy day, Matthew! To be sure, it was a wet day in the Bay Area. We dazedly pulled up to the back door of the store, where a wild-eyed white-haired man who could have been a character in an Adam Sandler movie stood by as we unloaded in the rain. He lusciously recited his life narrative, along with randomly selected opinions he had about all manner of things. I think he and Ferrell really connected. My personal favorite was when he relayed the story of the time he protested the no-public-restroom policy at the San Mateo Tower Records by threatening to "take a shit on the floor." Except he told it like it was part of an anti-war demonstration on the National Mall or something. As we loaded our equipment into the actual store, we drank in the scene. There was a stage set up for various artists to play on that day ("including Ludo," or "includo"). It was also an Anime convention, put on by Rumble Invasion. There were a number of kids there dressed up as various Anime characters. I saw Sailor Moon and some Gundam Wing characters and I think there may have been some goddamn Digi-pets walking around. Not entirely sure. I only know that much because of a certain younger sister of mine who's, uh, crazy when it comes to that stuff. Incidentally, and while we're on the subject, for more information on Anime, Fan Fiction, the career of David Duchovny, hobbits, or not changing my ferrets' litter, please contact Teresa Volpe at catyuy13@yahoo.com. She loves getting e-mail. And she loves letting my ferrets (Randall and Skeletor) live in the squalor of their own filth. <----hint, hint: change the goddamn litter---- Way off track here. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the fetishization of the Japanese culture! We were welcomed by the sweet vocalizings and dirty beats of a group of Japanese rappers with whom we would be sharing the stage that day. They performed, well, oddly and said "Japan" and "for real" a lot into the mic. I didn't really know where to put it in my brain. I think I had to start a new audio bank in my mind for what they were doing. Regardless, the novelty of sharing the bill with a bunch of dudes who came all the way from the East Asian archipelago to drop some bilingual flow at the San Mateo Tower Records was awesome. Not exactly how I'd planned to start my day, but hell, I'm easy. There was also a spry young man walking around with a sign saying I'm Here For Ludo taped to his back. That's us. So we intercepted him, and found out he was the boyfriend of one of our Georgia ninjas. CRAZY! We were there to promote our record's release that coming Tuesday. And it was great! Ludo loves playing in-stores at Tower! It was stupendous, because the people in there are already obviously into music, and as long as they're shopping, you have a chance to get their attention. It ruled, and we sold a bunch of CD's. But more importantly, we made many new friends. A lot of Anime enthusiasts apparently appreciate Ludo. And Ludo loves them too. Works for me! We got to see Convy's super-nice Sacramento family: his uncle, aunt, and cousins made the trip out to see Ludo dudo what Ludo does do. THEN (score!), they were generous enough to take us to Macaroni Grill and let us mangia from their Italian trough of excellence. We ate it all up. Then we watched the Cardinals game and it made me puke. Where in the Christ are our 3-4-5 hitters?! MVP Candidates! Son of a crap! And what the hell is that Soul Glo juice-mung dripping out of Pedro Martinez's hair? Are you kidding? What the hell is that stuff? That is not cool. Grrrr... anyway. Then we found out that the amazingly delightful punkgrrl and Texasqueen had gone ga-ga and gotten Ludo a hotel room for that night! Wha?! Yes! We checked in and dropped off our stuff on our way to Santa Clara. That night, Ludo rolled into Santa Clara University to their Student Union venue, called the Bronco, ready to rock. We set up and then right before we played, we solicited about 20 extra people who were attending a student government sleepover to come check out our show for two songs. After fierce negotiations, they agreed, and ended up staying the entire show! Score for Ludo! It seemed at first that we'd be playing to no one, when five minutes before the show started, one-hundred people poured in. They had come for the beer. But stayed for the rock! Score again! That's three points in one day! Awesome. Wonderfully, a ton of Ludo's Bay Area friends came out and supplemented the Santa Clara student crowd while we rocked. After the show, we hung out, kept it real, and visited the student government sleepover like we had agreed to. They were all there. Playing games and wearing pajamas and shit. Crazy college kids! In my day, you just popped some qualudes, bought a pack of condoms, drank some vodka, and then passed out in the bathroom of a discotheque. Wait. That was someone else's memories. Not mine. That night, we slept like December bears at our complimentary hotel. Speaking of bears, Marshall snored like one all night. We had to reason with a bear hunter down the hall to keep him from killing Marshall - the guy was convinced we had a grizzly sleeping in our room. What a douche. The next morning, Ferrell ate breakfast with the girls, and they got to see him do his disgusting deed: pouring orange juice on cereal, and eating it. Tim Ferrell is hands-down the most disgusting person I have ever met in my entire life. He totally eats human crap. I swear to God. Down with Ferrell! Down with Ferrell!

Friday, 10/22/04 Vinny's (Bakersfield, CA)

We awoke happily midday Thursday in beautiful Burbank, CA. There were mountains in the distance. There was fame around every corner. I mean not fame. I mean palm trees. Ludo hit the road to go to that night's show in Bakersfield. It had fallen into place at the last minute, and we were just happy to be playing a show on our way from SoCal to NorCal. That's industry-speak for "Southern California" and "Northern California." Why don't you learn the goddamn terms already? What, you need a word bank or something? Anywho, this was the day that Ludo discovered... In-N-Out Burger. We had heard good things. I'm not gonna lie: the West Coast burger chain had been kinda built up a little bit. It was multi-orgasmic. You can watch them cut the mother-loving potatoes into fries. Potatoes into fries! They leaf the god-blessid lettuce. They freaking LEAF the shit. It's amazing. And real ice cream in the milkshakes bitches. Real! Ice Cream! Bitches! There are like four things on the menu, and then there's all these code words that you're just supposed to know, like "animal style" and other strange bits. It also, for some reason, says John 3:16 on the bottom of the soda cups. Uhhh... now I know that the bible verse declaring Jesus Christ the only son of God is what I always think when I have a soft drink. I just didn't realize that everyone else felt the same way. Anyway, so we were in, we were out, we were sated. Later that evening, we rolled into Bakersfield, CA, but strangely it felt like we rolled into Western Kansas. Vinny's was a quaint bar filled with nice people. Above the men's rest room, there is a stuffed dear head. Above the women's rest room, there is a stuffed deer's ass. I... hm. I don't think they have too many modern pop-rock acts in there, but a show is a show and we had never tried this "baker's field" or "lea of oven-users" on for size before. When we were loading in, one of the louder patrons said through a mouthful of ugly, "Where y'all from? St. Louis! Y'mean hell?! Sheeit. That's where the men are men and the sheep are nervous!" He was saying that [unlike where he was from] St. Louis was a "hick-town." I looked at his camouflage hat. I looked across the room at the stuffed deer's ass over the women's restroom. I looked backed to his camouflage hat. Hm. Yeah. "Sir," I said to him in my head, "You are a goddamn bag of trash. Your proximity to Los Angeles (two hours) does not change the fact that you are a stinky, dripping bag of trash. Please throw yourself in a dumpster and never speak of St. Louis again. May God be with you." He totally didn't hear me, because I said it in my mind. But it still felt good to think it. Then we went to see our friends, the band Shafter, play at Jerry's Pizza down the street. They were playing in the middle of a local fair, and all the streets were blocked off. The people of Bakersfield were gathered giddily (almost unnervingly) in the center of town, lined up along the streets in creepy anticipation. I felt as though at any time, the townspeople would cheerfully offer up a sacrifice and some cloaked demon would come through the crowd to claim (and eat) some lucky family's toddler, much to everyone's delight. I was close. Instead, it was drag-racers and monster trucks that came roaring down the street. Now, call me a city-boy, but I thought the appeal of those vehicles what they either drive really fast or crush shit. These were just revving their engines. Then they would rev their engines again. And when all that was done, they would rev their engines to celebrate. And people could not get enough. One guffawing gentleman who looked like he'd had too many butterscotch candies cried out joyfully, "They're so loud!" Yes. Yes they were. And for some reason, it was decided that two goofy assholes would provide commentary over a loudspeaker. And by commentary, I mean vague bits of stupid. "Well look, there it is" and "that sure is it" and "I like it" and "wow, it's my favorite" and "what's your favorite?" and "that one is my favorite" and "I like stuff." I felt at any point that some superior race was going to appear and put them all back in their cubbyholes. Well, at least they didn't sacrifice toddlers. We ate pizza, took in some Shafter, then ran back to Vinny's where we played a 45-minute set to Brian Dominguez and 12 bar patrons who were all thirty feet away and not necessarily there to see Ludo. We opened with Blue Oyster Cult. And closed with Elvis. And then I played Ave Maria. And then I played Patches by Clarence Carter. Everyone was super-nice, except for when someone asked us to play some "Skynyrd." I referred them to the jukebox in the corner, and the time we would be departing. We sold a couple CD's and got a free shot from the lovely bartender. The owner gave us $50 we didn't deserve, and we gratefully hit the road. We arrived in Berkeley at 5:30 in the morning at the small, yet attractive studio apartment of a wonderfully generous young lady I went to college with named Caren. She was gone for the night, and had left her key and apartment for Ludo's sleeping and showering benefit. We would get only 4 hours of sleep before we had to get up, drive to San Mateo and play an in-store at Tower Records. But it would be four great hours.

Thursday, 10/21/04 The Whisky A Go Go (Los Angeles, CA)

After a couple REM cycles, Ludo flung their bodies back in the van. Except this time, there was another. By either sheer luck or stringent planning, Ludo acquired a young Houstonian man of Mexican descent at the Lambert International Airport in St. Louis. We collected him and put him in our van. His name was Dominguez. He preferred Brian. We called him Domino. He would sell our merch and load our van. Ludomino left St. Louis at 5:00 pm on Monday, twelve hours after arriving in the Gateway City, and would not stop driving until the Golden State. The Rockies and the deserts of the Southwest were like gorgeous moonscapes. Wanderlust crept through my veins. It was epic. It took a ridiculous cooperative push to get all that driving done. Now this is where I should mention some sort of group effort. Instead, I will now detail my personal accomplshments: I set a personal Ludo record by driving 14 consecutive hours from Terre Haute to Amarillo. Look on a map. That's like far. Try it some time. You'll probably like fail. I deserve some sort of non-sucking plaque. A total of 52 driving hours (35 straight) and 2900 miles from Manhattan, Ludo had crossed New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, New Mexico and Arizona over two-and-a-half days, before rolling over the border into Arnold Schwarzeneggar's domain of Coddy-phone-ya. Yay! We're here! Let's stop at a gas station and get some gas to celebrate! Hey, look! Gas is three dollars a gallon here! Let's spend a hundred dollars to fill our tank! These prices are bullshit! Yay! But it's all worth it: we're in California - maybe some famous actress will want to marry us! Cool! We arrived at Chez Robertson in Menifee at around 11:00 pm on Tuesday night where we met Marshall's Mom (the final piece to the Fanciullo familial puzzle), along with her husband Jeff. They warmly welcomed us into their lovely home and fed us like we were hungry boys. Because we so were! We slept coma-ishly, got up, got the van serviced, did some work, got a couple haircuts and generally tried to make ourselves presentable. Somehow, it was raining in Southern California for three days when we got there. Cue the joke: we must have brought the bad weather with us! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha he he he he he ho hum ha ha he shut up. We packed up and left on Thursday afternoon, saying warm thank-you's and tender goodbyes to the goodness of the Robertsons. After keeping it real in some L.A. rush-hour freeway traffic, Ludo rolled like a bunch of ballers into Hollywood and unloaded our equipment onto the curb in front of the famed Whisky A Go Go, which has played host to such no-names as The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix over the years. I know. Weak, right? We loaded in and shamelessly soundchecked with a little BOC (to the utter delight of the supercool sound guy). For our first time in Los Angeles (actually our first time west of the Central time zone), Ludo actually brought out some mofos. Old friends and family and contacts and fans and whatnot came out to occupy the Whisky by the dozen. I don't know what they all came for, but they got it. Ludo slathered on so much hot rock that local geologists were concerned about the region's seismic activity. Notably, none other than Steve Ewing of the Urge came out to see us. He was just all hanging out in L.A. working on production shite, being awesome. Then we went out to a bar with all of Marshall's crazy, cool, California cats. We were to understand that Paris Hilton and Fred Durst were there, but they had left already. Which sucked, because I really needed to know if Fred really had done ALL of it for the nookie. You know, not just the early stuff, but like the later shit... was that ALSO for the nookie? Burning questions. Oh and I also had brought my night-vision goggles so I could see Paris Hilton having sex. Christ, is that so much to ask? Anywho, they closed down the bar, and then we all accompanied my great friend, the filmmaker and brilliant cinematographer of Governor Schwarzeneggar, Joseph G. Leonard back to his spacious Burbank abode, where we would be battening down for the night. Under the protection of Joe, we parked precariously in a grocery store parking lot and slept all night like head-trauma victims. Thanks Robertsons. Thanks Joe. Go team!

Saturday, 10/16/04 The Lion's Den - CMJ Music Marathon (New York City, NY)

On Thursday, Ludo rolled around the city and ultimately met up at the FUSE Studios across the street from Madison Square Garden. We got to see a lot of the studio crew who worked on our video, and all our various FUSE buddies. Such fine people they all are, to take in and be nice to Ludo - we're just a group of boys from the Midwest who'd rather ride a tractor than get a latte; we don't know those big city ways! We shared the Daily Download set that day with fellow guests, the American rockers, the Exies, and the British group of soporific lethargians, the Music. After the Music was finished napping on-air, we came out and chatted lustfully with host(esse)s Marianella and Steven about making the video and all that hot poo. Then we got to premier the video! Which was just spectacular! It went swimmingly and we had our beautiful bastard-friends, Saraphil and Dogjim there barking in the crowd, rooting us on. Not to mention all our NYC Fuse audience buddies, who were there in full force. After the show (sharp broadcast, people...), we said our FUSE farewells and then joined a murder of our NYC ninjers and fans down the street at Sbarro, where we ate pizza and talked of times present. Then the Cardinals won. Then the next day, we ran around New York again, accomplishing various minutia and keeping it real. That night (Friday) we all met up at the Lion's Den (where we would play the next night), where Phil's better four-fiifths joined him onstage to form Chicago's own Saraphine. They amply rocked their CMJ showcase. Also dropping it as though it were a tad too warm was a band called Kenin, my high school buddy's band from D.C. - they shared the CMJ bill that night with Saraphil and company. How coincidental. The next day, we slid into the venue mostly on time, set up our stuff, soundchecked and rocked the ever-loving crap out of all those fine CMJ peeps who either dared or deigned to show their face at our show. It was sinful. We got to meet some cool new people, we got to rock for old friends and fans who had never gotten to see us before (including one lovely young ninja who drove 9 hours to get there), and we got to hang out with Rafael Estrella, our favorite all-time music video producer. He produced us up a sick-ass video at 1/100th the cost of a big-budget music video. The man can turn shit into gold. I have seen it with my own two eyes. Not real shit, but you know. Then we caught Coheed and Cambria acoustic (followed by a performance from Sparta) - we're talking six feet from Claudio's giant cranial birdnest. It was devastating (-ly awesome). Late that night, we skedaddled across the Hudson just like Henry had... except he never go to sleep at Shannon's house! And we did. Boo-ya. On Sunday around 1:00 in the afternoon, Ludo said our farewells to Shannon, her mama, and every single one of those cherubic little people that mill around their house. We hit the road that day, driving west, headed for Los Angeles and counting on a few hours of sleep in St. Louis on the way. I think it's cool that they put St. Louis there right in the middle of the drive. Good planning you pioneer assholes! No seriously... good job. We arrived in St. Louis at like 5.

Wednesday, 10/13/04 Amp Acoustic Showcase - CMJ Music Marathon (New York, NY)

So we got up on Monday around noon to find out that the van had indeed been fixed. Yes! But it was still three hours away. No! Back to Decatur we drove. To the great land of No Rental Trucks. By the way, if you were thinking of starting a truck rental business, try Decatur, Champaign or Springfield, IL - you'll have no real competition. Ever. From anyone. So we arrived there, and lo and behold, yet another Convy (Mr.) appeared to pick up the jeep and drive it two hours back to St. Louis. The only Convy not involved in the entire operation was Brother Chris, who was up to his neck in intergalactic negotiations at the time and had to be honorably excused from Operation Vehicle Exchange (on a side note, his negotiations were successful: the space goons were prosecuted and vaporized). Gold stars all around in the Convy house. Congratulations and thank you! Just when it seemed like we might actually be out of the logistical outhouse, crap rained down from not heaven. Dog-jim and Saraphil, from their Windy City perches, decided (a) they needed to ride to New York City with us, and (b) they would leave the house to meet us four hours later than planned (I blame Augie, who was mean enough to make a six-hour round trip to drop them off). So instead of waiting for them in Decatur, we sent them to Indianapolis, so we could get moving. At around 7:30 we ably intercepted the two Cubs fans outside a Max and Erma's near the great central megalopolis of the Hoosier state. There we packed 'em in and kept heading east, ending up finally in Pittsburgh, PA many hours later at like 3:30 in the morning. That is where the Great Joe Madia, of splash page notoriety, led us to his father's house ----> hospitality. Once there, we slept. Awakening several hours later, we drove more: across the great state of Pennsylvania and through New Jersey, the Garden State (didn't see a single garden), arriving at long last in a nice suburban Jersey neighborhood (thirty-five minutes from New York City) at 1:30 in the morning. We were so close we could smell the pizza slices. Actually we couldn't. But we could smell more hospitality! It was of one Miss Shannon: a lovely young lady whom we'd befriended on our last trip to New York, who happened to live with her mother in a huge house filled with comfortable beds, delicious food, and like 17 children. They had by definition, a super-family. Have you ever seen the sitcom "Just the Ten of Us," the spinoff of "Growing Pains?" Yeah. So have I. Anywho, I swear to God, when all those adorable kids were awake and at home simultaneously, you'd think you were at an audience casting for a Nickelodeon show. It was great! Everywhere you'd look there were little children (and not-so-little children) peeking at you, climbing on things, and saying hi. Since life on the road is usually all bars and colleges and smoky venues, Ludo doesn't get to see that warm familial, little-kids-running-around type atmosphere very often at all. It was a really nice change. And Shannon's mother was delightful: even though we showed up in the middle of the night, there she was, at the door to welcome and wow us with a spattering of culinary delights. We ate snarfily and appreciatively, and then at around 3 in the morning, we finally got a chance to sit down and watch the Hum Along video for the first time. It was surreal to see it finally done. Surreal and totally awesome. Then, sleepy-poo. Then at nine the next morning, we all packed into the super-family's seven-passenger van (navigated by Shannon), and drove into Manhattan. "Start spreading the news... dun-dun da-da dun.... it's so hard to find parking..." I think that's the second verse. We dropped off all our stuff at the apartment of our friend Noel, and all headed over to the convention center where all the CMJ shizzle was going down. We sleepily checked in and met up with our compadres at Amp Energy Drink, where we dropped off our acoustic guitars and prepared to do the first acoustic showcase of the whole festival. Twas an honor. We played it and played it well, then all seven of us, plus Shannon and Noel, split up and went our separate ways. Some people went and saw those crazy MTV'ers shoot TRL in Times Square. Other people went and ate pizza. Still other people went to panels and listened to various speakers talk about industry things. I'm sure someone went potty. I met my cousin Katie at her downtown apartment where she let me in, so I could have some serious nap-time. That night, Phil and Jim disappeared, Marshall and P-mo accompanied Shannon back to New Jersey, and the Tims and I slept in the exceedingly comfortable quarters of Cousin Katie. Ludo is truly fortunate to have such great friends and family. From Chicago to Pittsburgh to New Jersey to Manhattan, people opened their arms and their homes to us, as they always seem to do in so many places around the country. To them and to everyone who ever feeds us or lets us crash at their place, we are obscenely grateful. You are the people who keep Ludo alive. Which is cool. Because being dead probably sucks.

Saturday, 10/9/04 The Wheaton Grand Theater (Wheaton, IL)

Marshall was immediately on his cell phone, the mid-Illinois yellow pages sprawled out on the bed like an all too well known hooker. "I was just wondering if you guys had any trucks with a towing package that I could rent today." That was his mantra. "No." That was their response. It went on for over 10 different phone calls. Not a single vehicle-renting business for 75 miles had an available truck that could tow a trailer or even hold our equipment. U-Haul, Ryder, Enterprise... you name 'em, they didn't have it. Not in Decatur, not in Champaign, not in Springfield. Apparently, the wheels of commerce were to stop that fine day in October. People in Illinois were not to move things - it was "Keep Stuff Where It Is" Day (Oct. 9). Panic set in. The looming raptor of missing-the-show circled above our heads, waiting for one of us to die by compromise. But Ludo would not give in: Tim Convy pointed to the heavens and cried, "We will make this show tonight! You hear me, God?!" Surprisingly, God did not reply because He was totally busy with various "human conflicts" and "actual tragedies." We were kind of on our own with this one. And who do you call when God won't answer? That's right: Mrs. Convy. "[Mommy], can you and Kaki [somehow get] Kaki's jeep [to Decatur so we can use it to tow our trailer to] Wheaton?" was what Tim Convy didn't really say to his mom on the phone. Yes, they would drive the two hours to Decatur to bring us the vehicle. So clutch! It was like Renteria in the ninth! But oh no! Fiddle-faddle! How would they ever get back? We couldn't drag them along with us until Monday. Convy once again extended the ghetto-ass antenna to his trusty phone. "Get me the President of the United States (Curran Convy)," he said to the "Send" button. Cut to a shot of Tim's youngest brother in Columbia, MO. He's sitting in a hot tub with five young ladies, wearing a pink sombrero, drinking out of a plastic skull, and telling a story that ends with: "Licorice? Uh-uh baby, not in Curra! n Convy's world." Cue the cell phone. "Babies, I gotta take this. CC in the hizzy, talk to me." Tim launched into his shpiel. We needed Curran to drive 250 miles to Decatur to pick up his mom and sister after they dropped off the jeep and then to drive them back to St. Louis. He closed his phone, told the "babies" that "daddy" had to conduct some business, hopped in his well-fueled Camry and hit the highway. It was 1:30pm. Ludo and the Oklahomangels holed up in a gas station, eating Subway and playing the waiting game. We nervously watched the minutes tick by, knowing full well that we had to start playing at 7:00 and that Wheaton was three hours away. Cell phone calls back and forth: what exit were they at? Where was Curran? How far away were they? God, it was gonna be close. They arrived suddenly and with plenty of warning at 4:15. We quickly hooked the trailer up to the jeep, piled in, and prepared to make the drive of our lives with the Oklahomangels in the lead. We made [sure] that Curran was [generally] in the vicinity and [probably] going to pick them up soon, and then drove away from the Amoco BP at the corner of Main and Oakland in Decatur, IL, abandoning the sweet, sweet Kaki and Mrs. Convy in the parking lot of a town they had never before seen. It was 4:35. And Ludo had to go. No bathroom stops. No dilly-dallying. We drove like Wheaton was a tender orphan at death's door, and our rock show was a last-minute kidney donation packed in gas-station ice in a styrofoam cooler. We had to make it. Side note: Illinois seems a lot smaller when you're driving fast enough for a flux capacitor to send you back to the future. Curran graciously and thankfully picked up the Convy ladies without incident (except for the incident when he was led to Peoria by mischievous highway signs). All we had to do now was make the show. It was 6:45 and we hit traffic. Son of a crap. We made the fateful phone call to the amazing ABJ (Doc Holliday?): we weren't gonna make our slot. Honorably and with gr! eat panache, ABJ switched spots with us, additionally aided by friends in rock, Jupiter Sunrise, who just happened to be at the show. They got onstage and played a few songs impromptu for the gelatinous crowd of Chiburbians, eating up the clock like a fundamentally sound point guard. But would Ludo make the shot at the buzzer? The tension mounted. This is the stuff March Madness is made of. Dick Vitale crapped his pants as Ludo poured in to the back of the Wheaton Grand at 7:35pm on that October evening. We lustfully gushed onto the stage, equipment in tow, ready to give Wheaton every last drop of our tardy, yet well fermented rock show. And we did. It was awesome. I literally saw people's faces melting off. If they weren't such attractive people, I would say it was disgusting. But it was beautiful. We closed the set with a gather-round campfire-esque lovefest for all the attending Breaking Fall bands. All of the Dog and the connivingly handsome Drew from ABJ hopped up onstage with us and sang a musical hallelujah with a rousing rendition of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love with You." Dog Dan played drums for the end, and everyone on Breaking Fall (minus Upside) who ever used a microphone (or dreamed of using one), sang along in offensively exuberant glee. It was gorgeous. We left the stage, relieved and sated with the rock we had broughten. Between sets, Dan and I remounted the stage and sang a gorgeous duet lovingly into each other's eyes of Ave Maria. It was so Catholic. Then the monstrous production of the D&E's DVD began, and an impish emo-demon obnoxiously reiterated that no one could go backstage during the filming. He also squeaked and squawked like a pubescent crapmonster at the end of the show, loudly commanding people to leave. As it turned out, he had neither the responsibility, nor the power to do so. All of which conspires to cast him soundly in the play of life as "Lead Douchebag." Needless to say, the Dog slayed. And after the show, we met more Chiburbians than ! we ever thought possible. Oh, we had missed them so, and it was inordinately wonderful to see them out in throngs upon throngs. Pictures, talking, hugging. It was an orgy of post-show sweetnesses. Exquisite. Then we went to a happenin party, talked of times past, and retired to the basement of the Augie Schmidts (lovely people with a lovely home). They fed, clothed and bathed us, tending to our wounds and letting us restock our muskets in their powder supply. Our oxen got plenty of much-needed rest and the next day, we bid them farewell with never-enough hugs, and then proceeded eastward (not very far) to the delightful cave of RobnJeff. It was a Sunday night. Ludo had pizza and tried to get all their crap together. The Cardinals won and Wheaton had been resoundingly rocked. Breaking Fall had broken well and Jupiter was aligned with Pluto. All was well in the universe... Except of course for the fact that our van was three hours away and broken, we were driving a car that wasn't ours and belonged five hours away, and we somehow needed to be playing an acoustic show in New York City two days later. Ludo was screwed. And the adventure continued.

Friday, 10/8/04 Wake the Dead (Decatur, IL)

So after an absurdly late start (Tommy made an uh-oh in the Convy's basement, and his dad, Augie, had to clean it up), Ludo was following the Dog and Everything to the great Decatur, IL. Caravanning caravanously across the coolly mediocre state of Illinois, we were riding on Cloud Nine. Breaking Fall had been amazing to us, and we would be closing it up with our first trip to Decatur, and a hot-ass climax in Wheaton. All was well. Meanwhile, little did we know that the night before, the foul-smelling specter of Van Damnation had awakened. Its hideous shape awkwardly took flight from its dusty ABJ perch, flew through the night and alit silently on the engine block of Ludo's Dodge Ram 3500. "What do you want from us?!" we cried. "To destroy your souls!" it shrieked over the din of 70-mph highway driving, "I mean your van!" And with that, he flicked our water-pump with one bony claw, which caused our serpentine belt to fly off, ultimately supercrapping our engine. The demon flew away with an unearthly cackle. We pulled over suddenly, as smoke bellowed from beneath us. "No!" we screamed. All of Ludog dismounted their vans and curiously approached the front of our 15-passenger pavement-slut. We all watched for a few uncertain seconds as coolant dripped steadily from the undercarriage. What did it mean? When suddenly her water broke, and gallon upon gallon of bright green fluid poured out onto the asphalt. It was as though our van was a giant Hi-C factory womb giving birth to a vat's worth of amniotic Ecto Cooler. "God bless America!" screamed Ferrell. "Holy shit!" said Jim and Phil in unison, "Our minds are fully engulfed in flames of disbelief!" (loosely translated) The van was dead. We called a tow truck. We were only 20 miles from Decatur... blast! We looked at the clock. We looked at each other. We knew what we had to do. We drew straws and reluctantly killed and ate Dan. Then the Dog and a few Ludo boys drove in to Decatur with our merchandise and guitars in their trailer, while a Ludo contingent met the Great Tony, the tow truck driver man. A better name for him would have been "Tow"-ny. He got us hooked up and moving in a jiffy. We had to play starting at 8:00... and it was damn near 7:50 when we rolled up to the Amoco BP in Decatur where we would have our van fixed the next day. Egads! Convy-Marshall-Pmo were already all set up, sitting on the stage awaiting our arrival. Ferrell, Tony, and I were Marty McFly, and Convy-Marshall-Pmo were Dr. Emmitt Brown. How were we ever going to get to the show before lightning struck the clock tower? We unhooked the van and trailer. There was a tense moment. Tony said, "Hop in boys... you've got a show to play." Ferrell and I nodded. We climbed in. Then the man who was christened Anthony and born to tow large vehicles, pulled out of the Amoco BP as though we were escaping an imminent tsunami. He pulled up to the front of the venue in a blaze of glory. We had to get on that statge! The words "thank you" didn't seem like enough, but I turned anyway to tell him how much it meant. I didn't barely get a word out, when Tony interrupted, "Shh... I know... I know." I bit my lip and saluted him. And with the slightest of nods, he turned his eyes back to the road, revved his engine and drove away. That was when Ferrell and I knew we had met the greatest tow-truck driver in the history of cars breaking down. We hurriedly mounted the stage and immediately started performing. That night we gave Decatur the rocking of their lives. The club was called "Wake the Dead," which is simultaneously a good club and a bad idea. And the people were cool as hell. Then we loaded out, and hung out with the supersweet Meg-n-Jen who brought Ludo a shit-ton of vintage T-shirts. Yay! We were feeling a little too new and loosely fitted anyway. Then the Dog drove us back to the Amoco where we moved the trailer to avoid it getting broken into. The Dog had to go to Chicago, so we sadly saw them go. Fortunately, two little angels from Oklahoma, Ashlee and Jenna were there to lend assistance with their car. We rode with them to a Days Inn outside of town, where we gathered our composure and slept for a few hours, before Grumpy Grumbles Morning Ferrell had to get up at 6 AM to go talk to the mechanics who would fix our van. It was later that morning when Ferrell strode dejectedly into the hotel room, plopped down his Palm Pilot and declared, "They don't have the part. The van can't be ready 'til Monday." But it was Saturday. And Ludo had a show that night 3 hours away. It was the last show of Breaking Fall, and we hadn't missed a show yet. We'd been looking forward to the Wheaton Grand show for months. How the hell was Ludo going to make it to Wheaton with our trailer and all our equipment? The Oklahomangels' car certainly couldn't tow it. Damn. Damn damn. The show was in 6 hours... what would Jesus do?

Thursday, 10/7/04 Mojo's (Columbia, MO)

It had been foretold in the annals of Missouri history. The re-coming of Ludo. October 7th. Mojo's. Scholars scoffed at the notion. Believers came from all across the state, fueled by their unswerving faith that Ludo would indeed rise again on their Tigery horizon. And indeed rose Ludo again. Ludo's last show in Missouri maybe all year! But at least their last show in the area for two months. Emotions were running high. The stakes were brutishly tall. There was like some rain and stuff. Then swooped in on his golden chariot of counter-format Ludo enthusiasm, the indelibly powerful Brad Savage of 100.1 The Buzz in Jefferson City. That's where I get my rock when I'm in the state capital. Or when I'm in Columbia. Or like, anywhere else where you can pick up the station. We came in for a rush hour interview, including the 4:20 Buzz Cut where he played Good Will Hunting By Myself. It was awesome! We gave away CD's, and tickets to the night's show, and talked on-air about all the poo poo we've got going on. Brad Savage (I'll have you know...) is officially (I've got documentation) the coolest mofo in the galaxy. Or at least top five. Not to mention, the dastardly, swashbucklingly handsome Shags. The Buzz is amazing. And so good to Ludo. Please check them out online or tune in if you're in the mid-Missouri area. Cowabunga! On the way back from the interview however, on our way to load in at Mojo's, traffic was bad on the interstate and it was raining rather hard. There was a back-up on our exit, and we saw the car in front of us slam on the brakes, lose control, hydroplane, and totally ram a pickup in front of them. It was unbelievable. A girl stumbled out of the driver's seat of the car and started disorientedly walking around, looking at the damage, looking around her, obviously confused. We got out and made sure she didn't step into traffic. Her arms were cut up a little bit, and she had probably hit her head, but she was generally okay. Her car on the other hand was not. The airbags had deployed, shattering the windshield it seemed, and there was glass all over the place. Acrid, stinking smoke poured out of the interior of her car. When we were pushing the vehicle off onto the shoulder, I couldn't breathe sitting in her driver's seat because the smoke was so thick and plasticky. It was really freaky and surreal. But fortunately the cops showed up not long after we called 9-1-1. We hadn't wanted to leave the girl until they arrived because she was all loopy from the accident, so we stuck around to make sure she made it safely into their custody. But when we turned her over to the policeman, he really didn't seem to give a crap that we had waited with her. Or that she had been in an accident. Or really even that any of us (including himself) had woken up that morning. Wow. What a cheery public servant. Oh yeah. I mean what a dick. So we were a little tardy to the venue, but it was all in the interest of good deeds. We loaded in quick, soundchecked, set up our merch and were ready to go when the doors were opened. Despite the rain, people poured in. The room quickly was beyond capacity! Nice! There were well over 200 people in there. Way to go Brad Savage and the Buzz! Way to go, Ninjas! Way to go, Ludo! Way to go, stuff! It was our last show with Upside on Breaking Fall and the last show of the tour with all four bands. Upside rawked like hawks. Then the D & E dogged and everything for forty minutes or so. They kept stretching their set, because goddamn "Guess-Who" had van problems and were not going to arrive until 10:00 (when they were supposed to BEGIN playing). I think this time, it was their mastodon rotator that had Gertruded and made the main driveshaft of their pie-server go all banana-explosion on the rubber-whore engine pot. Poor, poor, poor Abbage. Will the van ever let them live free? But miraculously and not a moment too soon, they swooped in and played the set of their lives. Well, maybe not their lives, but they still slayed. Then after a rousing intro from the Isotopic Brad Savage, we grabbed the "stage" by the "wings" and "performed" it as hard as we could in the "downstage area." We gave those Show-Me State bastards every last drop of what loving Ludo lemonade we had left, even launching into Laundry Girl at long last. We met everyone and everyone's mom (literally), and took enough pictures to make a Japanese tourist at Niagara Falls feel jealous. Then we took a picture with all the Breaking Fall bands onstage and exchanged phone numbers and e-mails and collages we had made for each other. Then we mounted up, ate at El Rancho (anti-Mexican Convy went to Jimmy John's), and hit the road for St. Louis, where we caught a little shut-eye - with the Dog and Everything sleeping it up in the Convys' basement. Kaki made Tommy a shirt that said, "I love Kate Convy." Mr. Convy did not approve (just kidding!). By the way, the way I got back at Tim for kicking out my foot and making me fall onstage in Warrensburg, was I found a small handgun and shot him in the face. All apologies to his family and all those young ladies who loved looking at him. He is now hideously deformed. I guess that modeling career's gonna STAY on the back burner, eh Convy? Maybe you should never have embarrassed me like that. Susan.

Wednesday, 10/6/04 The Setlist (Warrensburg, MO)

So, on our way from Norman to Lenexa last week, Old Fanciullo was driving the Mystery Machine a little too fast for the likes of a particular police officer in Kansas. He pulled us over, and we smilingly accepted his $120 citation, modestly acknowledging that we may not be able to eat in order to pay it off. Then we sweetly gave him a promo CD, told him to check out the band, and meekly chugged away. Not seven miles later, we were stopping for gas when lo and behold, the same squad car pulled in front of us. The officer stepped out, asked Marshall for the ticket back and he tore it up before our very eyes. He said, "I'm doing this on the chance you guys make it. Good luck." And with that he got in his car, and drove off into the darkness. We were dumbfounded and joyful. Kansas policeman... you are truly our Officer Three. That story had nothing to do with anything that took place on October 6th. I just forgot to tell it last week. Anywho. After a 24-hour stint in St. Louis, Ludo hit the road again. The Great Joe McKendry (or J-Mac as he's affectionately known to his listening public) had us in to the modest studio of KMVC: the student-run radio station at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, MO. We arrived there (at what would have been) exactly on time (in Denver, CO), and he took us upstairs where he conducted the most efficient, thorough, well-researched, poignant interview we've ever had at a small college radio station. He was in. He was out. He had the questions. He had the transitions. He hit the salient points, and left a perfect margin for tomfoolery without any of the awkwardness of expectation. The kid's got it, is all I'm sayin'. I don't know what it is, but he's got it. Then we rolled on to the Setlist where we loaded in and to the most substantial crowd we've ever seen in Warrensburg, rocked it hard. It was great energy and a great crowd - very sleek and sexy with aerodynamic lines and a powerful V-6. Automotastic! The most awesome part of the show of course was when I went down to do a deep splits and Convy thought it would be such comedy to kick my foot out, thus risking my crotch's well-being and landing me in the prone position on my back as I was playing. What a great guy. It was just like that scene in the Karate Kid when the evil coach tells Johnny to "sweep the leg," effectively executing an illegal move on Daniel-San, attacking his already injured shin. Nice work Johnny Convy; but watch out: this karate kid will avenge his dojo. Bitch. Upside did a superb Glassjaw cover much to our delight, and made no apologies in the process. Well done! After a Matt Palermo freestyle extreme-walking demonstration in the alley behind the club we joined Upside and several of our special ninja-friends for a fine middle-of-the-night dinner at Country Kitchen. By the way, in Ludo's experience, Country Kitchen makes Cracker Barrel look like a bitch. A totally undelicious bitch. Then we all caravanned to Columbia where we went to sleep at the house of Melanie and Christie (and other-roommate-we-didn't-see-much). By "we," I mean the twenty or so people that made up Ludo, Upside, and all the gals who were making it a Breaking Fall weekend. And there we slept. In case you're wondering, I slept on a furry rug on Melanie's floor. It was so furry. And so on the floor. A few people there had "Andrew" and "Matt" pillows with them. Which was creepy. But I guess that's the kinda crap that one should expect when they put their pictures on a goddamn pillowcase. Ludo = so stupid LOL LOL.

Saturday, 10/2/04 The Ranch Bowl (Omaha, NE)

After the Music Meltdown melted down before our eyes in August, Ludo was back in Omaha with a vengeance. We prepared for the show by eating impressive numbers of burgers and brats at Chez Mark Fanciullo. So good. And then, well fed, we left for the show. Wait a minute, I can't continue. I'm just gonna come right out and say it: the Ranch Bowl rocks! I've never seen a crowd so determined to crowdsurf and stagedive. It was as though they had all taken a class in it. Geez-o! We gave the Nebraskans everything we could in the 45-minute span we were allotted. Damn they're some exciting kids! Talking to them, rocking out for them, hanging out after the show, meeting their friends... Omaha music fans rock like igneous, and Ludo was an angry geologist. We bid the Dog farewell as they would disappear to Chi-town that night. In the meantime, we joined eight great Ludo enthusiasts for a gourmet dinner of Denny's. Then we went back to the Fanciullo Sleep Zone and got it done. The next day, we stuck around in Omaha for a radio interview at The River 89.7FM (<---- very awesome). Fotunately, the Fanciullo web of hospitality spun on, and we were led mysteriously to his aunt and uncle's house Sunday afternoon, where we were fed like young, hungry princes who love spaghetti and chili and other great American foodstuffs. So great meeting all Marshall's Omaha family! We knew someone had done right to make Marshall turn out so impressively suave, and we finally got to meet some of those responsible (reports on the rest of his relatives will be in forthcoming California tour diaries). Hell, we just wish he had taken us to these havens of good food and great people sooner! He was probably embarrassed by his band - we are kind of disgusting people. I mean, we do live in a van. Speaking of the van, we found out it was broken, effectively keeping us in Omaha another night. No big deal, because we slept like babies at Chez Fanciullo. However we do need to get back to the Lou before our Warrensburg show, to prepare for driving coast-to-coast and not being home again until mid-November. Oh heavens! I need my winter wear! Where are my damn mittens?

Friday, 10/1/04 The Beaumont (Kansas City, MO)

The last time we played in K.C. was 13 months before (probably our third show together ever) and it was 21+ and there were 20 people there. In Kansas City, Ludo was due. Or Ludo was due-do. Whichever. The Beaumont is a cool-ass place and we were stoked to play there. Ludo was the first on a five-band bill, featuring The Dog and Everything, Sevenfold Tomorrow, Upside, and our hosts that evening, the inescapable Anything But Joey. Fortunately, there was a pretty awesome crowd awaiting the rock of Ludo when we took the stage, including a ninja contingent from St. Louis, and a whole lot of peeps from Lawrence and the K.C. area. After staying with our supergals from Lenexa, Bethany, Jamie, Jess, Lauren and Sarah, we were well-rested and super-ready to do what Ludo does best. And the rock was broughten. We were taking full strutting advantage of the platform formed by the front-of-stage house speakers (no shame in the Ludo camp), and we rolled through our half-hour of power loving every minute of the generous Beaumont crowd. The rest of the show went off without a hitch, and Anything But Joey broke out their new song changes they had worked out during their van-injuried hiatus. Fresh! New! Delightful! It was like a Subway sandwich after months of McDonald's. Superstar Samantha Dane was super enough and starry enough to deliver us our T-shirts all the way from Columbia just in time for the show. Well done! Good work! All in all, a wonderful time. Then afterwards, we went out to Chubby's with our St. Louis ninjas and after thoroughly eating and conversing, retired back to the Lenexa dojo. Then we got good rest in preparation for kicking Omaha in the crotch. You know. Respectfully and lovingly of course.

Wednesday, 9/29/04     The Deli (Norman, OK)
 
First time to the home of the Sooners.  I guess since we've been a band for a little while now, it turns out we made it to Norman LATER rather than SOONER.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!  What a joke!  Upside had us out to play the Deli with the Dog (Abbage is still in lunar orbit somewhere), after putting us up the previous weekend in their pleasant Denton abode.  Such hospitality.  Upside = some of the coolest guys Ludo has ever had the pleasure of spending time with.  Awesome band.  Awesome guys.  Awesomeness.  Some of our good Tulsa people came all the way out to see us, and terribly a group of them were not old enough to get in!  But like Super-duper-troopers, they watched the show from outside.  Amazing.  Tangentially, there was a gentleman wandering the bar trying to sell newspapers.  He was wearing a football helmet and a red practice jersey.  What?  The D&E played "The D&E": an amazingly flavorful rap medley full of fabulous funky fixins.  I think they should do that more often.  We had a lot of fun onstage as well.  Made several new friends, and got to watch Upside's show from start to finish for the first time.  Such intensity!  Check them out at www.upsideband.com.  All in all, a great night.  Punctuated by a sensual trip to Jimmy John's.  Norman, you were good to us.  And for that, we salute you.  See you guys... sooner...?  (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.  ha ha ha.  good joke there.)

Tuesday, 9/27/04     Nathan P. Murphy's (Springfield, MO)
 
So, it was Ludo's third time trying to play in Springfield, when a show was booked and ready to be played.  And for a third time, the prospects were dire.  ABJ's van apparently evaporated or was swallowed by the moon, and they were unable to make the show.  The show was going to be cancelled.  But the amazing folks at Nathan P. Murphy's (or Natty P.'s as say on the streets) would not be dissuaded from hosting the danceable Dog and the lollipoppy Ludo.  Sans Abbage, we resolved to rock.  Evaporating vans can't stop it... rock, that is.  Greg, the sound guy and his associate Hap, were a pleasure to work with. As were all those working the bar that night. We ate a delicious group of four meatball sandwiches and a veggie wrap (for Mr. Veggietales himself, Timothy Ferrell) at a fine Italian deli-eatery place down the street.  Then we hit the stage.  Excitingly, there was a sizable contingent of our St. Louis fans going to school at SMS in Springfield, and they were there with their dormitorily acquired Ludo-virgins in tow.  What I'm sayin is the peeps knew the words to the songs.  Which was awesome.  Especially for our first time in Springfield.  It was a really fun crowd for a Tuesday, and onstage was a nonstop, fasten-your-seatbelt comedic adventure-rock extravaganza.  Explosions!  Then the Dog did it down like Dogs often do (including a rare audio peek at Ballad Song), and it was great - even the instrumental version of Superglue.  Then we all went upstairs for a delicious homemade dinner of spaghetti, salad and garlic bread with our new friend from Codie.  It was wonderful.  Natty P.'s takes care of the band boys... be forewarned: you will enjoy yourself.  Then a few of us accompanied the Vanilla Gorilla and Jimmy Dietz' to a friend of a friend's apartment.  There we played Flippy Cup with the group, including a very serious young man named "McClain."  Not to be confused with Lieutenant John McClain, the New York cop who was holed up in the Nakatomi Building in L.A. several Christmases ago.  Although, I'm pretty sure they had the same penchant for fight scenes.  The young violence-enthusiast would not speak, except to blankly demand that his team partners (even the ones he had never met) that they just "flip it" over and over again.  His advice was: "Flip it.  Flip it.  Flip it.  Flip it."  He was very serious and non-specifically demanding in his Flippy Cup playing.  "McClain" made it clear to me over the course of the evening that if he needed to, he could take all five of us.  Because he boxed.  He told me he would hit the big guy first - you know, take him out.  Then he would turn into some sort of a whirlygig fighting machine and take on the other four of us simultaneously.  The kid literally had a plan for how he was going to "take" us.  Woo!  Then a girl threw her full purse at Jim's stomach and screamed at him to leave because he looked at "McClain" wrong, or something.  I didn't fully understand the situation.  That's because it made no sense.  As we were driving away, "McClain" emerged from the bushes with his shirt off, gesturing wildly at our van, as though he were a gorilla challenging our vehicle to a fight.  Our Dodge Ram 3500 fortunately is a pacifist, and would not fight the silverbacked "McClain" as he howled in the moonlight.  It's a good thing it didn't come to blows.  Especially because we've got our own gorilla (the vanilla one) and two gorillas fighting is not cool.  You know, they're endangered as a species.  So both "McClain" and Phil went to their respective ape-huts and munched bananas quietly.  And we all went to sleep.  Good night.  Springfield: great show, great people, Flippy Cup.  What a crazy night.
 
Flip it.  Flip it.  Flip it.  No.  Seriously.  Flip the goddamn cup. 

Saturday, 9/25/04 Club Indigo (Dallas, TX)

Infernal tarnations and hellish vomitousness, what have we done? In narcoleptic shifts of soporific drowsy-driving, Ludo barely made it to Dallas. We arrived disorientedly at the University of Dallas around 11:00 to play a noon show next to a pool. A vibrant, young man of Italian descent, named Carlo, met us and led us to the dining hall where he made sure we were fed fully. The sound equipment had not arrived yet. It would arrive at some point that early afternoon. Apparently the noon show was not as stringently scheduled as we had thought. So we unloaded our equipment in the sun. We were confused and unable to articulate our thoughts very clearly. Carlo and his roommate were setting up equipment. Carlo was very chill and ready to party-down - his shades were awesome. He certainly would have been a hit as a character in Weekend at Bernie's, or even Weekend at Bernie's 2. Good man. There were a few people swimming and listening as we played. From the stage, I orchestrated several one-lap freestyle races and a failed attempt at Marco Polo. They turned out not to be the strongest swimmers, but they were rocking out nonetheless. Ferrell played his Epic solo fifty away from the rest of us, across the pool, sitting on top of the lifeguard chair. Standard. It was surrealistic but a lot of fun. We didn't really know where we were, but the people were really cool. The niceness of the supremely generous Courtney and her parents netted Ludo an ample batch of floorspace on which to nap for two hours. And nap we did hard. We woke up like fetal dinosaurs breaking through their yolk-sacks, confused, wet, and blinking, entirely new to their surroundings. What world was this that we had woken up in? Very strange. Sleepy weirdness. But hey, sleep can't stop rock. We loaded in at Club Indigo in Deep Ellum. Would Abbage make it to this show? Yes! The part came in, and they were able to drive their fixed van to Dallas. Hurrah! Ludo opened the show and rocked out the rest of the night to all three of the other Breaking Fall bands as well as the band Frontrunner (awesome). We met so many coolies that night, and it was great to talk to all our Dallas-area people whom we hadn't seen in quite some time. All in all, a fine night full of fine people. It was our last Texas show. Bittersweet. Sweet and bitter. Bitter and sweet. Big Head Todd and the Monsters. Go the 90's. Then we followed our fine, unfeathered friends, Upside back to their domestic abode in Denton, where a pumpkin sat Halloweenishly outside and drunken debauchery beckoned lovingly inside. The next day, we found out that Anything But Joey drove to Kansas City, and then there (insert name of super-serious van-part here) broke! Does the fun ever start, Abbage? Christ... whatever will happen to this week's shows? Stay tuned to find out.

Friday, 9/24/04 Javajazz (Spring, TX)

Back in Spring we were! Oh happy day! And not a moment too soon. Breaking Fall! Spring! Summer! Winter! Some fifth season that doesn't exist! Our buddies the Clints played a ripping rock show chock full of rocking and ripping. The Dog and Everything slayed the crowd like Medieval sorcerorios. Three Left Standing showed up and rocked the bitch liberally. The crowd was all hopped up on those energy drinks that the kids drink nowadays, and they were jumping insanely the entire show. Ludo got 'er done. We cavorted with our Spring-friends and fans lovingly after the show. Pictures and conversations and all that kooky stuff. Then we retired to Chez Palermo where we were treated to a luxurious spread of deli meats, cheeses, breads, condiments and so much more. We stayed up late playing Truth or Dare and Light-as-a-Feather-Stiff-as-a-Board. We had cheese puff eating contests and braided each other's hair. Right around dawn, once everyone was asleep, Dan Monahan and I sat up confiding in each other and telling secrets in our PJ's. He admitted to me that he had a crush on a boy in his study hall. I told him about how I was scared to swim in the lake at summer camp. We became the best of friends. VBFFAE. We made a collage and promised to always stay in touch. Ferrell slept for three hours. The rest of us had not slept a wink when we got in the van at 6:45 in the morning. I said goodbye to Dan and the Palermos. It was going to be a long day.

Thursday, 9/23/04 Red-Eyed Fly (Austin, TX)

Back to Austin with Canvas' van went ABJ! Our ninjas were there in full force, as were our splendid Austinos. We ate at the very creepy, but very scrumptuous Casino El Camino. Austin is awesome! Hurrah! Rejoined by Upside, the circle of Disassembling Autumn was again complete. Each band did it down like it was a dirty duck, and dude, it was dominatory. Finally, we got to perform again for our beloved Austinos. It was the third show since the P-mo-cases hit the shelves of the Ludo merch booth, and they were flying like Texas hotcakes into the hands of young lovely ladies, and right onto their pillows at home. Now we can all sleep next to Matt every night. I'd personally rather sleep on top of him, but I'm just an enthusiastic person. Don't mind me! Anywho, then we all split up, many Ludos going to Spring that night, many Dogs going to Austin and many me's going to San Marcos. I think ABJ went to the Bad Luck Store and bought some more for their van. Not a smart purchase in my book. The next day, I got to ride with the Dog all the way to Javajazz in Spring. What a tasty treat. Phil Garcia is truly a vanilla gorilla. That's when I got the call: ABJ's van was without a critical part (like an engine or a steering wheel or a front or something), and they could not make it to the Javajazz show. Boo! Weak! Why couldn't they just hitch a ride on a railcar, like hobos did in the olden days? It didn't make any sense to me, but they were stranded in San Marcos. We rocked on without them, but it just wasn't the same. It was actually different.

Wednesday, 9/22/04 Time Square (College Station, TX)

Oh sweet irony! Back to the great College Station. Gig em Aggies! We didn't know what that meant, but as it turns out, to "gig" something is to hit it with a "whompin" stick, you know, the kind "you" use when "you" go "frog-hunting." It is a cry from the student body and the greater team-supporting community, to throttle the competition as though they were frogs to be hunted. Fascinating. We rolled up like super-punctual pimps for our noontime lunchbox show to find that Town Hall (led by the insuperable Savannah) had secured us a stage. A huge promotion for Ludo! We rocked to an unprecedentedly substantial crowd of sitter-downers, stander-uppers, and passersby. The number of lovebugs flying around was obscene however. They were all flying in tandem, humping each other mid-air. Quite a feat to be sure, but pretty horrid when it happens into your mouth when you're trying to play a rock show. It was hot that day in the beating sun. A scorcher! Shoo! Fortunately we had Tommy Constantino to sell our merch and promote for that night's show. He was damn good at it. And so Italian to boot! That night, ABJ arrived in the Nicholas of time, D&E rocked it hard at the great Time Square, followed by their Kansan counterparts. Time Square is a really cool place, mostly because the stage is 5 feet off the floor. Which makes the band seem really tall. It made Dan Monahan look like a taller man than e'er before had there been. Great show, awesome people, good times. Ludo loves BCS. That being the twin cities of Bryan and College Station. Gig 'em Aggies! Er, whatever.

Tuesday, 9/21/04 Lucy's on the Square (San Marcos, TX)

Good morning Ludo... or should I say good afternoon, sleepyheads! Oh delicious delights! The Sorceress of Chocolate, the Great Cookie Mother, the Giver of Yummies herself had Ludo over for homemade, garden-fresh enchiladas before the show and they were extreme! Amazing! Not to mention her mind-alteringly immaculate cookies, brownies, and other various foodstuffs. Ludo was fat and ready to play. Except poor P-mo, who had escorted the oft-lost Dog and Everything to College Station to play a noon show earlier that day, thereby missing out on the festive Mexifeast. No matter. He charged his drummer-batteries and set out to play a rock show that night. We all loaded in quick as a jackrabbit, and played in a stellar line-up of (believe it or not!) three Breaking Fall bands: ABJ, D&E, and then Ludo. BF (as people who love to abbreviate things would call it) had arrived in the sovereign nation of Texas. As had the uber-ninjas, Concept-Chicken and Tricky-Jail all the way from Kansas. Dan Monahan (the brilliant/musical/largish gentleman who stands in front of the Dog and Everything's stage plot) joined me on onstage before our show to perform a rousing duet of Schubert's arrangement of the classic Catholic incantation, Ave Maria. Then Ludo strode efficiently up there and we flicked all our rock-bits into the crowd much to their delights and rocked the wonderful venue known as Lucy's on the Square like it was our jobs. Incidentally it was our jobs. And we weren't calling in sick! Then we witnessed the hot-rockings of the nationally touring Stereo 360, and they were great! Very cool guys too. Hell, it was a nice Tuesday night... what can I say? And I've had some pretty awesome Tuesdays. That's big talk coming from me. Go Texas State (insert mascot name here)! Uh oh. On the way home, ABJ's vanthingy got brokened badly, and it would not be fixed. Heavens to Larry! The good guys of Canvas came to their rescue, loaning them their van, so that Abbage could make the next day's show.

Sunday, 9/19/04 The Granada (Lawrence, KS)

Holy heck! Well we'd had the privilege of sharing a stage with Bowling For Soup at the St. Louis Warped Tour, but ne'er before in such classy quarters as the great Granada of Larry, KS. It would be a joy and a treat to say the least. The Dog and Everything did their dirty Dog thing when the doors opened and the patrons of rock poured liberally in. And their performance went over like soup in a soup kitchen. Soupy! Warm! Delicious! Then we mounted the great steed of melody and rode the stage through the dangerous forests of a Ludo show. The crowd was a wonderful combination of our many Kansas faithful and a deluge of brand-new listeners. What a delectable situation! We rocked the crap out of those Jayhawky bastards with delight and fortitude. ABJ got up and got down. If you know what I'm gettin' at. And then Bowling For Soup truly bowled for soup as only they can. It was bad-ass to get to watch them from the wings. Tons o' fun was the whole night. Then we got to meet all the great citizens of Lawrence afterwards, and take pictures and talk of times past. Truly an excellent night. And then we went to eat. And then we went to bed at the House of Ninjas in Lenexa. And then we tried to wake up and leave for Texas. But our van thingy was brokened, and we couldn't leave. Fortunately, Ninja Barbecue-Shamrock was there to get grease on his hands and have a dirty rag in his pocket and get underneath the van and make little verbal ejaculations like "uh huh" and "a-ha" and say things like, "Well I took apart your [thermo-bob] and looked inside the [nubbin] on your [cattywampus] because I thought you might have a [pizza] problem. But as it turns out, it's only a [derby-hat] wearing down your [colorado], and I can have that replaced in half an hour." God bless his Christian soul. So then we drove to Texas, caravanning through the night with the Dogs to arrive in San Marcos at 8 in the morning. Seriously, we should look into teleportation. Marshall, you used to do that stuff, right?

Saturday, 9/18/04 Full Moon Cafe (Tulsa, OK)

Good morning, Susan! Hotel rooms two nights in a row! It must be Hannukah. So one of our Oklahoma ninjas, the great Frederick McPencil cordially invited us to her farm where we would barbecue and drink beer and pet her llamas and deer and stuff. We were stoked! Unfortunately, the vans were off running errands all day and we couldn't get a hold of a ride until it was time to go to the venue! Curses! Puke! Crapmongers! Damned ABJ got to take advantage of all the perks including the llama-petting. Damn it! Miscommunication led to no llamas, barbecue, or beer! We were sad. But poo can't stop rock. And neither can sadness. We showed up at the Full Moon in full rock regalia and broke out the big guns when we rocked the Sooner State Tulsans into small, attractive piles of dust. Thanks so much to all the Rogers Staters who came out, especially to Jake and Misti for having us out to their campus in the first place. ABJ's set was truncated dramatically, yielding them only 16 minutes. Boo! Then the headliner, The Hero Factor, went on and were amazing. But they could have eliminated maybe two of the songs in their 3-hour show, if just to allow ABJ to have ten more minutes of playing time. Ah, no matter. Isaac Hanson, the guitarist from Hanson, was there watching the show, and as I looked at him, I kept having one overwhelming thought: "That guy must hate the words 'Mmm' and 'Bop.'" Our ninjas were great. Our fans were great. The night was a real pleasure. Can't wait until Norman, bitches!

Friday, 9/17/04 The Conservatory (Oklahoma City, OK)

Okay, I probably shouldn't have licked all those dead bugs of that sheet metal. I got pretty sick pretty quickly. I was in the prone position in the back of our van after the Pittsburg show, splayed out like that scene in E.T. when E.T. is all white and Elliott is wearing thermal underwear and they both look like crap, and the NASA guys come. That was kind of my story that night. Except no NASA guys. There was a radio interview the next day in Claremore, OK at 7 in the morning and all the bands minus Upside had to be there. Or at least send representatives. So all three bands split up into three different vans. Van One (for the radio interview people) went to Claremore and arrived at a hotel near the Rogers State campus at 4:30 in the morning, so that its passengers could meet Jake, the KRSC Morning Show D.J. an hour and a half later in the Best Western lobby. They followed Jake to the station, did the interview, and came back to the hotel to catch a couple more hours of shut-eye before Van Two arrived a little before noon. Van Two's passengers had arrived in Tulsa around 5 that morning and caught some sleep thanks to the hospitality of Owen of Upside. Then they woke up and drove to Claremore to meet up with Van One's troops for a promotional acoustic show at noon on the Rogers State campus. Each of the three bands did a few songs acoustically in the university's student union building to promote our show in Tulsa the next night. We were set up opposite a fold-out table set up by the Campus Democrats. Needless to say, the Dems loved our set (and they really wanted Wylie to get elected to the position for which he was running). Inexplicably, there were "Campus Survival Packs for Women" available and on display on a table in the room, all stacked and packaged cutely. More poignantly, let me illustrate: they were cardboard Sponge Bob Squarepants boxes with free tampons in them. What the hell does this mean? When it's that time of the month, should young women really be turning to a cartoon-guy "who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" Are we supposed to think "super-absorbency?" I don't know where this puts any of us in terms of the Women's Lib Movement, but I'm pretty sure it's not in any discernible direction. Unless creepy and distracting is a direction. Call me a fascist, but I find it difficult to remain focused on playing an acoustic show when Nickelodeon characters and feminine napkins are working in tandem across the room. Needless to say, this surrealism did not improve my health. But all the drugs Anything But Joey gave me did! Then we drove to Oklahoma City where we met up with Van Three, who had driven the night before back to Lenexa, KS and spent the night there. We loaded in, mounted the stage, one band after another and rocked out in Upside's neck of the woods. It was a really cool place with a great staff, and lucky for us all, we had Mitch (on tour with Upside) being our attentive and loving sound man. Mystically, pizza arrived out back and we all ate it. The crowd was awesome, and the capital of Oklahoma did not disappoint. Then we drove that night back to Tulsa, where the Convy's had gotten a hotel room (they were visiting Oklahoma for a Magical Ludo Weekend). Such nice people they are! Except for T-Con. He's a disaster of a person. Just kidding! Sponge Bob tampons. Kill me now.

Thursday, 9/16/04 Foxtown City Limits (Pittsburg, KS)

Okay, this has really got to stop. I thought we were playing in Western Pennsylvania. Kansas has a lot of decoy cities. Manhattan? Pittsburg(h)? Christ people, what do you think, I have common sense and access to a road atlas? How was I supposed to know that it was Pittsburg, KS? Foxtown City Limits is situated in between several towns in Southeastern Kansas right on the Missouri and Oklahoma borders. It is more specifically in the middle of nowhere. Or so it seems when you drive up. There is, for instance, grass across the street. And next door. And by grass, I mean fields. And by fields, I mean sprawling landscape. But it's close enough to enough places to be a really cool location to have a venue. And it was a bad-ass venue at that. All outdoor and stuff, with a giant stocked pond in the middle of a large wooden patio-type thing. Very cool. Convy found a ten-dollar bill in a trashcan, and told Sid he would give it to him if Sid licked the entire width of our van's hood. Now this is particularly interesting because the front of our van's hood is caked with hundreds of smashed bug carcasses, exoskeletons, antennae, guts, all at various stages of conductive baking on the hot metal. Sid said he would do it for $20. Fully confident (with my insider information) that Convy was not going to find another ten dollars, I said I would do it for the asking price. Caught on tape, I licked the whole hood, full-tongue, right to left, showed my tongue to the camera at the end, and then closed my mouth around it. Needless to say, the amount of spitting, gargling, scraping, and spitting was gratuitous. But I got my ten dollars. I earned it and for that I am proud. Then we rocked the whore like it was her first rodeo, caught the other bands' sets, and packed up.

Wednesday, 9/15/04 PJ's (Manhattan, KS)

We were under the impression we were playing in New York City on September 15th. As it turns out, there is a Little Apple, and it's in Kansas. I'm making a joke. See, we not only knew that Manhattan, KS exists, we also have been there before a few times. I could understand how you might not have gotten it at first. My humor is obtuse. Anyway, the club known as PJ's (or "pajamas") was primed and ready for some cold beer and hot rock. They were providing the former; we, the latter. The students of Kansas State came out in bushels and packed like peanuts around the stage, eagerly awaiting the rock music like blind baby birds beaking for masticated worm parts. Joyously for them and for us, it was the first date of the tour that featured all four Breaking Fall bands. Not unlike the first book of the Old Testament, it all began with Upside: they scrumptuously rocking the people. Then followed the quadratic Dog and Everything, fronted by a recently hobbled Dan. A few days before, he had fallen into a drainpipe in a parking lot and sprained his Irish ankle. Now there's been a lot of speculation on how this may have happened, but I think my theory makes the most sense: he was trying to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and he was trying to chase Shredder into the sewers. Typical Monahan for you. Poor bastard. He was injured, but at least his voice sounded like it had never fallen into a drainpipe. They were super as always. Then it was Ludo's turn. We gave those Wildcats all the rock they could ever have handled. It was packed up in that beeotch. The PJ's peeps were great as always. Then to close out the show, the crowd was assaulted lustily by the diurnal Anything But Joey. Whew! What a show! What a town! The Sunflower State is sunflower-licious! Speaking of which, I'd like to eat some sunflower seeds. Convy, do you have any sunflower seeds for me? Fine. Screw you. I didn't want any anyway. Jerk. Then our good buddy Sam put us up for the night. God bless America. Put down that box of after-dinner mints. I didn't mean what I said. There's no need to be rash.

Tuesday, 9/14/04 The Bone (St. Joseph, MO)

Our Northwestern Missouri faithful welcomed us with open arms back to their burgeoning metropolis of St. Joseph. At least all those who were 21 or older. And it was a delicious treat to see them. We got a chance to play with Steve Ewing (formerly of the Urge). He put on an awesome show, and to boot, he and his bandmates were supremely delightful human beings! The staff of the Bone (haha... the STAFF of the BONE!) was phenomenal as always, and our St. Joe ninjas were there in full force with virgins in tow. Then the inscrutable Erica-n-Justin took us under their figurative wing, back to their house where we all hung out with various St. Josephinos, mid-Missourians, eastern-Kansans, and the St. Louisans known as "Steve Ewing" and "his band." Then we all went night-night. Fortunately our host(esse)s had guaranteed us beds or at least couches and for that we were grateful. The next morning, I searched for my phone, because it had disappeared after the show the night before, but when we had called it we could hear the ring in the trailer. I unpacked everything and to my surprise (!), it had been in Marshall's backpack all along! I couldn't believe it! Marshall, you crazy, you! It was right next to the WD40! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! That's so crazy! Great story! What a doozy! If that's not a whopper I don't know what is! Andrew, where do you come up with these wacky "Tales from the Road?!" Aw, man... then we went upstairs with Justin and watched Wrestlemania 3 (featuring Gorilla Monsoon). Then we hit the road like pioneers who have a van and are awesome. And we drove away.

Saturday, 9/11/04 The Bottleneck (Lawrence, KS)

Arrived in Topeka at 9:15 in the morning. Parked in a Dillon's Grocery Store parking lot, and slept for forty-five minutes. Marshall and Convy had a bench each, while P-mo, Ferrell and I spooned on the floor of the van. Then we got up and drove to Washburn University where we played a tailgating party for the Ichabods, many of whom were wearing t-shirts that said they wanted to murder the people from Emporia. I thought this was a little harsh. But we rocked anyway for it being noon and having slept for 45 minutes after a night of rocking. Then the wonderful dudes in Primetime Heroes were gracious enough to give up their couches and floorspace for us to take some much needed nappy time. After a couple hours, we got up and drove to Lawrence, where we were rejoined by the Dog and Everything (late) and the great Anything But Joey. There was a long line outside the show, and we played to a lot more people than any other time we've been to the Bottleneck. Our Kansas people were there in full force, with their sweet ninja action afoot. Then we all went and saw Pomeroy rock the crap out of Abe and Jake's. Then we all went back to Lenexa and something terrible happened to Ferrell. Tommy Constantino did it.

Friday, 9/10/04 Casa Loma Ballroom (St. Louis, MO)

Woke up and hauled ass over to the Casa Loma Ballroom. DVD of the super-rough, early-stages cut of the Hum Along video actually arrived that morning. Phew! We saw it. Almost all of the stuff that was going to be in it wasn't in it yet. But I guess that's what makes it a sneak preview. Jason Deem with JAD Productions put the concert on, and did an amazing job. The ballroom looked awesome. Two huge screens were on either side of the stage with projectors and lighting rigs mounted from the ceiling. We got it all together really quickly, and before