Friday, 12/9/05     The Pageant (St. Louis, MO)
 
Hold on to your Christmas balls! It's that time of year everybody! What time, you ask?! Well, it's time for A Very Ludo Christmas again, except this year it's on Pmo's birthday, so we'll call it A Very Ludo Christmas II: Pmo Is Born! Celebrate! Spent two weeks planning the production and gathering all the Christmas crap on a shoestring budget. A lot of people helped and what we couldn't borrow we bought from Dollar Tree, Value City, and Wal-Mart. Our friend Nick (Santa Claus) from Sun Prairie, WI (North Pole, AC) came in town Thursday night in a Toyota sedan (sleigh pulled by eight flying reindeer) to help rehearse and otherwise lend a hand. Roll all the t-shirts, make the buttons, restring the guitars, learn the skit, go over the transitions. Haven't played all of Bride in a month. My sister Teresa (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) sat in Comfort Class (lead harness position) on a flight (magical journey) from Orlando, FL (North Pole, AC) the morning of the show (one foggy Christmas Eve). When they met, Nick gave props to Teresa's "nose so bright" and asked her to help him put up Christmas decorations on the Pageant stage (aka guide his sleigh tonight). The Hush Sound was there when we got there. High fives? Handshakes. High fives come later. Lenny was there making magical light things happen. Matt's brody Marty swooped in with parentos in tow and met us at the Pageant for the least heterosexual activities we could find him. He loves wrapping presents and putting bows and ribbons on things so we put him to work. That's when Loser's Luck rolled in. High fives. They brought their elves. Sweet! Our elves Jess with Jen showed and started making merry with the merch and the present wrapping. Jason Deem rolled in and started making things happen because he is an angel. Jessica and Megan brought the giant snowman they stole from Wal-Mart. Soundchecking happened. The Hush Sound soundchecked, while we tried to get the snow machine to behave. It would not. We rigged the glowing snowflake, we hung the garland, we taped up the candy canes, and strung the lights. We lit up the tree and set up Santa's magical scene. Bert showed up and started managing things in the front of house. Let's make sure the Rudolph claymation on the front-of-house screen works. Check. Got a ladder for the snow machine. Tape it! Rig a fan! Isn't working. Scratch the offstage crap. Carry it out like a cheesy Christmas pageant. Bert was sick. 900 tickets pre-sold. Holy shit. There was a huge line outside and it was bitterly cold. Get the elves dressed! Santa! Rudolph! Put on your gamefaces! They're opening the doors early because the peoples are cold! The Dog and Everything showed up at 7:00 instead of 4:00. Boo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Weak! That sucked. But since they are our brothers, we decided to forgive them but mock them openly. Ron was there with moonshine. Wha? They loaded in, backlined, we got the Vanilla Gorilla into his elf costume. Curran Convy, pick up Noah and Stephen from the airport and entertain them! Count out posters for the first 200 people. COunt out tickets for them. Put the people at the doors. John Short and Chris Convy rolled in to be helpful with the merches, which were an absolute disaster since there was not nearly enough space for us to handle an unprecedented amount of merchandise. Places everyone! They're opening the doors! Poster ticket people! Rudolph! Santa! Ludo get backstage with the food! Elves dressed! Merch ready for sale! Screen down! Start the holiday mix CD! Play the Rudolph movie on the big screen! DOORS! It was a winter wonderland. There was a line at merch from the moment doors opened. People took pictures with Santa and Rudolph! They sang along with the Christmas carols! They streamed in constantly for two hours. The Hush Sound were great! We did a live feed with Ruth from 93X. We signed things. The Dog rocked the Christmas out of everyone and then put it right back in! Loser's Luck thrilled the crowd, manihundred of whom they'd brought with their special brand of punky poppernation. Warmed up, talked about production crap with Jason. He was on the ball. Got in the zone. Killed the lights. Eddie Shearsdigits played gloriously as Santa Claus snuck through the Christmas-y living room of the Ludo stage. At the swell, he lit the Christmas tree with his magic finger, then sat down to take in a beautiful rock spectacle. Lights up! Roxy! Bam! G's on T's! Bam! Saturday! Bam! Hum Along! Bam! Kill the lights! Right into Tyson Leslie's overture for Broken Bride. Keyboard out. Broken Bride begins! Start to finish! Leave the stage. Come back WITH Santa rocking my guitar on GWH. Yes. On the solo, I kung fu'd Santa! I've never seen a pit at a Ludo how like the one that went the ENTIRE SHOW, up until the angels on Lamb and the Dragon. It resumed immediately after Morning in May too. That's when we had a heart-to-heart onstage about the meaning of Christmas spirit. All the other bands and elves and reindeer come out with us. The elves bring out the snow machine ladder. The whole crowd puts their arms around each other and softly sings together the offensively Christian lyrics of "Silent Night." The collective Christmas spirit makes it start to snow feebly onstage! It's working! It's working! Big finale! Around the world! Presents start flying from the stage. There is a frenzy! A few hundred presents are flying in all directions! Someone got a CD! Someone got a severed human leg! Someone got a jockstrap! Someone got some feminist literature! It's Christmas! Someone starts making out with Rudolph onstage! Wha?! The people clamor insanely for the presents. "Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas" croons Burl Ives! We wave goodbye and back off the stage. Immediately go out to the mob around merch, sign posters, take pictures, sign romance novels, sign an old pair of my own pants, whatever people got as Christmas gifts. Someone nabs a poinsettia... oops. I was supposed to return that. In the melee, Megan and Jessica get their giant snowman back. Someone steals my wreath off the front of the stage. BITCHES! Ha! The people get kic ked out. Merch looks like a bomb hit it. We now have the arduous task of getting all the crap it took 4 hours to set up out of there in 30 minutes so the poor Pageant people, probably beleaguered from our Christmas shenaniganery, can go home. They were amazingly patient with us and our crazy production, and their accomodations really allowed it all to happen. Not to mention the dozens of awesome people who made it all happen by showing up and running around in little task circles, doing ridiculous Christmas chores and making the whole thing run smoothly. It was awesome. It was probably the most exciting night of my life and I was exceedingly proud of Ludo and everyone around us. It was amazing. We got the last of the Christmas crap out of there, cleaned the Pageant like the Grinch cleaned the Who houses, said our thank-you's, said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Food, family, friends. Sleep in great amounts. Merry Christmas St. Louis. You have made us happy boys! And next year, we're gonna do it even nastier! Everyone have a safe and contemplatively partytastic New Year, and Ludo will see you in 2006. A lot of very exciting things are happening for us right now, and we can't wait to see you all out on the road in January! PMO IS BORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday, 12/4/05 Juanita's     (Little Rock, AR)
 
Back at Juanita's! Juanita wasn't there though. So we just kicked it without her. Haley intercepted us after a wonderous effort promoing the show, and took us into her little Sunday night domain, where we were pizzafied and well hydrated. Soundchecked with Mr. Parker's ode to the men in beige who serve NYC so faithfully. We played with a young group of local Little Rockers called About Last Night. A few of our NACA buddies were there from Conway and we fraternized with them voluptuously. The crowd was receptivo and we didn't leave-o until we had made them all believe-o that we were more explosivo than Devo (Marshall called Mrs. Ferrell and asked her to TiVo his crappy T.V. show). Haley did a mamazing job for us, and the About Last Night guys were very cool to us. The whole crew at Juanita's was incredibly hospitable, the most hellaciously hospitable hospitality Ludo has seen in a long time. Great people they've down there in the Natural State. We hit the woad. Ferrell got us within striking distance and I took us in. The sun was rising when Ludo was setting back in old Archtown.

Saturday, 12/3/05     Club Clearview (Dallas, TX)
 
After a nighty-night of sleepy-sleep in St. Louisy-St. Louis we drove to Dallas where the Feds were going to eat a live crowd with the assistance of Upside, Ludo, and some cool young dudes from Texas (down the road a spell). Deep Ellum was in deep trouble. Tee hee. Rolled in, rolled up, loaded in, did a dance, high-fived the Feds and the Upsiders. The crowds came a-pourin', Ludo music came a-whorin', and we dropped some shit on the fan blade. What does that mean? Went and grabbed some eat-em-ups with some Upsidenators and our pals the Montgomerettas and Mollie Hey-Yeah's at Sal's Taco Lounge down the street from Club Clearview. It was delish. Then we RAN back and loaded onstage just as the first awesome dudes were finishing. We released our powerful powers on the room, and it was good. Upside did the downhome booty slap on the Lone Star lovelies with their unique brand of cut-your-face-off-and-roll-it-into-a-face-burrito rock. Then the Feds burned the place to the ground. Holy shit. Hung out. High-fived. Hit the road. Stopped somewheres in Texarkanalanda and grabbed a leetle beetle shut-eye, before proceeding to the Natural State. Wow. Everyone go check out the Feds new shite. It's masterpiecey ------> thefedsrock.com

Thursday, 12/1/05     Coe College (Cedar Rapids, IA)
 
Ludo's first time in Cedar Rapids. Granted it's only thirty miles north of Iowa City (where we've left quite an ass-stain on the rock bench known as Gabe's Oasis), but people, these two cities are no more the same place than today's fruitful, Bakiyevian Kyrgyzstan and the Kyrgyzstan who wallowed for 127 years under the yoke of Soviet tyranny (not to mention the subsequent rule of President Askar Akayev - snort!). We arrived at a snowy Coe College (lovely campus indeed), loaded in with the help of four delightful students, set up merch, soundchecked, met the chaps in Acceptance, and then headed over to the Student Building Center of Important Daily Matters Such As Eating, and enjoyed a delightful spread of college cafeteria fare - Mexican this, Italian that, Americano what-have-you, it was delightful. Then we hurried on back, warmed up briefly, and hit the stage where the sound was just sparkly-ly resonant in the auditorium. There were some there who'd seen us before many times in Iowa City and there were some Acceptance fans there, but mostly it was a bevy of college students who wanted to get out of their dorms and enjoy some free entertainment. Some of them had clearly "pre-partied" as they chanted for Ludo and Acceptance in the same manner that bears in a cult chant for honey and blood. All told, there were probably a couple hundred peeps there, and the show was a lot of fun, definitely worth the icified trip. Acceptance was cool, and then we thanked all the wonderful people-types at Coe College for letting us pop on in on such short notice, and then we did the same drive we had done a few hours earlier, except backwards. I mean... we were driving forward... it's just that the directions were reversed.

Saturday, 11/26/05 The Beaumont (Kansas City, MO)

What with all the tubers, starches, and entire poultrious creatures having been consumed, digested, and passed, the Pomeroy DVD release experience was ready to precipitate gorgeously on the deserving peoples of the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. The cornucopiae had runneth over, been pillaged, leaked a little now-pungent pumpkin fluid behind the radiator and ultimately been burned in a Wiccan thankfulness ceremony. It was time to ruh-cock the puhfeoples. We all met at the Beaumont, some of more tardily than others, and rejoined our pilgrim-indianified forces to create Ludo-bot! Recognize! Stuck on Broadway dropped the SOB on its face! Amsterband was stunningly so-good as always. Ludo threw our hands in the ayair like we just didn't cayer. Word to the mayor. And Pomeroy was so explosively in control of that room that God Himself, looked down and said, "Dag, doo...." They owned, copied and returned without even mentioning ever having a receipt. And no one could do anything to stop them. And no one wanted to. Then in poured all the countryfolk for some barn dancery. I got some cornfed "who-are-you-faggot" looks as I tore down merch, and the douchiness accelerated as those who had come for the Pomeroy show slinked away in either disturbedness of mortal terror. Wow. I mean Thanksgiving, you know... wow. They should have one every year.

Wednesday, 11/23/05 Sokol Auditorium (Omaha, NE)

Whee! The day before Thanksgiving and Ludo was a-trekkin' 'crost Missouruh to Omaha to share a delightful Pomeroy DVD Release weekend. We were there when they filmed it and we would be there when they released it. Needless to say, it is kick-ass. So over the river and through the woods, without Grandma we went, set up in the grandiosish Sokol Auditorium, used bathrooms, ate Burger Kings, drank waters, greeted friendlies, high-fived Anchondos, took pictures, and rocked hundreds. Haven21 did it down. 8th Wave came back for ninths. We slathered butter flavoring on top of what Pomeroy would shortly thereafter consume gorgantuously. What a way to say hey to Omahay, Nebraskay! The crowd was weird though. It was as if they had already eaten Thanksgiving dinner. Seemingly weighed down with the brown tubers and earthy starches they had not yet eaten, the peoples tried to get excited and go crazy, but their heart rates seemed incapable of getting over 85 bpm. One dude was trying to sing along and was overcome by uncontrollable yawning fits. Weird. Well, the Cornhuskers may not have brought their A-game this go-'round, but I think they had a good time regardless. They cleared out of Sokol when the show was over though faster than waxpeople during a fire alarm. Anywho. We had Thanksgivings to give thanks for. Left Marshall in Home-aha, dropped Ferrell off in Kansas City, drove back to St. Louis, and dispersed familially from our "Have a good holiday" van departure at 8:30 in the momo.

Saturday, 11/19/05 People's (Ames, IA)

Our first time in Ameses. And People's was a-bumpin! We got free meals which were delicious. Pomeroy introduced us to the ways of People's and greater Ames. We rocked off some hot Ludo sauce-based dishes and then made way for the illustrious masters of funky delight and our bosom-buddies, Pome-wah! A fine town where people appreciatified the musique. We said our hoo-ha's and drove back to the Lou. We got home around 8:00 in the mo'n.

Friday, 11/18/05 Club 770 - University of Wisconsin (Madison, WI)

Hold on to your chompers, Badgers! Ludo's bringing the hotness to 'Sconsin. Back at the university. Marshall, Matt, Nick, and Jen played ping-pong downstairs by the bowling alley. Treaty of Paris opened explosively. Pomeroy pomeromefied the nubile crowd. There were about 300 peeps in there when we played which made for a raucousish crowd. The Dog & Everything swung by after their show down the street. Which always makes Ludos happy. It was a very awesomely coolio show all thanks to Stacey and Co. Jen ran merch merchastically. After a birthday celebration for Stacey at Ian's Pizza, we caravanned with Nickarino back to Sun Prairie, where we enjoyed endlessly cycling ping-pong tourneys, foosball matches and the whatnots. Marshall and I watched the most terrifying French horror movie ever, "High Tension." It will make you look at France differently.

Saturday, 11/12/05 The Courtyard Cafe - University of Illinois (Urbana, IL)

My throat was infuriating! I did everything I was supposed to to warm up and soothe it, but to no avail. It was driving me mad! It didn't hurt. I wasn't sick. I just had no control and it felt cottony and dumb. Grrr... Treaty of Paris was super-duper late. Because their van could only go 50 miles per hour. Which just so happens to be the speed that Jack and Annie had to keep the bus above in the film, "Speed." It may have seemed fast in that blockbuster flick, but it was slow as molasses in January for the TOP bottom-grabbers. Veronica greeted us and made sure we were well taken care of. The Translation high-fived us liberally. We rocked it despite my frustration and sucking, and several different people sang Girls on Trampolines for me. Which was sweet! There were a few hundred people there which was also sweet. What a doozy! Ludo's first headlining show in Champaign, and it went over like Land-o-lakes butter! Alright! That eve, we drove home and slept.

Friday, 11/11/05 NACA Showcase (Tulsa, OK)

Woke up in a parking lot. Went to the convention center and soundchecked for NACA at 9:00 in the morning. It was crazy. We then crashed at Jason Brown's sweet condo and slept on his floor for two more hours. His hopsitality is unrivalled! I drank a gallon of water. I used a Vicks VapoInhaler. I used throat spray and nasal hydration spray. We had a four-song set to blast out and my throat was feeling awful. I was going crazy! Got back to convention center. Watched our brothers in the Dog play their showcase which was slaytastic, and then we took the stage right after a cutting-edge comedienne. We played Hum Along, Broken Bride, Epic and Good Will Hunting By Myself with some huge, red digital clocks counting down from 20:00 in our faces. Beyond the clocks were several hundred college activities board members - and they're a feisty, spunky bunch. We rocked them, hung out with them, went to Mazzio's with our Upside brothers, came back to the convention center and met all the kids at the On Campus Booking booth from 10:00 to 11:00 that night. Then we drove to Champaign and slept briefly.

Thursday, 11/10/05 Josie's (Emporia, KS)

First time in Emporia. After a leisurely drive through a darkening Kansas countryside on I-35, Ludo was ready to set up their shit. We did. There were some sweet acoustic acts that rambled off some sweet music before we played. And then we did. My throat felt terrible. It did not hurt. No. It wasn't that it hurt, so much as it felt filmy and congestified and gross and I couldn't make it sound good. It sounded all raspy and shitified. It was driving me nuts. So I had some peoples sing Girls On Trampolines. They were wonderful. And then Convy did the monologue from Good Will Hunting for me. It was great. And then we called it a show. I really was having problems singing. There were around 100 people there though, and I think 70 of them were there to see us. It was surprisingly good. And Josie's was wonderfully good to us. What a world! Then we drove to Tulsa, arrived at 6:30 in the morning and slept in the parking lot of the venue for two hours.

Wednesday, 11/9/05 PJ's (Manhattan, KS)

And it was a packed house in Man-town! Christ. After an awesome hour-long interview and Broken Bride feature on The Wildcat, the Kansas State radio station, Ludo slid on over to PJ's, where the people stuffed in like peanuts into a Snickers. Rushmore Academy slapped rock onto people's faces! The Effects were effectivo! The Famed ruined the world! The sound was as though it came from a horrifying abyss. There must have been a gelatinous merman with webbed, grossly motor-skilled digits trying to manipulate the board. It sounded like ass mixed with crap. It was horrendously not good. We threw a lot of rock. It landed in a fine mist that invaded all the lungs in the sold-out room. It was swamped, sweaty and drunkish. It was hot. Then we hit the road for Tongie. It was an hour away. I was sick. My throat felt as though it had cotton in it. Crap.

Saturday, 11/5/05 The Venue (Tulsa, OK)

There we were. In Tulsa again. The second time in as many weeks. Except this time... there were people there too! The Effects were the sweet-ass total-awesome headliners. A.D.D. was having a CD Release Party. Ludo was just there to put the church on lockdown and the bitches on notice: there would be rocking. The Oklahomangels ran moich. The rock was dropped. The Effects kicked ass comme always. That night, we drove all the way homey-home-home to St. Louis. We arrived lately.

Friday, 11/4/05 The Boobie Trap Bar (Topeka, KS)

Ludo's second time at the Boobie Trap. Upon arrival, we found quite a crowd gathered inside for the high school opener. The young buds were diligently standing onstage with instruments ready for about an hour before the soundman shew up. Which he ultimately did, and they played, followed by Havok on Polaris, who were very excitemifying. We hoppeded up dere and rattled off an all-request Ludo show, and what did they request? Fortunately lots of Ludo songs, which we were altogether prepared to play. The Trap was wonderful to us as always, and we had quite a dandy time indeedy-doodle. After the show, we drove to Tonganoxie, affectionately referred to as Tongie (or in localspeak, "DAH-ngeh") which is not far from Basehor (or "BAS-r"). There we found a wonderful place to nestle our little nubbins, at Chez Denise-n-Kyle. Denise the English teacher, Kyle the veterinarian. Denise-n-Kyle the my-family. They birthified (separately from each other and with the help of peripheral characters) the Great Shane-of-Manhattan, and the Formidable Kraig-of-Warrensburg. Without them, Ludo would be a little more lost in the Kansan area. In the morn, we arose and departed without so much as a dingle-dangle doodle. Peace, Tongie. We had a date with Oklahoma, and The Effects were chaperoning.

Thursday, 11/3/05 Gabe's Oasis (Iowa City, IA)

Back in Iowa!!!! And happy to be so. So was Pomeroy. Again. Except this time they were down the street at uh... the Yacht Club. I think a lot of royal sheiks, real estate tycoons, and sailing enthusiasts go there. Whee. Pomeroy went to go be cool at their hotel room(s), minus Tyson who joined Conman, Lion Chessmaster of the Famed fame, and me for some excellent Chinese fare, while other people ate at some Mexican place. Boring! The Famed famed it up. The Goodyear Pimps neglected to show up. The local band declined playing last. Ludo stuck it out, and went on around midnight, ultimately releasing gallons of rock concentrate on the peoples, who troopishly kept on truckin, in sweet anticipation of their beloved Ludo, ultimately basking in sometimes drunken Ludo appreciation. We had some sober protectors in the front row who kept the inebriates from knocking our mic stands over. It was awesome. Then the lovely Katie and friends put Ludo the eff up in their respective dorm rooms / apartments whilst Ferrell slept meditatively in the van under his trusty Notre Dame blanket, with his amply flaxened cranium resting voluptuously on the breast of his purple, beaded meditation pillow. In the morn, we would shower and drive to the Breast Snare.

Saturday, 10/29/05 The Blue Note (Columbia, MO)

Halloween terrors!!!! Rolled outta bed with some sleepy Halloween goo in our eyes, and met up at Chris Convy's from whence we went to a sporting goods store and Wal-Mart to get the finishing touches for our costumes. Meanwhile Marshall stayed behind and made "Camp Waputi" T-shirts with stencils and spray paint. Fortunately we already had tube socks,We got short athletic shorts for the camp counselors, suspenders for the serial killer, and blood and spiderwebs for us all. Grabbed Marshall's fine ass and then rode donkey on down to the Blue Note, where poor Dylan had been running sound for some weird cultish audition. We grabbed a boit while he rid the venue of its audition filth, and then returned to load in our shite. Warmly greeted our Buzz homies, whom we love dearly, set up merch, and inflated the ginormous Halloween terror figures. In came the LBC train. In came the Fay-Med. Whee! We convened backstage in the downstairs dressing room thing to get dressed, they as camp counselors, I as the tow truck terror-mongoloid who killed them. We blooded up the victims, and then in order to accurately portray the killingness, we did my blood in the alley by splattering it all over me. It was gnarly. But we hadn't found any good weapon for me at the costume shop across the street, so I found an ugly 2x4 in the alley, dipped it in blood and called it scary. The peoples came a-pouring in. The Buzz had done a hell of a job promoting this badboy, and the costumed freaks were plentiful. This was a raucous crowd and they were howngry. The Fay-Med came out as MCR and dropped "I'm Not Okay" which actually was okay with the crowd. They then rip-roared into the rest of their romping set. Lucky Boys hopped up and dropped down and gave the crowd 50. Which was hot. And then there was a bad-ass costume contest that was ultimately championed by a dude dressed perfectly as Predator (runner-up: a Ghostbuster, second runner-up: Alice in Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts <---nepotism). Then Ludo rocked it. We had not prepared to do an encore at all, after playing Ghostbusters and leaving stage. They even turned the lights on to tell people to go home. But it didn't work. They REALLY wanted us to come back out. But we were fresh out of good closers... what to do! So we did what any good band would do. We got back onstage, and introduced one of the most special songs we've ever played: Ghostbusters! Again! With all of LBC and Groebe onstage rocking out. We said goodnight and Happy Halloween and drifted off into the great blue yonder. It was a night to remember, a Halloween party with 500 crazy, creepy crawlies. It was terrifyingly ghoulishly wonderous!

Friday, 10/28/05 The Bottleneck (Lawrence, KS)

Woke up in Chris Convy's den of blankets. Wha? Where? Whowha? Traipsed treacherously on down to the MU Bookstore where we played a super-tastic acoustic show for the Tigers of Mid-MO. Awesome! Picked up two large boxes of merchandise. Drove to Larry, flattening one of my Camry's tires on the way, but doing a 5-minute tire change, spearheaded by Marshall "Fast-Hands" Fanciullo on I-70. Arrived at the Bottleneck, greeted Lucky Boys by shaking our tailfeathers and whatnots. Set up the merches. Lovely womens helped us roll T-shirts. Inflated the scary ghostie guy to stand aside the merch. Amsterband rolled up. Did a kick-five, double-twist elbow assault with a hipjammer friend-slide. Cooper walked in like a bandito de musica, with acoustic guitar on his back, and a song in his heart. We jiggled whatsums. Saw Anne and Misty, at which point we knifed the goggle-crunch with a two-shake shimmy pelvis chunk quartered by a half-hearted slider slap. Saw the Vanilla Gorilla. Told him to behave with his muck-mucks. Then in came the peoples. Music, music, music! Cooper! He was super! Amsterband! They were well out-of-hand! LBC! They made me wanna pee! Ludo! They were Ludo! We rocked off a high-powered superset of superior sexualization, featuring at its wishbone center a full-on rendition of Broken Bride featuring Amsterband as fine-singing, overly-ambitious zombies during Save Our City. We dropped it all and left it wetly humming. That night, we's somes of us stayed at Misty's hoose, and somes of us droves to Columbias. The crowd was a couple hundred and were a-totally awesome!

Thursday, 10/27/05 The Setlist (Warrensburg, MO)

Wonderful, wonderful Warrensburg! Ludo back again! Brandon runs a tight ship. And it's always quite the pleasure cruise! A young, courtly gentleman from New York City, named Cooper arrived sans band, to play his songs acoustically for the crowd's delight. He was GOOD, people. Hits, every one of them! Then we finally got to play with our great friends and longtime admirees, Thos. They are from St. Louis and they are phenomenal. They do shit that will make your eyes blow right through your eyelids and through the wall into the next room. Your eyes will then continue flying all the way around the world, until they burst through the wall behind you, explode through the back of your head and end up only slightly forward of where they originally were, making you a little bulgy-eyed for the rest of your life. But the lifelong bulgy-eyedness is worth it if only to hear Thos play! They rule school. Then Amsterband was freaking phenomenous as always, the combination of all these openers of which, really quite literally set the stage for Ludo. The crowd was p-umped! And they were packed in pretty well. We slayed murderously and put down the Halloween spookiness with Ghostbusters, on which Amsterbanders and Thosies got up and at the very least danced the unafraidedness-of-ghosts dance. We loaded out, swung through Taco Bell, and headed for a delightful Como Chris Convy couch crash carnival of sleeping. For the next morning we were to awaken and play an acoustic show at the University of Missouri Bookstore. Word.

Wednesday, 10/26/05 The Outland Ballroom (Springfield, MO)

Amy Lynne & Co. had spent a delicious month promoting their sweet little asses off for this show. It was the first of a string of three Amsterband shows we would have the delight of playing at the end of October 2005. This show had four bands on it. The Famed, Rushmore Academy, Ludo, Amsterband. In that order. Which is the same order as reversely ascending order of awesomeness backwards, which confuses me. All I know is that it means Ludo is either second-worst or second-best. Either way, we're top three!!! Arrived, loaded in, set up merch and guitars and drums and prepared to deliver Springfield a package of pure Halloween terror. Vanessa (on no notice) was sweet enough to run merch for Ludo. The Famed dropped it. Rushmore picked it up. Ludo did it down. Amsterband smacked it up. Amsterband is really, really, really good. Someone asked me if I liked bluegrass. I said, "I don't know, but I like Amsterband...." That's what I said. Our fine Springfieldian friends came out in packs and we gave them everything we had, including a tight little number I like to call "Ghostbusters." Written of course by Huey Lewis, and then changed a little bit by the man himself, the great Ray Parker, Jr. (busting really does make him feel good). Then Amsterband made it all strange in the neighborhood. We retired globularly to the establishment known affectionately as International House of Pancakes, where we and fifteen excited pancake consumers played telephone and told really dumb stories. It was nice. Then we re-retired to Chez Jackie, where we split up and slept powerfully.

Saturday, 10/22/05 The Venue (Tulsa, OK)

We were all pretty durn tired. But rolled up anyway we did, greeting Donnie and the Oklahomangels with glee. The D-man treated us to some fare down at Boston's as we took in a World Series match between the Chicago White-Socked Men and the Astros of Houston. The Rocket was gettin' rocked! Poor Peems... We hung out with the Oklahomangels and set up merch and equipment. SouthFM and Congress of a Crow played. Apparently Ryan Cabrera was in town and Oktoberfest was going on. Attendance was lackluster at the Ludo show. Whatev! Those who came out were in for a rump-rousing ruckus. And we shat it out liberally. Eerily, there was a stupid drunk-guy, not unlike the stupid drunk-guy from last time we played at the Venue. He had all the same moves and all the same scary, weird gestures of his predecessor. Lots of pointing and thrusting and verbal ejaculation at patently inappropriate times during the set. He was incredibly annoying to the girls in front of him. If there's one thing I've learned playing shows, it's that girls HATE stupid, drunk guys, and dudes LOVE stupid drunk girls. No. They're in love with them. It's beautiful. Played all of Broken Bride. Didn't get finished until late as balls. Packed up, said goodnight, drove off for St. Louis, the place where we sleep most soundly. Arrived at 8:30 in the morning and slept most soundly.

Friday, 10/21/05 Andy's (Denton, TX)
 
The Feds' hometown. Strangely enough, the square in downtown Denton looks exactly like the square in downtown San Marcos. Hm. Weird. Arrived in Denton, ate at the Loophole (where one of the appetizers is called "Matt Sliders"), got milkshakes next door, went down to Andy's, loaded in and started setting up merch and drums and guitars and whatnots. Andy's's doors opened around 9:30 and the Dentonites came a-flockin'. The first band, Halto Bravo, played while we had our pre-show meeting warm-ups. When we were trying to do a line check, the monitors kept buzzing and my mic kept shocking my mouth like little terrible lip pinches. Maddening. I don't like getting shocked. It drives me batty. It makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Without monitors for the beginning of the show and with a napkin rubber banded onto my mic (courtesy of Jason), we started the rocking, did bride-up-to-the-angels, and then closed that slut out with Epic and GWH. We fortunately had a good chunk of people there, some from around Denton, many from other places around Texas, and the new people actually received us fairly well. The Feds' crowd just seemed appreciative of good music. Which is always nice. The Feds took over and absolutely murdered the place. Their new shit is incredible. Their live show is unparalleled. I just can't say enough about how good this band is. No bouncers put anyone in a headlock. Which was standard. At the end of the night, we caravanned back to the Feds' neighborhood, where we parked in front of the Upside house, and helped ourselves to its empty beds and ample roof. It was starting to get nippy outside. We stopped by down the street at Chez Les Feds, where a soiree was in full swing, and thanked them for a great night, and being awesome. We sauntered back down the street and took full advantage of the hospitality of our absent friends in Upside (another amazing band). It was the end of our stint in Texas and the Lonestar state had been terribly good to us this time around. Can't wait to get back down there this winter. It will be yay.

Thursday, 10/20/05 Lucy's (San Marcos, TX)

After a painful Cardinals loss and a joyful Astros victory, Ludo had absorbed enough of the Pallywhack-airm-oreos' good vibes to be at 100-health and, newly restored, we hit the road. Always hitting something in Ludo. The road, the hay. The stage. The child. I'm joking. We would never hit a "child" - we hit "children." In the palm in the form of high-fives. On the drive to San Marcos, we had a very important job to do. We had received a ton of orders for the Halloween package on our online store, and the October 15th deadline to have a chance at receiving the severed arm had passed. We needed to pick a winner. Seriously, one of the people who ordered the Halloween package was going to be mailed a severed human arm. And how would Ludo decide who the lucky boy or girl would be? Would they draw names out of a hat? No... that's crazy. We had the names, but no hat. We would have to draw them out of a shoe. One of Marshall's shoes. But still, it didn't seem right after all the anticipation over the severed arm to just pick a name and be done with it. Hmmm... what to do... when you need to narrow down a whole field of contenders to one fairly chosen champion... what ever do you do?! Well, you put the whole lot of them in a double-elimination tournament! Yes! It was on. Matt drew up the brackets (East and West) and we assigned everyone numbers, put their numbers on little slips of paper, crumpled them all up, and put them in Marshall's shoe. Then we needed a really dull-witted person to draw the numbers so that it would be as random as possible. Convy was trying desperately to sleep, so he would have to be our idiot. He drew the numbers from the shoe and uncrumpled them. Convy reported what he'd drawn and I called 'em out with their corresponding names, while Matt seeded them in the brackets. Let the tourney begin! We started in the West. Matt would call out two names/numbers, Marshall would put them in a shoe, I would pass it back to Convy, and as he drew and uncrumpled the winner of the one-on-one competition, I would commentate on the people who were fighting in the shoe using their address and e-mail as info, as color commentary came from everyone but Ferrell, who was driving and meditating... yikes! The winner would advance to the second round, but no, the losers did not go home... it was a double-elim people! They went down into the losers bracket! You had to lose TWICE before you'd be kicked out. We made it all the way through the first round, East and West, and then as winners advanced, we went down into the losers bracket and started trimming the fat. Facing elimination at every turn now, these underdogs went head-to-head in hardcore shoe action, as Convy drew and uncrumpled winner after winner and loser after loser fell to the wayside. At one point, we had to get out a second shoe. Round after round in the winners bracket and losers bracket, East and West, the playoffs continued. Division semi-finals, division finals, champions, challengers from the losers bracket having to win TWICE against the undefeateds to determine who went to the Big Dance. And then there we were. In the finals. The big kahuna. It was an undefeated who'd won every match and never lost a single match and never played anyone who had beaten him, versus a scrapper from the losers bracket who had fought the way back from obscurity. It was a best-of-seven series to be drawn by the golden hand of Swim Barrel. While he drove! The tournament had gone on now for an hour and a half. And it all came down to this. The underdog shockingly took the first THREE games, but then the champ showed who the veteran really was, and won the next two. It was all decided in game six however, where without homefield advantage, the scrapper won it all. When Ferrell drew that crumpled piece of torn, pink flyer with a number scribbled on it in black sharpie, we could feel the magic - the fate was palpable. We knew who would be receiving the arm. And it hit like a freight train when Pmo called out the final result. The loser was the winner, and the winner was the loser! Alright, so seriously I made a note to send that shit to that person when we got back to St. Louis, and then we finished driving to San Marcos. We loaded in, as the Sorceress of Chocolate presented us with delicious treats and kept us entertained on the town square. We Fed-fived and set up merch. The peoples started coming in. The opening band was solid for only their tenth show, and very cool guys. Then we went to the van to have our meeting and warm-up. When we got back, the Feds were not onstage, and there was quite a ruckus going on. They were packing up and leaving. Apparently, they were halfway through their first song when Matt Slider stood on one of the monitors, which is not a terribly abnormal thing for a lead singer to do in the midst of rocking out, especially since he's not a huge guy and the monitors were sturdy-looking. At this point, this cheese-dick bouncer (who had obviously at some point in his childhood been convinced that what makes you a man is being a cornfed, muck-muck, punch-first douchebag) jumped onstage, grabbed Matt in a headlock and was saying "I said stay off the monitors..." in his ear, and slapping his head repeatedly. Matt continued singing because HE WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF A SONG. I guess sasquatch no likey, because he then clapped his hands together while his arms were wrapped around Matt's head, knocking the mic into Matt's mouth and chipping his tooth. It was at this point that Matt realized he had also pulled the cable out of the mic (no one could even hear him singing), and he broke free, threw the mic down and said fuck this. The Feds started packing up. Words were exchanged. Bad words. The acting manager showed up and immediately started backing his guy, saying that yeah, they tell the bouncers to keep kids from ruining their equipment. To which Matt replied, "Really? Did you also tell him to put musicians in a headlock and smack them during the show?" The manager dropped some shit about, hey, how would you like it if I went over there and kicked in your equipment. Yeah, good point. They demanded that the Feds get up and play more, to which they said hell no. The bouncer's defense (this is great - the guy is a complete mongoloid douche) was that if he HAD hit him, he wouldn't be gettin' up. And THAT folks, is a grown man, most likely capable of voting in open elections in our country. Wow. A load that should've been swallowed? Yeah. Big time. Anywho, the whole thing was ridiculous, and I hope the Feds sue the shit out of them, unless they fire that guy and formally apologize. It was childish, upset-monkey behavior, and judging that gentleman based only on his actions that night, he is a joke of a person. Lucy's has always been wonderful to us. The bartender, the soundman, the booking chick, everybody has always been so cool to Ludo. That's why all this crap came totally out of left field. It was just one bouncer, and an acting manager who backed the wrong guy in the heat of the moment. And it was absolutely unacceptable. Something really needs to be done to resolve this formally, and it is entirely Lucy's responsibility. The Feds are an amazing band, not to mention an amazing group of guys, who are entirely more than reasonable and respectful. If he had been asked in a normal non-douchey manner not to touch the monitors by anyone working at a club, I find it hard to believe that Matt wouldn't immediately oblige with a smile on his face. In the time we've been fortunate enough to play shows with them, that's the kind of guy we've known him to be: respectful, enthusiastic, down for the cause - an overwhelmingly positive dude. Ludo wasn't entirely sure what to do, because it all happened so fast. Convy and Marshall got mixed up in the yelling a little bit. In the end though, we knew a lot of people were there for us that night, and we knew we owed them as bad-ass a rock show as we could muster, so we set up and took the stage. Although it was only after they agreed to send the cocksmith-silverback home. He scampered away and we played a rousing rumpus of a show, did all of Broken Bride, and surprisingly, the room full of 80 drunk people got quiet and actually listened. It was awesome. The Feds came back upstairs and watched the set, which was right big of them. Carrie was a delight behind the bar all night as always. Chris ran sound like a stud, making our crazy rock opera sound really good on the fly. Then we gave the crowd a choice between Epic and Girls on Trampolines. They chose the latter. I had to disagree, but what do I know? Then we did GWH, and said good night. Mollie ran merch for us, we got to see a lot of our Austin friends, including Domino and Josh and the Clints and the lovely Randi Montgomery and Co. who took us back to their house for a lovely spaghetti dinner and some intense sleepage. What a crazy night! Double-elimination tournament to win a severed arm in the mail, followed by a mountain gorilla on the loose in San Marcos, who had somehow started wearing clothes and having a job at Lucy's! Only in Texas...

Tuesday, 10/18/05 Time Square (College Station, TX)

After three days of camping at the Palmeeny-bandeleros' house and taking in some rousing head-to-head Cardinals-Astros NLCS action, Ludo was up and at 'em at a ridiculously rock-early 8:30 in the mo'n, hitting the road, and heading for Aggieville. That's right, bitches... it's Ludo Lunchbox season! And Town Hall had set us up with another doozy! We were a little woozy upon arrival, and the October sun was beating the "f" down on all God's creatures in Bryan / College Station. We arrived promptly at 11:00, set up equipment and merch with a generous helping of generous helpers and before the gathering people chunks of noonish Rudder Plaza, some interested in what was coming together before their eyes, many many however, there because they knew Ludo would be rocking. Heckity-doo-da-yeah! We dropped it like it was hot, because it was heavy and actually quite hot on their whitish stage under the beaty-beat-beat beating sun. Town Hallies were sweet enough to run merch for us. We promoted that night's show, met up with Fellman and three fine young women from San Antonio (or as they call it, Santonio), hit up Fitzwillie's with them, while Caramelbites Fancypants and Swim Barrel went to Zapato's (shoes) for some Mehicano fodd. Then we swung over to Fellman's sex palace for some sleep-em-ups, computer-em-ups, TV-em-ups, and hang-out-with-Fellman-em-ups. At Time Square by five, loading in. Set up equipment and merch, soundchecked, split up. Ferrell joined the spirit world, Conman and Peems went to Wendy's, Marshall went to the drinky world with the opening band, and I slept in the van like a whore. Got up, reconvened, took in the opening band, greeted the Aggies as they rolled in, took the stage, played some Ludo tunes, played the rock opera, dropped Epic and GWH, and then hung out for a little bit with our awesome College Station people. It was great to get a chance to play the whole thing in Texas. All in all, there were about 80 people who came out to rock with Ludo and as always in BCS, the pleasure was all ours. We mounted up and headed out. Back to Spring to sleep like bitches. Arrived at 5:00 in the mo'n and did just that.

Saturday, 10/15/05 Javajazz (Spring, TX)

The brand-new Javajazz... hot diggity-dog!! They moved locations - and it's SOOOOOOO much cooler now. Air-conditioning, bathrooms (soon), space onstage, lights, load-off and load-on on separate sides of the stage, great sound. Lordy, it's sweet! Swung by the Pmo house (kisses! hugs! yay!), I showered, the band ate quickly. Loaded in and set up all the merchy-merch after a nauseating Cardinals' loss. Ferrell cleaned and restrung guitars. I ran to Subway (for a sandwich no doubt). The show began promptly at 6:00 pm with the first of EIGHT bands. EIGHT. That, my friends, qualifies as a small festival. There were some ca-ca-ca-crazy bands that night, including Jimamo (all over the place) and Tom's Magic Sound (one dude playing to a track and singing through an Autotuner). The Ride Home took us home, or at least into our set, for which we mounted the stage, dropped Hum Along, Roxy, Bride-up-to-the-angels, and Good Will Hunting By Myself in rapid-fire blam-blam action. We had to pay $25 for the lights, but damn, they were well done, especially for being done on the fly. We were the heavy draw by a LOT that night, bringing out more than we ever had before in the Houston area, almost 130 peoples. They was all sangin along and whatnots, and we took a ton of pictures, and signed all kinds o' stuffs. Dover Drive closed out the night with their Dover Drive music Dover Drivetastically. Sigh... what a fine night! We closed up shop, thanked the pilgrims at Javajazz for all their trappings, and headed back to Chez Pill-hair-moe for some ribs, beer, and companionship. What a run, boys, what a run...

Friday, 10/14/05 Club Clearview (Dallas, TX)

Good morning, Sid. Owen. Rob. Large stand-up bass. Oh yeah. We were in Denton at the Upside house. Sweet! Yay! Good times! Let's got to that Tomato place, Sid! Let's eat pizza! PIZZA! PIZZA! PIZZA! Come on Owen! Come on Rob! Come on Ludo! Corn-man, you stay here and check e-mail. We'll maybe grab you something. Maybe... if you're good. The pizza was delicious! Got back, got ready, and hit the road for Deep Ellum. Loaded in to Club Clearview and set up merch. I talked to the guys in the second band, Brain Failure. They were from China. No, the country. They were from China, the country. They were a punk band in the vein of the Clash on their sixth U.S. tour, and they were from China. And they were very cool. They even had a song called B-E-I-J-I-N-G. As in Beijing, the capital of China, the country where they were from. Hell, they're probably STILL from China. God damn, they had a lot of energy, and they knew how to get the crowd into it. CHINA! But I skip ahead. Ludo got onstage and played Hum Along, followed by Bride-to-the-angels, followed by Good Will Hunting By Myself. Sir Slider and a few other Feds showed up and leered from the crowd. Leering, but no jeering. I believe they enjoyed themselves quite finely. We loaded off superfast with help from our new Chinese friends, they hit the stage and started punkishly rocking. After their set, I ran off to get Subway. The smoke in there was killer. Ferrell was feeling sick. Marshall was feeling thirsty, so he drank. A 40. River City Rebels got up and rocked hard - Convy talked to them a bit, very cool guys. The Street Dogs got up and were Bostonny and Irish-punky and really cool. After the show, we traipsed on back to Denton, but not before sitting in the parking lot for 75 minutes, while the other bands pulled up and loaded out, effectively blocking us in. Then one of the bands was pulling out of the steep driveway onto the street, and took it head-on (as opposed to at as extreme an angle as possible) and their trailer bottomed out HARD. They were stuck there for 45 minutes, having to unhook their trailer, and maneuver it off its run-agroundedness by hand. We were finally granted our turn, pulled out with Pmo at the helm at an acute angle, and without incident, like old pros, showed the club we knew how to avoid pesky disasters. We drove off, grabbed What-a-burger for Pmo, Taco Bell for Ferrell, and water for me at both places. Got back to Denton around fo' in the mo'n, and slept slipperously until rolling out around nooner. Pmo-town was a-waitin'.

Thursday, 10/13/05 Juanita's (Little Rock, AR)

Through Memphis and the Eastern half of the Natural State, Ludo was breaking more new ground... Little Rock! We arrived at Juanita's liberally before the soundman. We loaded in, set up merch and drums, and while we waited for the soundman, we were treated to a delightful Mexican meal! Cornvy and I had fajitas, Barshall and Vatt had the San Antonio dinner, and I think Ferrell sucked on a blade of grass or something. And wouldn't you know it... right when our food came, so did the soundman, and we had to start playing twenty minutes later. Crap. Set up everything, got up as the first band, and played the entire Broken Bride set, start-to-finish, followed by Epic. It was a room full of twentysomethings out for a drink. I don't think they were expecting a rock opera. I don't think they were listening that much either. Anywho, the people who were listening got an earful of dramatic power! And God, that food stuck with us! The security guys and the promoter were very cool, as was everyone else at Juanita's and the last band. We loaded out, thanked everyone for welcoming us with open arms and then hit the woad for the Upside house in Denton, where we arrived six hours later.

Wednesday, 10/12/05 The Muse (Nashville, TN)

First time to Nashville! Former St. Louisan Chris Mellor had missed the Ludo live show tremendously. And we had missed bringing it to him. Pulled up to the Muse and everyone there was super-cool as we were loading in. Jess shew up. She was a Chi-burbian transplant, relatively new to Nashville as well. She used to set up shows for us in that area, and now she had set up this one. What a doll! She ordered us Pizza Hut! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Boo(Ferrell)! Ferrell can't eat Pizza Hut because the sauce is made with baby meat or something. It's cool. He gnawed on his vegetarian isolation. Some Nashville area bands / acoustic acts played some scintillating sets, Chris and family and friends and all shew up and we hugged and met and stuff! We got up, rocked off an hour, including a huge chunka-dunka of Broken Bride, the lights were blinding and dizzying, the crowd was into it. Cowboy Dynamite got up and did their stripped-down, totally sloppily all over the place, don't give a fuh, punk hoe down. And it was pretty goddamn raw. We packed up, thanked Jess and The Muse for being awesome, got some Taco Bell, drove to Franklin, TN, where in the silent country night, waited the Mellor maison. We went in, Convy raided the fridge, I had two bowls of Breyers Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream, and we watched Family Guy on TiVo until we fell totally fast asleep, festooned on various couches, mattresses and the undercurrent of intense Mellor hospitality. Nashville, we will call you home. Until next time...

Saturday, 10/8/05 The Canopy Club (Champaign, IL)

Hit the woad we did, caravanning with Jen-n-megs. Arrived at the Canopy Club for the first time and were greeted by the Vanilla Gorilla hanging out outside the club. Then up walked Bert. "Hey Bert!" It was Bert's birthday. Or as I liked saying, it was "Bertsday." He helped us load in along with the awesome Canopy Club loading-in crew. Whoa! It was totally neat inside! Jungle murals all over the walls. I particularly enjoyed the three-toed sloth standing on its hind legs and urinating on a cockatoo. LBC was just finishing up their soundcheck when we were all loaded in - it was their second night in a row playing the Canopy Club (they had played to 800 or so the night before... wowie!). We set up merch on the little merch stage next to the front bar, and Megs-n-jen prepared to run it (Megs announced she'd have to be carried out at the end of the night). Thus began the waiting game. Er, rather the soundcheck for the band The Waiting Game. And Starter Kit. Meanwhile, Ludo went and ate and I watched several episodes of Strangers With Candy on my laptop. Then began the show! An assload of peeps poured in and the rock commenced! We took stage around 11:00 and unleashed Hum Along, a cubic meter of rock opera goodness, and then Epic and Good Will Hunting By Myself on the unsuspecting Illini. It was flippin' sweet. Pure, extreme power! Rawr! We loaded out from stage. Then LBC took over the room and dominated for the rest of the night. Good times! The world was drunk. The moon was full and the douchebags came out. But what an awesome show! We packed it in, hung out downstairs with the goodboys of LBC for awhile, and then hit the road for that city named after a French king

Friday, 10/7/05 The Wheaton Grand Theatre (Wheaton, IL)

Up and at 'em at nooner pajooner! Desperate drive across the land of Lincoln. Chicagoland traffic. I drove separately straight to WONC where the good radio peoples of North Central College had been playing Part II: Tonight's the Night and hyping that night's show a little bit. They talked about Ludo a bit, we did some ticket giveaways on-air, and then I began an hour-long trek 6 miles down the street to the Wheaton Grand. Ludo loaded in, we set up merch, and prepared for the gathering peoples. The six-band bill commenced with the Famed and the crowd started coming in. Tears of Iris, Best Days Behind, The Honour Recital, and The Translation followed rockingly. One poor, lone soul was there doing the lights and sound for every band. And he was running around onstage setting up our various mics and running DI boxes different places for our rock opera set-up, when his mp3 player ran out and the waiting crowd watched in silence as he adjusted Matt's microphone. Someone yelled, "Boring!" It was pretty funny. The poor crowd had to wait while one man set it all up. But once it was ready to go, we dropped one hour of extreme rocking, including the entire Broken Bride rock opera start-to-finish. You could hear a pin drop during "Morning in May." There was an awful lot of crying. It was a very well played show all-around and we felt goodish about it. All night long and until the Wheaton Grand was closing, we took pictures, signed things and hung out with all the wonderful kiddies! There were 230 kids there in toto, and it was a really sweet show for us. Slept with Megs-n-Jen (ha) and then prepared to take off for Champaign!

Thursday, 10/6/05 The Copper Dragon (Carbondale, IL)

Well, well, well. If it isn't Lucky Boys Confusion... we haven't seen you strappingly strumpetous chaps in quite some time... you look great. Have you grown? There we were: Carbondale, aided in part by the directions of Miss Carbondallison herself, who had shown up with the intent of running Ludo's merch booth. Only our second time at the Copper Dragon in the dale of carbon (the first time was also with the gentlemen from Naperville). Loaded in, set up merch, took in a classic LBC soundcheck. The circus of sororaternity formed an already drunk line outside the club. Once they burst forth, there was no stopping the flow - they just kept coming, and once in they drank. A lot. Over the course of a given night, I mght meet a few people who give a mid-conversation apology for being drunk. That night, almost every person I spoke to (at one point or another) apologized for being so drunk. Some people seemed to be apologizing to themselves. Others had no remorse whatsoever. The men's bathroom was covered in about a half-inch of broken beer bottle glass. There was projectile vomiting behind the club. People were bright red and sweating, knocking over chairs, licking each other's mouths, groping each other's asses, confronting bouncers, idiots getting thrown out left and right. More vomiting and glass-breaking. The hooting was without relent. As a sexual currency, plastic beads would have gotten me far in this crowd. Carbondallison ran merch mercilessly. Ludo took the stage to start off the show. And what did we do? Why the first 18 minutes of Broken Bride of course! And a couple other Ludo tunes too. Somehow, before those manihundred McDrunkersons, we pulled off playing a rock opera. It went over better than a concept piece in front of drunk college students possibly ever could. Fifteen Minutes Late played, followed by LBC. We met a ton of peeps afterwards and everyone was extremely cool to us. Granted, mostly drunk, but still very cool. We sold a bunch of CD's and other stuffs. It was delighterful to be playing with the Lucky Boys boys again. That night, we drove through central Illinois until crashing in a craptastic $30 motel.

Friday, 9/30/05 Mississippi Nights (St. Louis, MO)

It was a week from hell trying to get this show together. Ferrell was getting sick. Marshall was getting sick. It was sickening. Merch coming in. New drums coming in. Making banners. Sending more Broken Bride orders out. Practice, practice, practice. The retail release of the record on Monday night. Acoustic in-stores at Vintage Vinyl and Slacker's. We played at my high school in morning assembly. Everyday was full of more ridiculous crap than the one before it, all trying to promote the record and prepare for the show. Thursday night, we arrived at Mississippi Nights after a long sojourn through Alton, IL and their Slacker's location. We met Brian and Tony there after making them wait three hours for us to get out of the in-store, and we set up and soundchecked as best we could. We ran through the rock opera once and after several weeks of always playing it in the same room through the same system, it sounded unnervingly unfamiliar on that stage. There were strange echoes (because of the empty room) that were totally throwing us off and making us suck. Which was all pretty terrifying for the night before the show. My friend Joe from California (who edited the Broken Bride "Making of" footage from the Enhanced CD) was there documenting all the craziness on Thursday and Friday. Anywho, we got to bed late as balls on Thursday night and then shew up at Mississippi Nights the next day around 5:00. Jupiter Sunrise was just pulling up as we arrived in their enormous RV that looks strangely like the jawas' droid convoy from Star Wars, both in shape and dimension. Hugs! The Feds rolled in all federaliciously. Huggers! Rushmore strolled up at some amorphously indeterminant point. Huggle-buggle-boos! Our three kings of orient are, rolled in from Kansas City to roll merch and run it conspicuously - they went by Jess, Dan, and Ashley... Crowd vomited forth as the doors opened. Rushmore went ca-ca-ca-crazy! The kids liked that awesome poo! The Feds were apocalyptically powerful as always. And Jupiter Sunrise was so from outer space in their amazingish rock-n-roll journey of justice! Meanwhile, our awesome friend, Risa from Lawrence was in town, and was giving free massages to band boys backstage! Yay! Life was complete. Ferrell, Peems and I partook. It really helped unshittify before the show. We took the stage to Elmer Bernstein's rousing theme from "Airplane!", rocked off a half-hour set of old Ludo wondertries, and then left the stage to prepare for Broken Bride. Keyboards up. That's when the overture started playing. The mad scientist musical genius from Pomeroy, Tyson, had casually thrown together an amazing overture on his keyboard highlighting the major musical themes of Bride in three minutes of emotional musicawanderings. We played Bride start-to-finish. There was some crying. One guy yelled that Brandon sucked. Sucks for Brandon? Did Hum Along, 700 people sang along, we met everyone, took pictures, etc. It was wonderful. The Feds were beautiful people. And they still are. Then we went beddy-bye. The next day, we'd be shoving off for Omaha. Or as Marshall calls it... home-aha.

Friday, 9/23/05 Gabe's Oasis (Iowa City, IA)

Woke up in Omaha and said goodbye to the great state of Nebby Rascal. The eyes of hawks were bearing down upon us along the Iowa-traversing interstate. We would need reinforcements. Our mules were tired. Our powder stores were wet. Gibby had the yellow fever and his ear was gushing brown fluids. We knew we'd maybe have to bury him somewheres along the Oskaloosa Ridge. It just made keeping the sores dry and the dressings clean seem as futile as the whole journey itself. My back was stiff as I watched the sun come up on Thursday from atop the Brandlow Overlook - I wondered if there really was a God. In the distance, I could hear the razorcats screaming. They would find us soon enough. I flicked the peat moss off my shoe and sighed. We had already loaded in all our equipment once the Pomeroysians shew up. Ferrell prepared the guitars as I violently upchucked the merch display. In came the weary travelers, who sought the rock and refuge of Gabriel's desert haven. Tyson helped me tweak the harp sound on the new Alesis QS 6.2, that I might make it sound unshitty on our Broken Bride tour. Unshitty was the name of the game. Always has been. Big fat raccoon. Dead on the side of the road. We played some ol' stuffs. Then we played Broken Bride up to the angels again. It seemed to confuse, scare, and tittilate the lesser of the convened drunks. The drunky drunks were drunk and stuff. The sobers were delightful. Had plenty of familiar faces there. Pomeroy slayed voluptuously. We hugged gratuitously, said our goodbyes and responded to the call of the road with some rubbery rolling friction of our own, catapulting ourselves dangerously forward at St. Louis and whatever waited for us beyond.

Thursday, 9/22/05 Knickerbocker's (Lincoln, NE)

That morning, we sent out all the Broken Bride pre-orders. There was one assload of them. Hit the road! Anything But Joey. Just when you thought Abbage had breathed its last breath, they're back! For a sweet, sweet reunion tour, and we're all the better for it! And who'da thunk? It's Tim Ferrell's birthday again... same day as last year. And what does Timotha Ferra want for his birthday? A purple meditation pillow. But you know what else? An all-request show. Yay! We got up and did exactly what we heard called out. Yeah, there was some "Save Our City." And some "Laundry Girl." And whatever else the peoples demanded that we could get to. Oh, and the birthday boy had a request of playing "Part II: Tonight's the Night," and on his special day, he gets whatever he wants. We also did a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday to You," the 1924 remix of the classic hit "Good Morning to You." I chastised the crowd for putting together a poorly constructed set. We burned through "Hum Along" and "Good Will Hunting By Myself in the first few songs. But they didn't seem to mind. Abbage took over and dropped the good sounds all the kids knew and loved. I found myself after the show sicker than a Florence Nightingale fan, having contracted whatever oddly crippling toddler virus my big sister's little Cabbage Patch blossom, Mr. Hank Frank Henhead Buttonbutt Henry Francis Roe, breathed all over me on a recent visit to Florida. Matt was sick with it to, but not as bad. I was out of commission. Went back to Marshall's dad's house in Omaha, and slept downstairs, that we might be metaphysically prepared for our Pomeroy Iowa action the following night.

Monday, 9/19/05 Pop's (Sauget, IL)

We accepted a graciously extended invitation to play with 30 Seconds to Mars on a free 105.7 The Point show at Pop's in Sauget. Pop's has been open continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since 1981, without closing for even a minute - except for many years ago when they were closed for only three hours while the club BURNED DOWN (they reopened in a building across the street that same night). Anywho, "the East side" (across the Mississippi in Illinois) is for St. Louisans, where you go after 3:00 am to drink, hump strippers, and maybe get your ass kicked in a gravel parking lot. Electric towers line the horizon on the riverbank. There is no vegetation, except for a few vacant lots where plots of Cretaceous jungle have overtaken the asphalt. Neon signs. Nary a man-without-goatee in sight. Sketch. An overwhelming chemical smell not unlike chlorine, just underneath which you can make out the remnants of God-knows-what-other smell they've tried to cover up. It's an atmosphere very pared down to hedonistic basics: no frills, just little white parking lot rocks and the threat of serious debauchery. It's an exciting place, but one that could easily reduce a hammered, sorrow-drowned sop to utterly brain-numbing despair, peering down in babe-like weeping at the chunked vomit sprayed down his pitifully selected, black, silky, gonna-meet-some-ladies-tonight, button-down shirt, as the sun peeks over the Arch at dawn and the vampires scatter back to their weird little Sauget coffins. There is a tension that permeates the entire area, seeming to come from just under the sociological surface: the knowledge, the acceptance, that any one of us could get stabbed to death at any moment in a dank corner and dumped under a barge without anyone even lifting a finger to dial 911. Yet somehow it's okay. It was a Monday night. We were gonna play a rock show. We rolled up to Pop's and loaded in. Merchandise up. Ferrell, Pmo, and Marshall warmed up in the parking lot. We met Jared and the rest of the 30 Seconds to Mars dudes, and they were all very cool. Long line poured in. My Weapon of Choice was the opener, and they were nice guys who had brought a good number of people to the show. We did our vocal warm-ups by the 30 Seconds to Mars tour bus out back while M.W.O.C. played. Everyone at Pop's was very cool to us. Then we loaded onstage, and rattled off a few tunes from the first record, followed by all of Broken Bride up to the angel-choir on Part III: The Lamb and the Dragon. It was our first time playing such a huge chunk of it and it definitely was a strange feeling. Some people were looking at us like we were urinating Hi-C and green flames. But the people who got it were floored. It was a great feeling amidst all the painstaking, many-hour practices to get the chance to crap out a huge portion of the EP live and on stage. A good warm-up for the 30th. The 30 Seconds to Mars guys really dug it though and went out of their way to say so, which was nice to hear. They were all very, very cool to us after their show, where they did quite a great amount of rocking themselves. Impressive indeed. Their crew and the Pop's crew was awesome to work with - very on top of their shit, which is always appreciated. We talked to some people, sold stuff, and then headed back home. We had a LOT of practicing and preparation to practice and prepare.

Tuesday, 9/6/05 The Granada (Lawrence, KS)

Ludo back in Larry! Whee! After a scrumptrulescent drive, we pulled up behind the Granada and loaded the "f" in. The Bowling For Soup soundcheck was in full swing and Ludo was setting up merch and whatnot. It was unbearably hot in there, before any people had even come in. After a quick jaunt to Subway, members of Ludo backlined our amps and prepared for the onslaught. In poured the kids! Ah!!!!! It was terrifying! It was exciting! We went out back, had our little pre-show meeting, and then Pmo, Convy, Ferrell and I huddled in the van and did a vocal warm-up. Hee hee! To my delight, I found after our meeting that Risa (one of the delightful masseuses we'd met at the Everfine Festival) showed up backstage, and asked if anyone needed a massage. Since I'd woken up with a numb neck every morning for the preceding month, I enthusiastically said I did! She set up shop upstairs above the backstage area, and I disappeared into a world of body unshitification. It felt as though my body had been built out of popicle sticks and spackle by malicious blind children, but Risa made the bad turn to good... yay. I took in a blazing Rushmore Academy set from up there, and they were killing the crowd. It was great. I was like, damn. Then we all watched The Famed rawk and rawl onstawge. Best yet. Great show! When we took the stage, the heat was shitty. We started playing. I couldn't hear anything relevant to what I was doing. It was far too hot. I couldn't breathe too well. I doubt anyone could that night. But the rock went on. It was a lot of fun up there. The kids were packed in pretty damn decent. We closed with a lot of hell, and then tore down, and made way for Bowling For Soup, who commenced their show of dueling pop rock songs and comedic interludes. For the rest of the night, we hung out by merch and the water cooler, talking to kids, watching the show, meeting peoples. We got to take all manner of pictures and stuff. The BFS guys were very cool and it was wonderful to hang out with Rushmore and The Famed (it'd been too long...). And then we closed down shop, ate Jimmy John's with Vajessa, Christie, and gals, and hit the road, depositing two Tims and a Marshall in Columbia, while Matt and I braved forth, alone, all the way to St. Louis, where we arrived at my Dad's house at 6:45 in the morning. Sleep was imminent. Sleep was life-giving.

Friday, 9/2/05 The Metro (Chicago, IL)

Upon a gracious invitation from our buddies in The Dog & Everything, we set sail for the North - we were to play the Metro a-GAIN. And to say the least, we were pleased as punch! We drove straight from the practice space in Earth City, MO to Chicago late Thursday night, arriving not so triumphantly at Megs-n-jen's in the wee hours of the morn. The next day, we got up, went to Victory Records to pick up those brand-new "Broken Bride" T-shirts, which looked scrupmtious, and then blasted over to the Metro where there was a sweet-ass loading zone parking spot just waiting for us. Yes! We loaded in, set up merch in the brand-new merchy store area, and then made a Subway run. I had a 6" BLT on Italian. With lettuce, tomato, pickle, green peppers, banana peppers, jalapenos, vinegar, salt-n-pepper, and light mayo. That's how I like it. Eez goot. Jen-n-megs were poised like beautiful and terrifying birds of prey, ready to sell our merchandise. We returned sandwichified, and saw our brothers in rock, The Dog. High fives! Hugs! New catch phrases. Then we dragged them into our van and played them the "Broken Bride" rock opera start to finish. Their response was just as I'd wanted it to be... it was all going according to plan... they would fall into our trap for sure!!! Patience, my pet... all in good time.... Then we hung out backstage, and made fun of Witroy Ron for having had a heart attack (not really funny actually). The Gas Can Pickup guys were very cool and whatnot (we cozied up as we were sharing a dressing room), but we spent most of our time trying to police the circus in the Dog room. Pmo and Tommy played drum pad warm-up games. The rest of us were too cool for that dumb drummer stuff. Just in the nick of time, our fellow Lou-rockers, Rushmore Academy rolled in the door. "Traffic's bad," they said. Yeah right guys... drive-home rush-hour on the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend in the third largest metropolis in the world's third-largest country... traffic? I think not. More like boozing it up and joining gangs! jk rofl !!!lol lol ollolo !!!! H a ha aha ha. Dumb. Anywho, they got up and rocked it, followed by Coventry, Gas Can Pickup (who put it down), and then we did our dirtiness up there. Save Our City got a spookily enthusiastic response, and GWH/Epic combo put the nail in the coffin of rock. It was a lot o' fun being back on the Metro stage. Took in a delightful Dog show, talked to straggling kids, hugged, photofied, goodbyed, hung out on the sidewalk, goodbyed more, shook hands, hugged, hung out, goodbyed, Ludo-lingered a little more and then drove off, hitting Taco Bell and Dickmonald's on the way out. At 5:00 in the morning, we arrived back at our beds, and snuggled up with all our hopes and dreams nestled in our hearts. The end.

Saturday, 8/27/05 The Nebraska State Fair (Lincoln, NE)

Just when you thought Ludo had played all of the state fairs possible for 2005, there was Nebraska! We had Wendy's for lunch (except Ferrell had Taco Bell), and then hit the road. Arriving at the fairgrounds, we found the security to be a little lax. It weren't no Indiana State Fair, that's for sure! Chuckle chuckle! We realized that if you have a van and a trailer, you can pretty much get into any public event, no problem. After asking 17 people how to get to the Nebraska stage, and sorting through various confident opinions as to whether or not certain gates were open, we navigated our way through the confusion to arrive soundly behind the stage. The sky was ominous. The humidity unbearable. The likelihood of rain was staggering. We moved the merch underneath the Nebraska stage tent. But it never rained. What a psych-out! Good joke, sky! Meanwhile, next door, not forty feet from the stage was the dairy goat pavilion. God damn there were a lot of goats up in that piece! Hoobastank finished up their set several hundred yards away, and Ludo commenced our first of three at 9:00 pm. Not being a band who's used to playing an hour and forty-five minutes, we had to pull out all the stops. Blue Oyster Cult, the first three Broken Bride tracks, Faith No More, Elvis, pretty much everything. We did a little recycling too for good measure. To our delight, there were about 80 or 90 people who came to see us rock. We didn't get nearly as many passersby as at the Indiana State Fair because the stage was a little more out of the way, but the Ludoites were just as aggressively in attendance. If there's one thing I know, it's that Ludo loves its Nebraska peoples. Sure, I'll throw Council Bluffs in there too! Great people, great crowd, a great time. Great. At the end of the night, the lovely Fair people gave us our hotel reservation and said goodbye. We swung through IHOP, where no one had any money. Everyone (minus Ferrell) was sad because they wanted a milkshake but couldn't afford it. I decided to be Daddy Warbucks and asked the waitress to get milkshakes for all my bitches. I pointed to myself, then Marshall, and then Pmo and said, "I'll have chocolate, chocolate, chocolate..."and before I could get to Convy, he said, "And I would like a chocolate too." At which point I clarified to the server, "Actually, he'll have a strawberry." It's a subtle form of abuse I learned in the Orient: give people what they desperately want, except in a form they don't really like. He was perplexed. He wanted chocolate, not strawberry. But at the same time, I was buying it for him - he didn't really have a choice. Then for the rest of the meal, I pretended like Convy loved strawberry mikshakes. Then Marshall dropped us off at the hotel and drove back to Omaha to stay at his Dad's and pick up some stuff from home. Ferrell took a room, Convy took a room, and Matt and I shared a room. Convy dropped by to say hey after getting settled in his room. We watched the last third of Apollo 13, and Matt reiterated over and again that it was his favorite movie and that in orchestra in middle school, they did a medley from the movie score. His favorite line was when Jim Lovell's mom says, "If they made a dishwasher fly, my Jimmy could land it." Matt was a little concerned (as was I actually), that the jettisoned re-entry pod would be a little too hot upon splashdown for a little scuba man to jump on the window and say hi to the astronauts. You know because of that whole "5,000 degrees Fahrenheit" thing. Then again, had Matt and I ever sent a spacecraft to the moon? No. So maybe we should just stick to the rocking and let the NASA people decide whether or not to let their scubamen jump on the pod after splashdown. Cool? Matt and I made love and went to sleep. The next day, people got up and had the continental breakfast and stuff. Then we hit the road for home, grabbing Subway on the way out. State Fairs... God they're everything and a bag of chips!

Friday, 8/26/05 Ruh Fest - Midway Sandbar (Columbia, MO)

After a scintillating drive, we met with Dan (aka Tuna) at Willie's for the first ever Broken Bride press interview. He asked some tough questions about the story and the music (it weren't no softball!), and I think we just might have a great review on our hands. Then Pmo ate El Rancho. We arrived at the Midway Sandbar, which despite its physical street address, consisted of no discernible, permanent structures. We got there just in time to have no time to set up merch. We loaded immediately onto the stage and started playing. We kicked off our set by tucking our shirts into our pants. Halfway through the set, God punished us by having the power go out, killing the front lights and my amplifier. Why ME, God?! But the then Ruh Fest soundsmiths fixed it right up, restoring power just like Ellie did in Jurassic Park, despite the obnoxiousness of free-roving velociraptors. We played Tonight's the Night for the first time to the appreciatively close Ludo enthusiasts. During Good Will Hunting By Myself, there were fireworks beyond the crowd. It was beautiful. Then The Follow followed and was good, followed by our good friends Gooding who were great! Always a treat to see those skillfully rocktastic bastards play. Then we hung out for a bit. Hump-Report and Staircase took me back to Hump-Report's place where I got to see my babies, whom I had not seen in 8 months! She is the capriciously capable caretakes of my mustelid children, Randall and Skeletor. I played with them and cuddled them extensively. Oh how I'd missed them! I crashed on her couch, while Convy and P-mo crashed at Chris' old place, and Ferrell and Marshall crashed at Jackie's friend Holly's place. All split up and sleepy, we split up and slept.

Saturday, 8/20/05 Feeling Better Than Everfine Festival - Northerly Island Lakefront Pavilion (Chicago, IL)

Rise and shine, butterlove! It's three hours later! We drove downtown to the lakefront, and entered the crazy, made-up world of music festival. We were exhausted. It was hot. Boo! Counted in the merch late. Boo! We could only sell two shirts and they had to be for $25 each. Shit, that's five five-dollar bills. I wouldn't pay it. But whatever, it's a festival!!! Loaded in. Yay. The stage was split in two and the show would just alternate from side to side, band to band. It was a cool set-up. The sound was amazing. When we played, there were about 1,500 people there. And we SLAYED. Then we ran off, loaded out, and did the meet-n-greet. We were definitely the only Ludolicious band on the bill. Whatever the hell that means. We got to see a bunch of great bands that day, and the crowd just kept growing. The O.A.R. guys and the Everfine gang were awesome. They were all totally cool to us. We got to eat all the catering yummies in the yummy catering tent. At the end of the night, O.A.R. put on a ridiculous spectacle of a show and then Ludo passed out flyers for our upcoming Metro show as they walked out. All in all, we were there for 13 hours on 3 hours sleep. And we were sleepy lil buddies. And Noah hung out like a superchamp. Then some of us went to the afterparty and hung out with the bandy peoples. And Convy meet Robert Randolph. The next day we had lunch with Jennmegs, and then left for St. Louis.

Friday, 8/19/05 The Annex (Madison, WI)

After a restful stay at Partychez Sergenian, we headed 'em up, and headed 'em out. Our new friends in Quietdrive were there already loading in when we arrived behind the Annex. We high-fived them. YES! Then Brad the Savage and Melissa showed up and we hugged him lustfully, played them some of our new tracks and then grabbed some delicious pizza across the street at Rocky Rococo's. Mmm... Escape From Earth had apparently escaped from Chicago to play this show with Quietdrive and us, and they did so quite ably. Megsnjen ran merch and Quietdrive ran rocking. And crack dealers ran rock. But not in the club. Quietdrive was really, really good. A great show to watch. And then B. Rad intro'd us generously, and we commenced the extreme rocking. There were 150 people there, and they were all awesome. It was a solidly bad-ass show. It felt good to rock the Madtown peeps in the face. I was a little perturbed by the extremely drunk, shirtless gentleman, who was making emphatic gestures at the stage the entire show. Gestures entirely unfamiliar to everyone there. What did they mean? Why was he shirtless? What the hell was he talking about between songs? I didn't know. In retrospect, I am glad of that. We loaded out, prepped the merch for the crazy Everfine Festival, and said goodbye to all the good people. A fine evening. Drove to Chicago and slept on our faces. For a few hours.

Thursday, 8/18/05 The Quest (Minneapolis, MN)

After a brief and enjoyable stay in Chicago, we trekked up north to Minneapolis, where we were to play a show with Catchpenny. We loaded in from the back alley behind the Quest. After we lugged our "s" in, we took in the majesty of the Quest club - it was breathtaking. Clearly Prince used to own that bad boy. Before the show started, Marshall and I agreed that our breath was lacking pleasantness, so he and I walked down the street to where we'd parked the van, and brushed our teeth on the sidewalk. Back to the show... after the first band, we got up and dropped a sweet-ass rock show of supreme power. We played to about 60 or 70 people who were actually listening, which was cool. There were about 50 in the back who were partying and hanging out and being well-connected professional twenty-somethings, eagerly awaiting the hot Catchpenny action and eagerly not listening to Ludo in the meantime. I was surprised to see that several of the people standing in the front seemed to know all the words - sweet! After the show, we got to meet peeps and talk to those we'd already met. Catchpenny played a wonderful show, and were really cool guys to boot. The club was very cool to us as well. Cool. Cool. Then we went to that really good pizza place we ate at when we played the Fine Line (the venues are two blocks from each other) and had a delicious meal with Nick and Nick. Then commenced the very long caravanious drive to Sun Prairie, WI. Minneapolis = ALRIGHT! (two thumbs up!)

Tuesday, 8/16/05 The Indiana State Fair (Indianapolis, IN)

A tickly, tumbly, tater-tot-tastic drive 250 miles from St. Louis to Indianapolis. Back at the crossroads of America! Sweet. We entered the
fairgrounds under the direction of several mustached police officers until our escort arrived to navigate our van through the ocean of Hoosiers and clowns. We wouldn't have been able to back our van back out of the narrow passageway between large refrigerated trucks, so we had to park a few hundred yards from the stage and schlep it on down. Fortunately, our Indianananan superninjas were to the rescue and they helped us generously, as did the Fair-buddies who employed the magic of the golf cart to help transport some of our crap. We got there and set up in a jiffy. All my lovely Indiana kin showed up in support, which tickled my fanciful fancy fancifully. We played a 45-minute set, took a break, and then played a second 45-minute set, repeating Hum Along and Broken Bride only. We opened the second set with Ferrell's and my bountiful version of Can't Help Falling in Love with You, which was way too much. The fair passersby and listeners extraordinaire seemed delighted and occasionally wonderfied by our musicalification. The only negative reaction I could make out was
from some band-douches who showed up with cutting-edge mid-Indiana rockstyle. I saw them coming a mile away - I could nearly smell their pretentious pseudo-intellectualism. It reeked of doucherie. And as though operating from a script, they scoffed at everything we did. It was awesome. Unfortunately though, they were the coolest people around, so it really mattered that they didn't like us. All in all, it was far cooler than we even expected. We played to probably a hundred or so people at a time, and they were more than enthusiastic, and a serendipitously great number of kids knew all the words and sang along. Afterwards, at the merch table we met tons of peeps, sold tons of crap, loaded out (with more ninja help), rode some rides, and drove to Chicago. I particularly enjoyed the pork exhibit, and particularly feared the preponderance of clowns. There was a large plastic pineapple and everyone seemed to be eating the largest cob of corn I'd ever seen. I never did get to see Switchfoot play. Or the 1,100-pound hog. Sad face.

Saturday, 7/30/05 The Family Arena - SokaFest (St. Charles, MO)

It was hot. SokaFest was hot. It was in the Family Arena parking lot. There was skateboarding. After a week of solid, ridiculous studio-preparation practice, we drove out to our practice space, played through the set in the stifling heat of an un-air-conditioned warehouse, and then loaded up and headed out for the excellent St. Charles destination. On the way, we stopped and got water, Gatorade and snackies. Yum. When we got there, Sophomore had already played, so we were dismayed, but still held our heads high for we had a rock show to put on. We set up the merch in the horrid sun, and commenced sweating. The other bands were very cool and rocked quite stridently. By the time we played, all the skate demo thingies were over, and kids were trickling out. But the good news was that it was getting remarkably cooler out. We used it to our advantage and rocked agreeably for a few hundred forward-facing fans. Fie! Fie! Then Goldfinger went up and got down. Members of Ludo had been huge Goldfinger fans for more than ten years. They rocked. At one point, the drummer had one of the kids in the crowd come up and eat a Twinkie out of his ass. I felt like I was at some fraternity hazing event. Wha? Afterwards, we loaded out and headed home. The crowd was exhausted from the heat and the skate stuff by the time we played, but we did get to play for a whole batch of new people. Which is always a delightful treat.

Saturday, 7/23/05 Jillian's - Midwest Music Summit (Indianapolis, IN)

Indianapolis: the crossroads of Indiana. Indiana: the crossroads of America. America: the crossroads of North America. North America: the crossroads of the world. The world: the crossroads of the solar system. The solar system: the crossroads of the Milky Way. The Milky Way: a rather obnoxiously out-of-the-way corner of the universe. Which ultimately leads to Indianapolis being no more of a prime location than any other city in our galaxy. Enter the Midwest Music Summit: a cluster-bang of music peoples, movers and shakers. It is more or less a convention for people who dramatically underdress and LOVE wearing laminates that prove they're still allowed to be there. We hung out with our buddy-friend Noah all weekend. He was quite a treat. We got caught in a parking garage underground while a tornado threatened to destroy Indianapolis. That was cool. Then on Friday, we checked out Tim Convy's explosive expertise as a panelist on the Media Guide service. And then we took in Noah's scintillating insights into management at another panel. He's really got his act together, that guy. Then we loaded in at Jillian's and played a rock show that would alter very little in the course of history, but it certainly rocked people's faces off. That night, a few of us retired to my aunt-and-uncle's house to our basement hideaway. Others of us went to hang out at some hotel, and ultimately befriended, hung out with, and considered going swimming with the guitarist from the Black Crowes and his lawyer. You'll have to ask them. I wasn't there. I was writing "Morning in May" lyrics and then sleeping on my face. The next day, we did a ridiculous amount of browsing at the NAMM Conference, where every single piece of musical equipment imaginable is on display in its most excellent prototypical version, filling a convention center with endless booths. It was sweet. Everyone found awesome toys. That night we hung out with Noah at Hooter's and then hit Broad Ripple with some new-found friends, while Marshall and Ferrell hung out with the Black Crowes guy and his lawyer again. The next day, we drove to Chicago. Whee...

Monday, 7/18/05 Schuba's (Chicago, IL)

Ludo's first headlining show in Chicago. A Monday in mid-July. Schuba's. Hey, anybody wanna sell it out? Store-Bought Rebels? Witroy? You guys in? Alright cool. Ready, go. Store-Bought Rebels played what I believe was their first show ever, and they had a quite respectable showing of friends, family, and fans there in support of their rock. Witroy did it down as Witroys often do, and then we got up and made some magic. It was a really swell night. Our Chi-buddies, Jimmy Dog, (Treaty of) Saraphil, (Treaty of) Empyremike, and Lucky Boys Co-Stubhy were all delightfully in attendance. Not to mention all our extra-special Chiburbians who made the trek out from Naperthrill and Wheat'n, some lovely fairies from DeKalb, some stateline-hopping Hoosiers, and even a couple cheeseheads for good measure. The show was HOT. We punished the peeps without apology, driving them into the floor of Schuba's sans mercy. The sound was excellent. The staff was awesome. Megs-n-jen ran merch like merchmonkeys and we loved them. Awesome. And in the end we had played to a sold out Schuba's. It rocked. That night, we dispersed all over the city of Chicago, playing joyously like children of the night. A few of us went to the Stubhinator's DJ'ing extravaganza (and he looked smashing as always as he spun the Stubhits). We hung out in the city a couple more days, practicing and whatnot, before trekking on down to the Midwest Music Summit for some hot conference action!

Saturday, 7/16/05 The Annex (Madison, WI)

Mad-town, here we come! So the delightfully pulchritudinous rock radio peoples at WMAD had us out for a sweet-ass rock show with Head Automatica, Vendetta Red, and Go Betty Go. Except Head Automatica cancelled (as Head Automaticas often do) because of Daryl Palumbo needing hospitalization (as Daryl Palumbos often do), which sucked because Head Automatica is awesome. We rolled up, loaded in, and hung out. Had some pizza courtesy of the Great DeKalbians. Kept it real with the Savage Brad and his proteges at WMAD. Talked to the Go Betty Go ladies and the Vendetta Red dudes. All very cool. We'd actually met the Betty bassist when we played Mr. T's Bowl in L.A. several months before. That was the same night I deep-throated a corn cob for $40 and I saw a coyote walking down Figueroa. Crazy. Anywho, a local band stepped in and opened up the show at the last minute. They were rocky. Then we did it down dookie-style, giving the peoples what they required. And all our lovely Wisconsinny wonderkinders rocked the f out for the full set. It was a box of funness. And we opened it with big scissors. Go Betty Go and Vendetta Red tore it up onstage. Good humans they are. Spent the night in Sun Prairie with the pride of Urizen, Neat-o Nick in his absurd funhouse of true wonder and joy. Sunday we swam in the pool with all the fun toys, and ate delicious
food courtesy of Mrs. Sergenian. Then I spent 45 minutes trying to accomplish a dramatic feat, by throwing small basketballs from four rows deep in the neighboring cornfield toward the pool basketball net 60 feet away. I eventually made it. And gained nothing in the process. Except respect. And street credit. Then we practiced like a mofo in his funhouse basement, trying to work out the full band music for tracks 4 and 5 on the Broken Bride EP. When that was all done, we said our goodbyes, our thank-you's, and our what-have-you's and hit the road for Chicago. There is a house in Sun Prairie where all the good things happen. Any questions, please contact Nick Sergenian through www.urizenband.com.

Friday, 7/15/05 The Blue Note (Columbia, MO)

Speeding along I-70 West, we were preparing to play our "Good Will Hunting By Myself" video premiere show. Incidentally, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was opening at theatres nationwide that same day. These two events had nothing to do with each other. And they never would. We arrived at the Blue Note, loaded in, and Vajessa met us to set up merchandise. Excellent. Then I did a live phone interview with ManiaTV as they premiered our video for the first time on the web. I was standing beside a dumpster in the alley behind the Blue Note. It didn't smell good on that swelteringly unsexily hot day. But the video apparently smelled pretty dang sweet on the streaming music television site that rocks my face and mind in a terribly taste-tastic tandem of tater tot tabula rasa terror time. Soundcheck! Quick phone call to A Day at the Fair: "Hey, where are you guys?" "California!" "Okay, you're probably gonna be late to the show..." Yeah, they had cancelled. Except not with the venue or us. Mostly just in their minds. Anywho, this meant the Dog & Everything was going to be playing first. But they had been stuck in nasty traffic after a long hike from the Land of Chicago, and were running late. We laid down the red carpet, the stretch SUV limo rolled up, we got in and drove to the radio station, where we met our boy from the Buzz and the two lovely contest-winning ladies. They hopped in our sweet-ass ride, and we went back to the Blue Note, where behind the venue we met the three young bikini enthusiasts and their handler - all from the Missouri Bikini Team. They actually compete in a round-robin, double-elimination, single-elimination, intercollegiate, professional, semi-annual, monthly tournament against other bikini teams from other states like say, the Montana Bikini Team or the New Hampshire Bikini Team. You can really just name a state and then "bikini team," and it works. Then we drove around Columbia to give the Dog & Everything guys time to arrive at the venue. Once they did, we picked up Dog Dan Monahan, Pete from the Blue Note, and two of the gentlemen from the F*Bombs, and with a ridiculously full limo, we pulled around the block to what we thought was going to be a hilariously poorly attended red carpet ceremony. We were envisioning 30 or 40 way overdressed people standing there while Chris Convy played red carpet music and MC'd (i.e. saying into the microphone, "Please, remain calm, everyone, stand back," to a handful of kids calmly standing there with point-and-clicks), but somehow I guess the ridiculousness of the spectacle of a red carpet and a limo was too much to resist for the peoples of Columbia. There were 250 people pouring onto the street when we pulled up and dropped off Pete and Dan. They talked on their cell phones the whole way in. Very important they looked. Then we pulled around the block again to create the illusion that a new limo was coming to drop off the F*Bombs and the Buzzer himself. They hopped out, and then we did our final lap, and emerged ourselves with our radio station contest winners, acting the whole time as though we were actually important people doing important things. It was hilarious to watch from the limo. Matt came out wearing his hospital gown, in celebration of having barotrauma and having been hospitalized earlier that week for rupturing his air sacs (but not his plura - his plura is the toughest I've ever seen). Then a wild bear emerged from the crowd and stabbed a woodsman in the heart with a broken axe handle. There was so much blood. Everyone screamed, and the lumberjack grabbed onto the bear's arms as he breathed his last breath, looking into the black ursine eyes as if to ask, "Why?", as the two, bear and woodsman, stumbled and staggered in an awkward, almost eerily romantic dance. It was a dire cadence to which they waltzed, a mortal shuffle, a savage murder. This summer, sometimes the axe... swings back. Vengeant Bear - July 2005. None of that happened. We went inside, doors opened, and the rock began. The Dog was lights-out, forget-about-it good. The F*Bombs made the home crowd feel right at home. And then we slippity-humped the crowd's minds with a delightful rock diorama. The show kicked ass. It was so much fun. We closed out with Save Our City, the screen lowered, and a preview for the Broken Bride EP came up onscreen. People were like, "Wha?" And then the video dropped, in all its ninja-cowboy-ice cream-birthday cake-meat-axe-lint roller goodness. Then we closed out with Broken Bride and Hum Along. Then we encored with Epic. Standard. Classic. It was a wonderfully great time... and we all grew a little. As people. On the inside. You know how it is. Then we drove to St. Louis to sleep for four hours.

Saturday, 7/9/05 Arlington Plaza (Akron, OH) and Chapel Hill Mall (Akron, OH)

Good morning, Ohio! We woke up a little crispier than we had the day before, but none the worse for the wear. Rock was to be had. And Revol still needed Ludo. We packed up our stuffs and left the hotel by 10:00, arriving at Arlington Plaza around 10:30. It was a strip mall in Akron, the main color of which was turquoise. A giant bar of turquoise snaking around the parking lot. Arlington Plaza featured primarily discount groceries, rent-to-owns, jewelry stores, a cash-checking place, a Revol store and a mystical place featuring two-way mirrors for windows and a giant inflatable ape - it was simply called "Skill Jungle." I will never fully understand the "Skill Jungle," but its mystery haunts my dreams. What goes on in there? What makes it a skill jungle? I may never know. None of these places had public restrooms. I guess because people try to sleep in them. Or maybe people take merchandise into them. I don't know. Or maybe they're all about public urination and defecation at Arlington Plaza. The point is Ludo had to pee. Luckily we convinced the Revol folks to let us use their employee restrooms. The crew got all set up, in rolled Kiss 96.5 FM(!), the tunes started bumping, and all the local patrons came out of the woodwork. As soon as free stuff started slinging, the people, they were a-comin'. I had never seen such a staggering variety of characters convening in one corner of a parking lot. There was the woman who to everyone's apprehension kept abandoning her walker to go to the stage to get free T-shirts. There was the gregarious gentleman running around in a basketball jersey, promoting his yard sale clearance thing. There was the mother who was on the ground in front of the stage, undergoing basic medical treatment after somehow ripping off her toenail. And then the ice cream truck showed up and shit just went bananas. The gathered throng was dancing and loving the free stuff. Then Ludo started playing rock and the people loved it. I don't think a lot of them were big rock fans in general, but they were into it. Damn! Did I mention that it was very hot out? The show, including a sizzling Pmo solo, ended promptly at 1:30, and we immediately loaded out, packed up, and hit the road in a caravan with the big ol' truck-stage-thing. We made our sweet way on over to Chapel Hill Mall, our fourth and final hour-long parking
lot show in a 28-hour span in the Cleveland area. Kiss 96.5 FM came along(!). The Revol kids let loose inside the mall promoting, and the
kids came a-flockin'! Ice cream truck was in on that shit too. It was definitely the most successful of the four shows in terms of the peoples showing up. And then we made extreme rock. During Matt's solo I went over to the I.C.T. (that's slang for ice cream truck) and got a bomb pop. It was da bomb! I ate it, returned to the stage, and continued rocking the poo out. Finished up dramatically and then talked to the peeps for awhile. Packed up, said goodbye to the crew, ate a quick din-din with some of our poor, sweet buddies who had driven all the way from St. Louis to see the show - and missed it. Which sucked. But then I think they had some fun panhandling. Everyone at Revol, everyone on the promo team, and everyone working to put on the show were amazing. Great people and a great weekend. Oh except that we were playing into the sun again. Four shows, no suntan lotion, all rock. God, we're impressive! Then we loaded up and drove home. Ten hours later, it was sleepy time for sleepy boys.

Friday, 7/8/05 Pavilion Mall (Beachwood, OH) and South Park Mall (Strongsville, OH)

So there's this new cell phone company called Revol, and they are awesome - no contracts, no hidden charges, just a flat-rate $47/month period. They're just starting up and they've got coverage in a few metropolitan areas in Ohio - for Ludo's intents and purposes, namely Cleveland-Akron. Anywho, they thought bringing in Ludo for a few ambush rock shows in mall parking lots would help promote the company. And sweet Lord were they right! We drove all day Thursday to arrive without shame at the Baymont Hotel and Suites in Macedonia (the small town in Ohio, not the former-Yugoslav-Republic-now-small-developing-country in the Balkans). This was around midnight. We went to sleep. At 9:30 Friday morning, after a half-hour drive, we arrived in the parking lot of the Pavilion Mall in Beachwood, an eastern suburb of Cleveland, where we met our production buddies. The crew unfolded the truck in the lot creating a stage that faced the Revol store. The Kiss 96.5 FM truck pulled up, set up a Plinko game, a free-stuff booth, and started blaring the latest rock hits(!). The Revol promotions crew rolled up in their Revol RV and SUV and set up their free-stuff canopy, where they would be passing out water bottles, T-shirts, and frisbees, all adorning the Revol logo and various catchy slogans ("Counting Minutes is for Suckers!"). Ludo went over to Tops Supermarket to buy water jugs and go potty. That's where I tried to fun-lovingly throw Tim Convy a gallon water jug that ultimately thunked his arm awkwardly and exploded on the floor. I am an idiot. Then we went back to the stage, where we loaded our equipment on with help from the crew, set up our stuff, and soundchecked with Dutch: great soundman, relentless advocate of funk. I set up a miniature version of our merch table (Baby Vegas) right next to the x-treme rock booth for Kiss 96.5 FM(!). Matt's Aunt Patty showed up to catch the sweet-ass rock show. At noon-thirty, we started playing. It was hot. We were kind of totally baking in the sun. But the rock must go on! Some people trickled over. The promo peeps began some fun-loving pasttimes of their own, tossing the Revol frisbees with carefree abandon and giving out free stuff to the tricklers-by. Around 1:00, Kiss 96.5 FM totally just left(!). Because they were under the impression they were supposed to be there from noon to one. We played and played and played. At 1:30, the show came to a rousing, triumphant climax, and all the Revol people and crew cheered enthusiastically. Then we loaded off, the crew packed up the stage, folded the truck bed back up, and hit it for the next location. We had to start playing again at 6:30 at a different location, so we had an hour or two to kill between shows. And what did we do? Convy spent some time in the supermarket men's room. Pmo ate lunch with his aunt at Ruby Tuesday's. Marshall, Ferrell, and I hung out in the Revol RV with the promo peoples and ate little ham sandwiches. Except for Ferrell, who ate really cheap, but super-crunchy peanut butter by smushing slices of bread into it and pulling them out. After that got oldish, we made our way over to Strongsville (a southwestern suburb of Cleveland), where we had a group nap in the parking lot of the South Park Mall for about 45 minutes. It was really great. The stage was pretty much ready to go when we got up, so we loaded on, soundchecked, I set up merch (Daddy Vegas), and then we all went into the mall to use their facilities. Convy did some supersweet promo to the kids cruising the mall. We warmed up, and hit the stage at 6:30 for another really tight hour of rock. This time, the sun was settingish, so it was pretty much all up in our grills, cauterizing whatever pores remained open from the noon-thirty show. We were burning. But hey, that's rock. And like I always say, that's what you get for being white. But it was all good, because the masterminds behind the production had called in the ice-cream truck, and it was all free ice cream for everybody. Before we played, I ate four or so tasty frozen treats. Convy and Marshall had like three each. And Pmo finally go to show us his "Bubble Play" baseball mitt popsicle with bubble gum baseball in the center. Mmmm... The people seemed to dig what we were doing and the ice cream didn't hurt either. During "Girls on Trampolines," oddly enough Officers One, Two, and Three were there, standing at the periphery of the cordoned-off section of parking lot, arms folded, sunglasses on, possibly enjoying the show, totally NOT enjoying being referred to as Officers One, Two, and Three from stage. The Revol frisbees flew. The Kiss 96.5 FM people totally weren't there at all(!). We rocked out, sold some stuff, said hello to some of the peoples, packed up, loaded out, and said goodbye to the South Park Mall parking lot. That night, we ate at Buca di Beppo, where we had Chicken Parm, pepperoni pizza, salad, and water. Meanwhile Ferrell had a cheese pizza with no cheese. Which I guess could be called "sauce-bread." So yeah, Ferrell ate sauce-bread. Whee! Then we drove back to Macedonia (the small town in Ohio, not the ancient Hellenic civilization), stopping on the way for a tasty shake treat, arriving finally back at the Baymont, where we had a meeting about artwork, and then retired quite lustily fo the evening around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. We were all burnt to shit.

Friday, 6/24/05 The Granada (Lawrence, KS)

This is it, folks, the Big Dance. La Bamba. Los Magnificos. El Dia de Los Muertos. Ristorante Italiano. La Tour d'Eiffel. Mein Kampf. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Coca-Cola. Montevideo, Uruguay. Charles Barkley's shorts. Shane Vendrell. Footage of bears dressed like people having Thanksgiving dinner. That's right. Ludo is headlining in Lawrence, no questions asked. The Buzz from K.C. was delightful enough to promote the show for us, and come out and enjoy the evening's festivities in our good company. And just as planets will align over the millennia to create unnatural pulls on the Earth's orbit, five former members of Anything But Joey would be playing on the bill with us in the bands, The Famed, and Stuck on Broadway. The pull was on everyone's crotchal region. In a good rollercoaster-dip kinda way. And our Neighbors to the North, Canada's own Crowned King (hey, I thought they had a Prime Minister... LOL!!!!) would also be making serious shit happen onstage. Took in their set. They were marvelous. Very cool guys. Then our buddies in SOB and the Fay-med played their rocking rock shows of rock. And then, finally in an explosive climax of extreme musical goodness, Ludo kicked the Hamburglar in the balls with a Super-Size Big Mac Meal of rock and ketchup. Pmo dropped a drum solo that made children turn into adults and adults turn into children. We explained the nature of the universe to everyone with such tracks as "Air-Conditioned Love" and "Save Our City." We allowed condiments to pour from their eye sockets with some rip-roaring rock tunes as "Hum Along" and Ode to Kevin Arnold." Finally we (against all measures of tact and restraint) chose to do an encore with Faith No More's drippy sex theme, "Epic." Seven people spontaneously combusted, while seven more were spontaneously pregnantified in the Granada. Fortauntely, they had all signed waivers upon entering the show, knowing full well the dangers and risks that go along with entering a Ludo rock show. Sure it's a gamble, but people know you could also come out the other side a demi-God. I'm just sayin'... The Buzz was awesome! The ninjas were awesome! Everyone who helped us this week really made a huge difference. And it's all gearing up for this sick-ass Video Premiere. Zygezunt. Ricky Schroeder.

Thursday, 6/23/05 Sokol Underground (Omaha, NE)

After a strident driving across a few state lines, we were in Warren's Buffeteria, for the first time since the razing of the Ranch Bowl to make way for one of those cultural meccas architectural historians will refer to as "the Wal-Mart." Twould be our first show with our ex-ABJ buddies in The Famed and our friends from the North in the band Crowned King, who is on tour in a giant Blue Bird School Bus. The Sokol Underground was cool as shit. I don't care. People can complain about parking and a bad neighborhood 'til their blue in their cornfed faces. I like the place a lot. I get the feeling that show will be the first of many for Ludo at the Sokol facility in Omaha. The rock was requested. And the rock was broughten. Hard. We slayed the ever-loving crap out of the dozen-dozen Thursday night crowd. We killed seven people incidentally and injured nineteen. It was great! And by "killed" and "injured," I mean "rocked" and "vicariously climaxed" irrespectively. It was really wonderful to get back to all our People of the Populated Nebraskan Corner. They know how to raise 'em right and rock 'em hard there. We loaded out, hit the hay, and prepared for a big-ass, bad-ass, show-ass in Kans-ass.

Tuesday, 6/21/05 Warped Tour - UMB Bank Pavilion (St. Louis, MO)

After last year's debacle of heat, blood, and vomit, Ludo was prepared this year to face the elements a little bit more hydratedly. After our friends The Feds, crashed at Chez Convy, and some super-duper-helper buddies (Vajessa, Rachel, and Dan) crashed at Chez Me-'n'-Matt, we got up at the early time (when the bright disc has only just entered the wide blue), drove out to UMB and found out we were supposed to be playing at 11:25. Which is weird because I