Saturday, 12/9/06 The Pageant (St. Louis, MO)

With two days to prepare and a whole team of elves coming in to fill in the gaps, we set to work. It was time for the greatest night of the year... A Very Ludo Christmas 2006!!!! We set to work on Thursday, with Nick Thunderchops already in town, running errands, and practicing in his Frosty the Snowman costume. The backdrop, the cherries, the candy cane archway, the confetti cannons, and the costumes all arrived on time. The plethora of t-shirts and buttons and posters and garland and lights all came together within a 48-hour span. Our Wisconsin contingent had been stitching and planning for weeks, as had we, with our various Christmas schemes. Nicky flew in from Omaha to run merch as an elf. Joe Leonard (www.blatantlysubtle.com), who had produced and edited the Broken Bride "Making Of" video, flew in from L.A. to document the evening. The Palermos flew in from Houston to celebrate Matt's birthday, wrap Christmas presents, and inflate inflatables. The Sergenians drove in from Wisconsin, bearing in tow, Mr. Santa Claus Sergenian himself, Master Seamstress, Mama Sergenian, Geneva, two Genevan compadres, a 7-foot Mark of the Beast, and a delightfully assistifying Jen 'n' Nate. My little sister Teresa, in celebration of her 21st birthday, came home from West Virginia via Orlando, donned an elf costume and set to work with the rest of the crew at the Pageant. My cousin Shane took the train in from Tongaoxie, Kansas with my Aunt Denise (both ninjas) to help roll t-shirts before the show, Shane eventually taking on the lowering/raising of the screen and bearing a second camera for Joe. Amanda drove in from Bloomington to be an elf. Dave Heltibrand arrived and put on his Rudolph costume, as his wife Katrina made the final elf. Jason Snackenballs took time from his life-threateningly busy life to show up and run sound. If anyone has heard from Bert McClimans, please e-mail band@ludorock.com with his whereabouts. Curran Convy picked up Nicky from the airport. Tim Convy picked up Tim O'Heir from the airport. Planes continued to pick themselves up at the airport and soar with the magic of flight. Greather (with her Mrs. Claus costume and a platter loaded with homemade cookies) and I (with a carful of poinsettias, wrapping paper, and a Christmas tree) arrived alongside the rest of Ludo and everyone else at the Pageant around 3:00 and hit the ground running. We set up, wrapped, rolled, punched, taped, snipped, hung, lit, decorated, inflated, plugged in, turned on, and soundchecked as efficiently as possible. Thirty people working in tandem. Bob hooked up the Christmas lights onstage so that he could control them from the light booth. 93X was running ads. The Point was running ads and I'd done a call-in interview. We'd hung out for an hour at WLCA. Ninjas and fans had put up posters all over town. Building Rome had promoted their asses off at every show leading up in the previous month, not to mention they'd sold 200 tickets. We barely got the merch set up and ready to go when the doors busted open at 6:50pm. Mrs. Claus, Santa, Rudolph and elves were there to pass out tickets to the first 200 through the door. They all got the free poster featuring one of the pictures we'd had taken at the Sears portrait studio. Whee! Mrs. Claus gave the peoples cookies as they entered. Photos were taken with all the various Christmas characters. Burl Ives crooned Christmas classics throughout the house. The holiday favorite, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," played on the big screen. It was a winter wonderland to behold indeed. Building Rome got up and kicked ass, after busting out of giant prop presents onstage. The crowd went nutso. Tally Hall got up and went c-c-c-crazy with their awesome, awesome show. The crowd loved it. Then we raised the backdrop and prepared the stage for Santa Claus. He came on, lit up the world with his magic touch, and we crept out amongst the Christmas amazingness, got set and then hit it with the theme from Gremlins right into Girls on Trampolines. Man this show felt good! Song after song, with nary an apology in sight. At the end of Save Our City, the confetti cannons blasted a small blizzard of snowy wonder into the air, electrifying everyone's loins! Dropped a new song soloishly, Angel in a Hoodie, then finished out the set hard. Until of course I accidentally broke my hand in half at the end of Broken Bride. We had to find someone to fill in. Fortunately a 7'-tall elf had just wheeled Frosty the Snowman onto the stage and dropped him off for decorative purposes. We sang Frosty the Snowman, he sprang to life, took my guitar and rocked into Good Will Hunting By Myself! It was Noel-errific! It turns out those fingers made of snow can really shred. After the solo, all the Christmas characters and other band members came onstage, we all sang Jingle Bells with the crowd, closed it out hard, and ended with a final explosion of confetti snowflakes. We threw out presents and various other parts of the stage to the eager Christmas piranhas in the crowd. They usually find a way to rip to shreds anything you throw them. It's impressive. If you ever need to destroy some secret corporate documents, just come to our Christmas show and throw them into the crowd. Rudolph unfortunately got sick and fell over, but the Tally Hall guys resuscitated him. We ran out to merch, sold, signed and photographed as quickly as we possibly could before they kicked everyone out, and then said goodnight. The moment the doors were closed, we had to race to break down and load out so that the Pageant staff could get out of there and go home. Everyone helped again amazingly. We packed up the van, trailer, and various cars and said huggy goodbyes to all of our crew and friends, wishing everyone a happy holiday and a deeply fulfilling, multi-grain crunch New Year. Sweet Lord, it was a very Ludo Christmas!

Tuesday, 12/5/06 Siena Heights University (Adrian, MI)

Up and at 'em! Hit the road on Sunday for Pittsburgh, where the great Joe Madia allowed us into his underground lair. It became bastardishly cold. We got some pizza to go, played Guitar Hero II at Joe's, reminiscified, spent the night, rocked Kinko's the next day, and then got out the hell out of Pittsburgh, because it's the most difficult city in the U.S. in which to simultaneously drive and stay alive. The snow commenced somewhere in upper Ohio. Literally, it started in the sky and then fell to the ground. Travel conditions were fine, but the bitterness of the cold was mesmerizing in a bad way. After a wide spattering of research phone calls around the I-80 area of the Cleveland-Akron metropolis, we found a Best Western that was only $66.60 per room with the AAA discount, and it had wireless. SOLD! Got up the next day, tried to go to Cingular to get me a new phone, but the guy there was a pony and I left emptyhanded. Sad. Drove to Adrian, MI, found our contact Kelly, who toted us out for food. We settled on Chinese at the Golden Wok, where the wok was indeed not golden, and the traditional Chinese music they were playing sounded EXACTLY like pop-country. We returned to the school, loaded in, and remarked again at how phenomenally cold winter was. Set up, soundchecked, and then rocked a rock show for 30 people who (delightfully) stuck around for the entire show. They earned every single song we played. Such good people. We did it hard, closed it down, met some peoples, tore down, loaded out, thanked the committee member helper ladies, and hit the road for home, after swinging low through Taco Bell and Burger King in our sweet chariot. Hopefully we would be home around sunrise.

Saturday, 12/2/06 Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA)

Didn't have to check out until 2:00pm! That is so sweet. Got up, drove to Allentown, couldn't open the contract though, so we didn't know where we were going or what time we needed to be there. But on we drove anyway. Marshall and Convy wandered the campus after we got there, trying to find out the necessary info. They had to leave various notes and clues so that the people running the show would know to call us. We went and checked in at the Wingate Inn, ate some T.G.I. Friday's and returned to campus. We'd been contacted and given the vitals on the show, and blessed with the gift of informedness, we busted open the trailer and loaded in. As we set up, a cast of so many unexpected characters strolled in, Mollie and Megan from Texas, my cousin Anna, her boyf and Alyce, Winter from NYC, and Mikala from Tennessee. Such surprisers these travelers! The comedian took the stage at 10:00 and made uproarious laughters to a packed room, introduced us as "some band," and then left for the night - thanks, good to be here. At that moment, apparently a statewide ban on ice cream was lifted, because the entire audience filed out and made a b-line for the cafeteria ice cream machine. Wha? Only about a tenth of them would return, but those who did got their minds rocked in half by 850 fluid ounces of rock juice! Superdoo. Afterwards, we loaded out, gathered some foods from the cafeteria place, and retired to the Wingate, where we did internets, watched televisions and slept soundlies.

Friday, 12/1/06 Pennsylvania College of Technology (Williamsport, PA)

Shocked out of REM sleep by a flying machine hitting the ground, we found ourselves awakened by means of violent jolt, as we careened crazily toward the tarmac at Philadelphia International Airport. Gah. Barely alive were we. Gathered ourselves and our stuffs, smacked baggage claim in the mouth, and headed out in search of a shuttle back to the Econo Lodge. After a recent rash of touring bands having their vans/trailers stolen in Philadelphia (most recently Damone's from an airport motel there), we were urging the powers-that-be to have spared our lowly travel machine. And they had. YES! We mounted up, reunited as a quintet for the first time in almost four weeks, attached the trailer, loaded it, and headed for Williamsport with Ferrell at the helm. The rest of us slept, grateful for finally being able to stretch out and sleep. Three hours later, we rolled up at the Pennsylvania College of Technology, and although we had moved as quickly as humanly possible from Los Angeles to Williamsport, we were still running late. We loaded in, set up, soundchecked, and then made way for Ronnie Jordan. Ronnie is a rare breed: a comic on the college circuit who is funny. But he's not just funny - he's freaking HILARIOUS! Check him out. He'll make you cry in your pants. Then we got up, and to a dwindling, seated crowd of 30, we rocked for a good hour and 15 minutes. A couple dozen people were cool enough to stay for the whole thing, but at the end for the most part, they scattered like roaches with the lights on. A few stragglers hung out and were very cool to us. We tore down quickly, and loaded out, driving to the Fairfield Inn just in time to order some Papa John's and sleep on our faces. All told, it was a fine place to play, this Pennsylvania College of Technology. Except of course for the maddening sound of howling wind that constantly ripped up and down the elevator shaft just outside the room where we played, shrieking into our brains like the voices of so many disturbed banshees, incessant in their plea for us to give up on life. Besides that, it was a delightful place.

Thursday, 11/30/06 The Key Club (Hollywood, CA)

After our little Thanksgiving break, I drove from Orlando to St. Louis on Monday, while Conman picked up Pmo from the airport. I got in to St. Louis around 2:00am, slept for a few hours, then got up to drive with Matt and Convy to Philadelphia. We got in around 3:30am, checked into our hotel, detached the trailer and parked it in the Econo Lodge's provided airport parking lot, parked the van as well, and went to sleep. Got up and boarded the shuttle to the airport three hours later, flew to Chicago, caught a connection to Los Angeles, scraping away at some fitful sleep during the four-hour flight. Arrived at LAX, got our baggages, including guitars, pedals, and the moog, and met the rental car shuttle guy, who then drove us to LAX Car Rentals, where we rented that very van for transport around Hollywood. They even gave us a GPS thingy. Yeah. Drove over to the House of Blues building for a meeting with some delightful peoples and where we decided to solicit a $70 parking ticket. Awesome! Marshall showed up at the meeting after overcoming some logisitical obstacles between Menifee, CA and Hollywood. He was safe and with us though so we were happies. After that we had some Thai food with Eddie Applebaum and our lawyer/lover, Dan Friedman. Then we headed back to the Hollywood City Inn and slept so good. Well, we also hung out with some Holdeneers and the Great Scott Culver of Good Will Hunting By Myself video directorial fame. He also did like Yellowcard or something. Anywho, the next day, we got up, did some internet workskies, Marshall, Pmo, and I had some In-n-Out, and returned to find Ferrell having rejoined us after his personal trip to Thailand. He gave us all little Thailand keychains. And he looked tired. Then we drove to the Hustler store where we said hey to Friedman, then continued on to the Key Club on Sunset. That's where the show would be. It was a showcase for the four winners from the 2006 Warped Tour Ernie Ball Local Heroes stage, featuring Don't Die Cindy, Karate High School, Natives of the New Dawn, Ludo, and starring Mutemath and Cute Is What We Aim For. We were very excited to be a part of it, and delighted that we were one of the four bands chosen. We loaded in, found out we were playing first, set up, soundchecked, got some sweet-ass free gear from the sponsors including Guitar Hero II and some backpacks, and then did a really fun interview. The peoples came in (including two WLCA ladies who had flown all the way from Illinois for the show!), Brian Ball introduced us, and we rocked through 25 minutes of Ludoism. Everyone from Ernie Ball and Warped Tour and the Key Club were exceptionally nice to us. The crowd was stoic, wooden, and west coasty, but that's what's to be expected. We were immediately whisked away by Friedman, who brought us and the goodman, Dave Roberge, next door to the Rainbow Room, where Paul Pontius was holding court over pizza with our new labelmates, Damone (BFF!), and many other finely credentialed individuals. Shit was shot, although we were very disappointed to have missed most of the rest of the show. It started getting cold, and twas late, so we headed back to our hotel where we hung out for a couple hours, leaving for the airport at 3:30 in the morning. Convy and I returned the rental van after dropping off the other three at LAX. Then we stowed away on a hotel shuttle to get back to the airport. Got on the plane around 6:30 in the morning, and slept airplanically for five hours. We would wake up in Philadelphia at 2:30 in the afternoon. Wha?

Wednesday, 11/22/06 Sokol Underground (Omaha, NE)

For the third year in a row, Ludo was doing the night before Thanksgiving in Omaha. The cranberry sauce had broken, the cornucopia was dilated, and the turkey was due. Like smallpox on a pilgrim, Marshall, Matt, Convy, Nick "Thunderchops" Sergenian (subbing for Ferrell), and I were there to rock. Mark of the Beast would be lending a hand backstage, while the Indian princess Nicky stood proudly at the helm of the Merchflower, slinging maize and yams at the starving, uber-Christian white peoples. The show was being put on by The River radio station, rocking out of Iowa Western Community College and kindly playing Ludo songs on their Sunday night show, "Planet O" for years. Swizzletree was bringing the pain in their hub of Cornhusker hotness and had stacked the bill with hotties. Pomeroy, Straight Outta Junior High, Noizewave, and Flurry. 'Twould be a grand night for all those present. We arrove, loaded in, set up, and after being rejected by the Burger King across the street (closed for electrical outage), we succumbed to the lack of options and absorbed some McDonald's chemicals to tide us over. They opened doors, people gushed in, filling the place by the time the first band took stage. We went up second, rocking as hard as we could, garnering the crazy sing-along and thrashbeasting to which Omaha has always treated us, and left in a cloud of sweat and pre-Thanksgiving appetite. We hung out and chatted up our lovers in Pomeroy all night, and got to see a full bill of great bands. It was a killer night. As it drew to a close, the turkey goo slid through our brainy blood vessels, we loaded up, said goodbye to the Nickman and Convy and I hit the road. Marshall was already home for Thanksgiving and Matt's flight was departing the next morning from Omaha. Happy Thanksgiving, our dear Nebraskans! Let's do it again next year! Yes?

Thursday, 11/16/06 University of Wisconsin-Stout (Menomonie, WI)

After a couple days hanging out in a hotel room in the Green Bay area doin various workskeez, Ludo was ready to see how the other half of the Cheese State lived. We mounted up and drove to Western Wisconsin, arriving at the university right around 6:00, where we greeted Thunderchops and Mark of the Beast. Loaded in, soundchecked, ate some PB&J/chips/salsa, watched the Office, made a setlist, and prepared to play what would ultimately be the best Ferrell-less show we'd ever played (the bar had been set rather low). Down and Above went first, a three-piece who rocks well beyond their few-memberedness. Then we hit the stage, determined to play a better show than we'd lopped off the block at St. Norbert. Nick had been able to spend a little more time with the songs, and was sporting a confidence and a rockin' shirt that spoke volumes on what the crowd was about to witness. Fortunately, due to excellent promo by the students (including He-Man's sister dressed as an ape pulling people into the show), there were upwards of 100 people there to rock out. They had come to the right place. We powered through as decisive a set as many in that room had ever witnessed, or so we would like to tell ourselves. Nick was rocking. We were rocking. The crowd was rock(ed/ing). And we pulled it off! Somehow, some way, we did it! We even had a dance contest, the winner of which was EVERYONE! Hooray! Afterwards, several kind people wanted an encore, but we gave 'em the straight dish... we didn't know anymore songs that Nick could play. So by default, the show was over. And so it was. We slung some tees, some hugs, some pics, some sigs, and other four-letters things, packed up, ate some sandwiches, courtesy of the university (the waffle fries were phenomenal), loaded the trailer, and drove the 8 hours back home. And so it was.

Tuesday, 11/14/06 St. Norbert College (De Pere, WI)

The weekend was very hard. We left St. Louis again without Ferrell, for the Green Bay area. We drove all day, caravanned with the Sergenians once we reached the Sun Prairie area, and arrived at St. Norbert right around 6:30. Loaded in with the help of the St. Norbertos, and set up as quickly as we could. They fed us, gave us water, and took good care of us. Geneva ran the merch for us, while Mama Sergenian watched over us like a guardian angel. I'd given Nick the chords to ten songs the day before, and fortunately he'd been listening to our songs for long enough that he could figure out the rest. He winged it, filling in for Ferrell as best as someone could on one-day's notice. He was solid! We played a show to about 25 peeps, and they were very good to us. We said goodbyesies to our new friends, sent the Sergernians on their way, and headed to our hotel room where we watched Tracy Morgan be hilarious on Jimmy Kimmel. Sleepums!

Friday, 11/10/06 Remington's Downtown (Springfield, MO)

We left Tongie about 3:30, and then proceeded to sit in traffic on I-435 for two hours. We then sat in more traffic. Then some more. Then when we finally made it to Springfield, Gorgolina sent us to the wrong address. Then we found the right one, but couldn't actually get the van in the right spot for 15 minutes. All told we began to unload almost 7 hours after we left Topeka for Springfield. We had made horrible time, but the Amsterbanders were amazing and held up the show for us. The opening band didn't even start until right around when we arrived. They were good. Borrowed some of Amsterband's equipment, checked to make sure our instruments were in tune, and then played our second Ferrell-less, all-request show in as many days. Greather ran merch. We played an "enh" set, but tried our best to fill in Ferrell's gaps. Marshall even sang. It was amazing. Then Amsterband played a phenomenal set, as they always do. The crowd went nutskies. We held our Amsterbrothers close, took some pictures with the good peoples, packed up, and loaded out. We had some IHOP, and headed home.

Thursday, 11/9/06 The Boobie Trap (Topeka, KS)

Got up on Wednesday mo'n, said goodbye to Grand Forks, and headed down 29 south. We stopped at Exit 100 so we (I) could see the KVLY-TV tower, also known as... The Tallest Structure in the World! After the collapsing of a slightly taller tower in Poland, and standing 2,063 feet, this is definitely the world's tallest manmade thing. You could stack the Gateway Arch three times and it would still be 17 stories shorter than this tower. Considering all these stats, seeing it in person is amazingly disappointing, we found out after driving 10 miles off the highway and down a dirt road. At least now we know. We kept driving all day, heading for the greater Omaha area where we would stop and spend the night at Papa Fanciullo's. About a half-hour outside of Bellevue, Ferrell got the phone call from home that he needed to go home. We stopped at a bar that had wireless to help him decide how to go about it. He booked a seat on the next available flight from Omaha to St. Louis, for early, Thursday morning. We hung out at Marshall's dad's house until about 5:15am and dropped Ferrell off at the airport. He flew home. We went and napped in Mr. Fanciullo's basement until that afternoon, when we got up and out the door for Topeka. At the Boobie Trap, it was good to see Anchondo and The Feed already there. We were fortunate to be among friends this weekend. Both bands loaned us equipment so we didn't have too much to set up. Jess watched the merch for us. We got onstage, and after playing Bride, we apprised the crowd of the reason for Ferrell's absence, and entreated them to expect little of us this night. Which they did. We did an all-request show to the best of our ability, bantered extensively, and let one of good Kansan Ludo peoples take the stage and rattle off the rant from Good Will Hunting which he did amazingly well. Got to hang out the rest of the night, watch two great performances from The Feed and then Anchondo, and relax with friends. It was really nice. We drove with up-and-coming star sportscaster Shane Howard part of the way back to Tongie, parting ways sadly in a McDonald's drive-thru. Aunt Denise and Uncle Kyle were delightfully sweet to let us take over the lower level of their house that late night and morning. Playing without Ferrell sucks. I guess that's why they call it Ferrellludo. Except the "Ferrell" is silent.

Tuesday, 11/7/06 University of North Dakota (Grand Forks, ND)

Saw an amazing rendition of Broken Bride: The Musical at University of Chicago on Saturday night. It was surreal to see actors singing and performing the Broken Bride story, but it was really phenomenal how they pulled it off. We hit the cast party and figuratively fellated the cast and crew about how great everything was. I was proud to have been a part of it. The project, not the fellatio. After a two-day layover with Megs-n-jen and Marc MickleMusty, we hit the road Monday night, arriving at the LivInn Suites in Minneapolis, as selected by Pmo via orbitz.com. It was a stellar hotel. Pmo got three gold stars and a hand slap for that one! LUCKY! We mounted up the next day after a luxurious check-out, and headed for Norf Dakoty. We were greeted on campus by Bob, who is a bad-ass. Bob is one of the coolest mofos ever. And you can quote me on that. We loaded in, set up, and despite a Convy migraine, started rocking right around 8:50. We did a full hour of relentless power to a spirited chunk of two dozen peoples. There were a couple couchies, who we eventually (by the Good Will Hunting rant) were able to coax to the front. We finished the show with everyone actually up by the stage (it was like a rock show!), and gave it all we had. Afterwards, they all seemed to get CD's and whatnots, and were all monumentally cool to us. We joined UPC for a delicious meal at the Blue Moose across the border in East Grand Forks, where Bob entertained our seemingly endless stream of questions about his field of interest, Air Traffic Control (so, how do you know when to tell a plane to go where?). But he was sharp and informative, even after a hundred questions. I think he'll do fine tellin' dem dere flyboys what to do. We packed it up, said our goodbyes, and were led to the Holiday Inn, where Marshall and Conman checked out the casino, and Matt and I took in a little campaign results action on the television. Oh, there it is. The result is in. CNN and Fox News are calling it. McCaskill defeats Jim Talent. The Democrats take the House. But will they take the Senate? Tune in next week for more from Recount II: The Virginia Ballots. Maybe tomorrow we'll use that waterslide before we leave town. By the way, there's a waterslide out my window.

Friday, 11/3/06 The Warehouse (La Crosse, WI)

Ludo had spent two days at the Bandana Square Best Western, but didn't pay a dime. How, you ask? I'll tell ya! St. Catherine's was nice enough to get us three hotel rooms for the night of our show. Knowing full well though that our cancelled Moorhead show left us with a day off, Conman got the hotel to move one of the rooms to the next night. So we slept in two rooms on Wednesday night and then on Thursday, piled into the third room, where we would sleep in the manner of pod-contained peas. Drove to La Crosse, ate some Jimmy John's, loaded in with the help of Abraham Lincoln (who was subbing in for Thunderchops), then backlined and erected merch. We were playing with our good buddies, Rising Moxie, local La Crossians Zango Dango (totally can't remember their name, but they rocked!), and direct from Sweden (composed entirely of Swedes) the Swedish rock band, Outshine (they're Swedish!). Awesome guys! Very cool. Then in came the peoples. Pmo, Conman and I watched the "Heroes" pilot on Conman's computer. Okay, okay, not so bad. It's no "The Shield," but really it's not fair to compare any show to Vic Mackey's land of laws. One of the guys in Outshine explained what fjords were to Matt and me. I had no idea. Radical. After three seatbelt-ripping sets, we helped Outshine load off, and then initiated a Ludo rarity: an all-request show! Here's what they wanted, in the following order: Girls on Trampolines, Please, Hum Along, Save Our City, Laundry Girl*, Love Me Dead, Good Will Hunting By Myself, and Part I: Broken Bride. Then they had us encore with Part II: Tonight's the Night. Please note the asterisk by Laundry Girl. This is to indicate that we only played half of the song. Why, you ask? Good question. Well, we played half of it, then stopped right before the solo, and polled the crowd: "Should we finish the song?" They chose no. So we carried on to Love Me Dead. One guy in particular seemed pretty miffed, but his only gripe could be with his fellow crowd members. Democracy is an evil stepmother - a bitch, but you've gotta live with her. Thunderchops presided over the merch. We hung out for quite some time, saying goodbye and signing things for the various lingering awesome La Crosse people (or LaCrawesomes as I like to call them). We loaded out with much help from many, and went to Jimmy John's for more sandwich action. All told, around 120 paid to see this show, which was great. La Crosse has always been good to us, but they just get better every time. If you look closely at the picture from the stage, you can see the crazy L-U-D-O-! crew. So many amazing fans in this town. Thanks as always to Steve and the Warehouse. Good luck to our new Scandanavian friends and our old friends Rising Moxie. The Z-band was awesome too. We hit the road for Chez Sergenian in Sun Prairie. It was an uneventful trip, but that night we could barely sleep, since we knew that the next day, we would be witnessing the staged musical version of Broken Bride at the University of Chicago! SO EXCITED!

Wednesday, 11/1/06 College of St. Catherine (St. Paul, MN)

Finished up in the studio on Halloween night, left town at 10:00pm. Dropped Marc Dickblusty at his apartment/studio in Chicago off with his chihuahua Doris, around 4:00am. It was a little nippy, as we made our tired way over to Jen-n-megs' apartment. After a frustrating drive around in circles, we determined that there was no van-and-trailer parking within 3 miles of their house. We couldn't even find a single spot for depositing the trailer, so we could find another spot for the van. It was shitty. So after a brief hello-goodbye, we decided to keep driving to the Twin Cities. Arrived at 10:00am at the Best Western of Bandana Square, and slept for 5-8 hours. Got up, showered, and headed over to St. Catherine's (please, call her Kate), where we discovered after a pretty chilly load-in that they were expecting an acoustic show. So we brought all the equipment back to the trailer, set up merch, and got ready to do an Andrew/Ferrell acoustical party. Oh by the way, for those of you who are from Minnesota... there's a really awesome annual custom we have in the rest of the country that you should try. It's called Autumn. Give it a chance. I know it seems easier to go straight from Summer to Winter, but you gotta try this whole middle seasons thing, it's really brings out the non-shittiness in your cities. Anywho, we ate some foods at the on-campus collegiate grill courtesy of the lovely Miss Megan and Miss Hillary who were our university liaisons. The food was pretty blah, but we just wanted something to munch on so it was all good. Note: I bring up the subpar food quality only as a set-up to a later conversation. We then got up and did something we hadn't done in many moons... an acoustic show. Just Tim and me. An hour of ridiculousness, including the first time we'd ever played Angel in a Hoodie. Conman ran the sound board, while Matt and Marshall ran the lights. It was pretty hilarious. I'd say the lights definitely upstaged the rock. Unfortunately I was suffering from a tension headache so terrible, I had to keep my eyes closed the entire show. Then after the show I puked. Yuck, what a douchebag. I regret this headache may have cheapened the entertainment value of my performance, as I was not terribly animated, but I don't think anyone complained. Except of course for the cooks, who according to a girl talking to a Marshall, had said we were the worst band they'd ever seen there. Marshall replied (shooting from hip... speaking from the heart), "Well their food wasn't any good either, so it works out." Word. We met some nice young non-co-eds (eds??), packed up, went to CVS for some groceries and retired luxuriously to the Best Western at Bandana Square. I do not like bandanas. But I'm a fan of this hotel. Damn, it is COLD UP HERE!

Saturday, 10/28/06 The Blue Note (Columbia, MO)

After a short autumn's nap, we hullabalooed our way to Columbia along with Dan Friedman. The Cardinals had won the World Series and we had learned how to dress like giant cartoon characters and play a rock show. It was time for Nightmare on 9th Street 2: The Bloodening. We were to celebrate Halludoween! Loaded in with Thunderchops at the helm, set up, and got ready to play. The Dillman was readst to go on the soundboard and the Buzz was chomping at the bit to Halloween it up with us for the second year in a row. We had The State, The F*Bombs, and our boys in Upside playing with us. The doors opened, the Trick-or-Treaters stormed in, many literally dressed to kill and started filling up the Blue Note. We devoured some El Rancho and took in the terrifying pageantry of the growing crowd. Balconies opened to accomodate the 500 or so people who were gathering. Dan Friedman emerged as Harry Potter, wand and all. The State was dead. The F*Bombs were the Channel 4 Newsteam from Anchorman. Upside was the A-Team. And then there was the costume contest, taken of course by two 2-year olds going as Pebbles and Bam-Bam. We set up our gravestones, festooned our spiderwebs and took the stage after a lovely intro from our man Shags, who portrayed The Dude, along with his cohort from the Big Lebowski. I was the Cat in the Hat, Clifford the Big Red Dog was Convy, Oscar the Grouch was on the drums, Marshall was a boxing kangaroo, and Ferrell was Pooh Bear. We could not see or breathe. But it looked ridiculous. Yeah. Pounded mercilessly through the set as we sweated our lives away, finished big, rocked an encore, then dropped into the lobby to hang out with peoples and sign things and take pictures. It was an amazing night. We packed up and headed over to El Rancho, where drunk people in stupid costumes acted drunk and stupid and almost threw up on us, as we waited for our Mexican delight. We drove home, getting there at 4:00. Even after falling back for Daylight Savings. Crap, we was sleepy and entirely drained of water. I don't know how those Disney people do it in those costumes. They must be really powerful!

Friday, 10/27/06 St. Ambrose University (Davenport, IA)

After two weeks in the studio working on more Ludo magickerpieces, we were called upon by the skipper to play a couple rock shows. By the skipper, of course, I mean, the calendar. We had taken a sojourn to Johnnie Brock's Dungeon and found ourselves some outrageous costumes for Halludoween. Loaded up and headed out around 1:00pm with Thunderchops in our midst, headed for the pride and joy of the quadruple cities: Davenport, IA. D-Port (as I just now chose to start calling it) is like the oldest sibling - successful, attractive, well-adjusted - while Rock Island is the moderately accomplished younger brother, competent in the workplace, but socially inept. Moline, IL is more of an underachiever who has sex for attention. And then there's Bettendorf, IA - smoking crank and shivering under a nappy, stained Hello Kitty sleeping bag in an abandoned double-wide that smells like mildew and butts. We don't speak of Bettendorf. Note: these analogies were constructed solely based on imaginary criteria, so take no offense Bettendorfian wizards - I was shooting from the hip. We got to St. Ambrose (a beautiful school), loaded in, set up, ordered some Old Chicago food, and prepared our costumes. The St. Ambrosians were kind enough to supply us with a television in our dressing room, which was a boon! We'd be watching Game 5 of the World Series on it. After the A Cafellas sang two beautiful renditions of old classics, we took the stage. I was the Cat in the Hat. Ferrell was Winnie the Pooh. Marshall was a boxing kangaroo. Carn-marn was Clifford the Big Red Dog. Pmo was Oscar the Grouch. And we were all really blind and hot as hell. We rustily rumbled through an hour-long set of shim-shammin' Ludo-jammin', and just as the show ended we found out the result of the baseball game. What's that, you say? The St. Louis Cardinals? In the World Series? With the 13th best record in baseball this season, they weren't even supposed to make the playoffs. Hardly a soul outside of St. Louis thought they could handle the Padres in the NLDS. Absolutely none of the experts thought they could even compete with the Mets for the pennant. And after all that, upon the Cardinals making it to the World Series, one USA Today genius predicted "Tigers in 3, that is, if they can keep from laughing too hard." The Cardinals weren't even going to win one game in the World Series. Wait, they just won the whole thing! THE CARDINALS WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!! THE CARDINALS WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!! Holy crap! Go tell it on the mountain!!!!! It's been 24 years, and the team with the most championships after the Yankees has taken yet another World Series from the American League! I am stunned! I am in love! I can't describe the joy that is making sweet coitus with my brain right now. Convy just vomited pure sugar straight into the air, and it's turning into fireworks! I am in a dream world! Euphoria! GO CARDINALS!!!!!! Oh yeah, the show. The Ambrosians were absolutely amazing to us, the costumes were brutal, and the music was subpar. But it was fun, dang it. We packed up and hit the road for home. Nightmare on 9th Street was the next night, and we had some spider webs to hang! GO CARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday, 10/13/06 Canopy Club (Urbana, IL)

After a week off from touring, Ludo hopped in the van and drove ferociously across the Land of Lincoln. The night before had seen the first frost of the year's autumn, wisping at summer memories like so many forgotten ghosts. Chris Convy found time in his hectic important schedule to join us for the trip. We arove and loaded in. Set up, soundchecked, believed in ourselves. Set off in search of food and a friendly venue for watching the beloved St. Louis Cardinals in their NLCS Game 2 against the unconscionabe New York Mets. Ferrell and Marshall had Thai on their standard Champaign gay Thai dinner date. It was a real pink Thai affair! If you catch my meaning! Matt, two Convy's, and I went next door to the gourmet pizza restuarant, where Matt and I each got a pizza and the Convy boys pussed out for the ungreener pastures of Subway. Thunderchops chopped through the thunder and arrived from Wisconsin, He had various schematics in hand for AVLC3. Schematics, as you know, are diagrams of schemes and that Thunderchops is a shifty one. Then the Convy boys, Pmo, Nick, and I watched the offensive masterpiece that was the St. Louis Cardinals sexually charged 9-6 victory over those pondscummy bastards (who incidentally make up a pretty awesome baseball team). So Taguchi, my beloved fundamentally sound robotic grasshopper, hit his second post season home run in as many at bats, taking me into a momentary mustful Japanaphilia that threatened to overwhelm my motor functions. This tour diary is getting way out of control. Greather showed up to run merch. Megs-n-Jen showed up to run their mouths and be cute. The first two bands were really cool. Last Fast Action was even better than at their EP release and it's always beautiful to see them. We took the stage around 12:30 a.m. (LATE!) all donning our Jason Voorhees masks in our salute to Friday the 13th. There was a pack of rabid, local Ludo fans who also wore masks and were drenched in blood. We played an hour long set, all killer no filler, and all in all 150 people were there. It was a great night. Hung out briefly, pictures, hugs. Broke down, packed up, loaded out, hit the road at 3:00 a.m. We would be in bed by 7:00 that morning. Go Illini!

Saturday, 10/7/06 Lawrence University (Appleton, WI)

Got up for a late checkout, dropped Ferrell off at a vegan co-op, drove to BW2's to take in a scintillatingly unscintillating Cardinals loss in Game 3 of the NLDS to the Padres. Boo. With Sergenico in tow, we made the short hop up to Appleton, where we reconvened with Treaty of France. We set up in the room across the hall from the Union Grill. Ferrell had now officially passed his grody sickness on to me. I was Cosette in Les Miserables. For the second night in a row, we were soundchecking in a "what-do-you-guys-want-to-check?" kind of atmosphere. It was a little unsettling. We're far more comfortable when the sound guy is like, "Kick.... Okay, snare.... Does anyone need the bass in their monitors?" You know, all hands-on and shit. But it all turned out fine. We gorged ourselves on college dining hall fare. T.O.P. played to a couple dozen. Then we rocked our lives away to a couple-and-a-half dozen. And it was all good. We got an apple pie, popcorn, chips, salsa, bread, P.B.J., and several waters for our effort, and we greatly appreciated it. Lawrence was very kind to Ludo. But we had to move on. St. Louis was a-calling and I was feeling the driving marathon fire, so we entrusted our La Quinta hotel rooms to T.O.P. and hit the road for home, Convy taking us to Sun Prairie where we parted ways with St. Nick, and I in my cap, took us the rest of the way, for a long autumn nap.

Friday, 10/6/06 Marquette University (Milwaukee, WI)

The last time we played at Marquette, we played in the gym at the Annex under a basketball hoop to seventeen people. This time, we were actually playing in the nice theatre there with The Profits. We drove from Iowa, picked up Thunderballs Gumdroppo Sergenify in Sun Prairie, then trekked to Milly-waukay. The Good Land. We loaded in, hung out and read an article about vagina empowerment in the university paper, did some sudoku, ate peanut butter and jelly in the green room, and then soundchecked after the Profits. Exciting! The peoples came in, we took stage, and then dropped a powerful 50-minute juggersex on the crowd. There were probably 200 peeps in toto. Then The Profits played an in-depth set of acoustic danderwallying. It was awesome. Afterwards we drove Ferrell to a vegan place, while the rest of us went to Little Caesar's and Oakland Gyros. Yum... Drove to the motel and hit the hay!

Thursday, 10/5/06 Coe College (Cedar Rapids, IA)

Okay, Coe College is amazing to Ludo. We slept in, got up, changed our myspace status, and the ate at Quinton's mostly. I had Panchero's. Ferrell went to a co-op. We watched the Yankees lose, then trucked on down 380 to Cedar Rapids, where we checked into the Comfort Inn-South Cedar Rapids, watched the Cardinals win and talked about various band stuff. Then we went on down to the little lodge-like food store building on campus where we would be playing. We set up. We ordered Chinese. I didn't get any because I was not feeling so super. Ferrell didn't get any because he only eats at grocery stores. Lucas made the sound sound super with our able assistance. It didn't really seem like that many people were coming, but then suddenly... 100 people showed up! Yay! We gave them an 80-minute super show as best we could muster and I think everyone was sated. We retired to our hotel rooms after a speedy load-out and all was good. I must say, those Coe Collegiates are an attractive bunch. Rarr...

Wednesday, 10/4/06 The Picador (Iowa City, IA)

They took over Gabe's Oasis, cleaned it up, and called it the Picador. We were shocked that the bathrooms were no longer retchtastically filthy. It was awesome! We met our Treaty of Paris brodies, hugged, and loaded in up the brand-new, non-rickety, danger-free stairs. We were playing the late show, and the early show was taking, oh, roughly 40 minutes to break down their merch. Backlined, made way for Spanish For 100 (a Seattle band) and took in their 45-minute show. Then TOP rocked a half-hour of TOP power. The Iowa City Dolls ran merch. Finally, around 12:40 we took the stage, and the show went on to 1:30 in the mo'n. That, for those of you who aren't in the know, is late as shit. We finished up, packed up, tried to eat Panchero's at 2:30am, found it was closed, sadly checked into our hotel, but then joyously went to Perkin's for some 4:00am deliciousness. Yay!

Sunday, 10/1/06 Schuba's (Chicago, IL)

Back to Chicago we go! Got up at a reasonable hour, drove into the city. A car hit our trailer at 20 mph on the highway outside of Chitownia, driven by a bearded man and his kind wife. They were from Wisconsin. Our trailer was fine. Actually a little better, in that now the door sticks in such a way that it won't swing out into traffic when we're loading from the street. Their car was really ruined. Except it was a rental car and they had insurance so yay. Once at Schuba's, we treated ourselves to a delightful meal in the restaurant part of the establishment. Then we loaded in, set up, soundchecked, and made way for the new group comprised of members of The Dog & Everything, called Last Fast Action to load on and soundcheck. They sounded hot. Finally, on loaded State & Madison, who tore it in half vehemently, then taped it back together in a tight, pretty package. We hung out with our boy Shark McClusky before the show, and then took in the two opening bands' rip-roaring sets. We did a 75-minute royal rumpus, encored without leaving the stage, had the entire crowd take a picture at the same time, rocked out and then called it a night. Loaded out, hung out, then went to sleep with Jen-n-megs after an amazing spaghetti din-din. Hurrah!!

Saturday, 9/30/06 Valparaiso University (Valparaiso, IN)

After a gigantic night's sleep, we hopped in el vanno, and finished off the 9-hour trip from the Twin Cities to Valparaiso, Indianner. Arriving at Huegli Lawn (pronounced HUE-glee for those of you who do not wish to mocked by those who cannot comprehend mispronunciations of foreign and ambiguous proper nouns) ten minutes behind schedule, we found there was no one in sight, and certainly no stage. Stumped, we asked around and found out we were to be playing in the Great Hall of the Union or Something Like That. Sounded great to us. We loaded in, set up, and soundchecked extensively with the 6-man crew running sound for us. It was awesome. Heather the Great (Greather) drove up and ran merch for us, while Nick Thunderchops Sergeniocola popped out of one of the hoodie bins. A stowaway! Little boy, you can't be here, we told him. But he insisted he had always wanted to run away and join a troupe of music-pirates so we gave him an eyepatch and set him to work. Megs-n-jen appeared like religious visages and hung out with us. The peoples poured in and at eight o'clock we eight o'rocked! Eight o'awesome. We had not been to Valparaiso except for one time 18 months earlier, so we were long overdue, and the crowd reacted as such. They were a good mix of old fans and Ludo Virgins, which is ideal, and we gave them everything we had. Intense! We went insane during Good Will Hunting By Myself, mostly led by my monkeyous antics, closed it out hard, and encored with The Buster. Sex! After the show, we signed all manner of crap, hugged, photoed, packed up, loaded out, and headed with all the Union Boardies to Buffalo Wild Wings, where things got spicy! Why the hell do they call it BW3's? It seems to me there are only 2 W's involved here. Then again I am poorly educated, so pay no attention to my wild theories on chicken wing establishment name abbreviations. P.S. Have you ever stopped and thought about how many chickens they must have to murder in order to keep these places stocked. I felt like I was swimming in chicken parts. Don't get me wrong, I loved it, but seriously. There must be whole tribes of people who only kill chickens 24 hours a day every day, to keep the BW3's and KFC's running. They need to invent a machine that mass-produces dead chickens. We slept at the Hilton Garden Inn. So nice! But they skimp on pillows. Love. Byee!

Friday, 9/29/06 The Fine Line Music Cafe (Minneapolis, MN)

The Fine Line has amazing sound and impeccably spotless facilities. We arrove there after a short drive into the Twin Cities, ran down the street, and ate at Pizza Luce. Ferrell was still sick as a sick bear, but Marshall was feeling a little zippier. Pizza Luce was phenomenal as always. Intercepted Luke on our way into the club, hugged him wetly and thanked him for having us up for the show. Hung out in the downstairs band area, met the other bands who were all very cool, made a setlist, and then got ready for da show. We went on second, did a half-hour of extra power, and then made way for the other two bands. It was nice to be playing with such excellent sound again and with The Mini-Sodas running merch. When it was done-done, we hit the road for Sun Prairie where Thunderchops and his brood let us pillage their home once more. We did so mercilessly and with piratesque values.

Thursday, 9/28/06 The What's Up Lounge (Mankato, MN)

Well, we had to load in at 4:00pm, so we had a departure time of 6:00am. Which sucks since our schedules usually put us to bed by 2:00. But we were up bright and early with Matt at the helm of our 15-passenger dream machine, hurtling toward destiny as it awaited us in the Great White North. It turns out that it's not white yet in late September, but that's a good thing. We loaded in up the metal fire-escapey stairs in the back, with the help of the fine What's Up staff, set up merch, backlined, and prepared for the show. The Mini-Sodas, Kate and Jenna, showed up and helped with the merchy merch, some kids rolled in at doors, the opening band rocked, the second band balked, we played an hour of Ludolicious lyring, seemingly not wearing out the good graces of the cheerful crowdage. After us came Discount Brown and the Big Bass Brass Band. They were entertaining. We packed up, loaded out, thanked the peoples, had Pizza Hut with the Mini-Sodas, and then retired to the quaint Viking Jr. Motel. I asked the man at the desk where the name came from. He replied, "The Wiking..." I said, "Yes, where did they get the name?" He replied, "The Wiking..." I said, "Yes." He replied, "Like the football team, the Wiking." I said, "Right, the Minnesota Vikings, but how come it's the Viking Junior?" to which he responded, "Is not so big..." It was a charming little motor lodge, with some broken lawn ornament deer next to an American flag and a barbecue pit. The deer's legs were still firmly planted in the ground, but it's body had broken off from the legs and had fallen down between its erect-standing, torn off limbs. It was beautiful. We slept. We showered. We left.

Saturday, 9/23/06 The Creepy Crawl (St. Louis, MO)

It was time for a St. Louis show or two. Mostly two. We decided to do a double-show in the intimate new Creepy Crawl for our St. Louis loved ones. Set up by Bert, sound run by Yason, Snackenballs, these shows were to be on neither the chain, nor the hook. We did some practicing on Thursday to refresh our memory on certain rarely played songs we'd be breaking out, celebrated Ferrell's birthday on Friday, and Saturday we loaded in around 2:00. Heather ran merch with the help of Courtney and Kaki. Nick swooped into town and helped with all things necessary. Doors opened a little late for the early show, the peeps poured in, and Centerpointe kicked off the show, followed by the Amsterbanders. We played an hour of wall-to-wall Ludo, including all manner of rarities like Sara's Song, Laundry Girl, and Morning in May. We sang "Happy Birthday" to Ferrell and invited the crowd to stick around for the second show. Two hundred people did just that, everyone else was kicked out, and doors for the second show were opened. The Feed opened Show Deuce, followed by the mofos of Treaty of Paris. We rocked our second hour, repeating only Hum Along, Good Will Hunting, Broken Bride, and Save Our City. All in all, between the two shows, we played 23 different songs, and gave the crowd everything we possibly could. It was packed tight in there for both shows, the crowd was sweaty and wet and beautiful. Certain people ended up being at the Creepy Crawl for 11 or 12 hours. Amazing. All in all, it was an incredible day/night, and a treat to get to play an intimate show in our hometown. I think A Very Ludo Christmas is going to be life-changing.

Saturday, 9/16/06 Loras College (Dubuque, IA)

A Lorax is a Dr. Suess character. A Loras is a college in Iowa. I don't know what it is beyond that. I only know that it took us nine hours to get to Dubuque from Moorhead. Blah. Blech. Vomi! We arrived at 9:00 am, checked in early to our Holiday Inn rooms where we slept and otherwise engaged ourselves until 5:00. Marshall and Matt went to get something to eat at a charming little place near the hotel. At the end of the meal however, the waitress said, "I have to ask: is this a father-son outing today?" implying of course that Marshall was Matt's father. Shock and dismay followed. We drove over to the school, took a little while to find the Ballroom, but when we did, were delighted to find a gourmet meal awaiting us. We ate it with our gracious hosts keeping us company, and then loaded in with their contined support. Set up, soundchecked, left the merch to Miss Heather to take care of, and warmed up. The peoples came, we rocked them with an 80-minute set of childlike wonderment, packed up, thanked the Du-Hawks repeatedly for their kind delightfulness, and hit the road for home. It couldn't have gone more smashtastically!

Friday, 9/15/06 Concordia College (Moorhead, MN)

Starting the van in New Jersey, a mere half-mile from the Atlantic Ocean at 6:00pm on a Wednesday evening, I had little idea that I would drive for 18 hours straight, only stopping once we'd arrived in Wisconsin at noon on Thursday. I thus extended my consecutive driving run (and set a new Ludo record) with 1,800 miles in 30 hours. I felt good about it. Marshall capped it off with a 8-hour wingdinger that landed us as far west as you can be in Minnesota without actually being in North Dakota. We were probably 1,000 yards from Fargo, ND, and since I'm a big fan of the movie, I was excited. We crashed in deluxely amazing hotel rooms at the Courtyard by Marriott (we were impressed after our last hotel experience), and slept well before our big college show the next day. We were delighted to actually enter North Dakota, if only to visit the Fargo Little Caesar's and Kinko's. We then traveled over to the show, loaded in, set up, soundchecked, and got to eat delicious Erbert Gerbert sandwiches courtesy of our Concordia College liaison. This World's Fair showed up (we had played with them at The Garage with Quietdrive) met us and borrowed Matt's drums. We hung out in a foreign language classroom, drinking water, eating sandwiches and writing a setlist. It was yay. Then after TWF was done, we took the stage and rocked about 45 people (including the enigmatic Kate 'n' Jenna). Afterwards we loaded up and hit the road for Dubuque. Everyone there was really nice to us. So we liked them. Maybe we wil come to Moorhead, MN again. Like to play the other college there perhaps. Except more like not perhaps, but it's already on our tour calendar. Yay!

Wednesday, 9/13/06 Monmouth University (West Long Branch, NJ)

After five hours of sleep, we got up and Ferrell took the wheel at 9:00am, getting us all the way to Indiana by 1:00 before passing me the torch. I took that torch, rammed it up my ass, turbocharging myself to drive 700 miles straight in 12 hours to arrive at 2:30am in Randolph, NJ at the apartment of my care bearical cousin, Elizabeth, where she and her boyfriend Tom were recovering from a full day of drinking and dragracing. Tom recovered by being passed out. Elizabeth recovered by doing a shot (a vodka nightcap if you will) with Marshall. We passed out in various positions on the floor and couch, and six hours later dragged our asses out of bed, were generously dropped off at the Dover train station by Tom, and caught the 10:03 to New York's Penn Station. We emerged in Manhattan, stinky and disoriented, but nonetheless traipsed around the city all day, having free meals with various good peoples whose good ideas and interesting conversation topics were the only aspects that outshined the deliciousness of the freeness of the food. This was Monday. Pmo, Ferrell, and Convy swung down to Ground Zero for a fifteen minute respect-paying session (as it was the five-year anniversary of 9/11), whilst I, feeling entirely not up to making an impromptu visit to such an emotional place at that moment, grabbed Marshall and traipsed via subway down to a firefighters' bar downtown, where we had a few beers and talked meaningfully. That night, we hung out with The Dan Friedman show, Chris Convy, my cousin Anna, Tim Ferrell's wonderful college friend (Marcella? Marsala? Manalapan? who do I have to make out with to get a spell-check on her name?) and various other cool peoples, including Brenda Make-up(!) and the vivacious, surprising, and undeniable Adam Richman, whose talent for keeping every conversation smacked into its place is unmatched in the non-solo-acoustic artist world. Fun fun fun fun fun fun!!!! We split up. Ferrell went with M______ to sleep on Wall Street. Pmo and I went back to Anna's, played Scrabble and shot the breeze with her and crashed. Marshall stayed out late being Party-Guy, tried to come back to Anna's house, called all three of our phones, got no answer, and slept on the sidewalk until 6:30 in the morning, when some random let him in. Convy went back to Friedman's hotel, they both put on wifebeaters and boxer briefs, ate ice cream, spooned, watched Three's Company, and wistfully picked knits out of each other's chest hair until the sun came up and one of them was bold enough to make a move. We got up at 8:30 (four hours sleep again! damn it!), met peoples for breakfast and lunch, then killed some time at the AMC in Times Square (Little Miss Sunshine, The Illusionist), had some Ben 'n' Jerry's, killed more time running up a ridiculous bill for someone else to pay at a Japanese restaurant, then said our goodbyes, caught the 10:39 train to Dover, where Tom was good enough to pick us up again at 12:30am. We said our goodbyes and thank-you's and see-you-tomorrow's to him and Elizabeth, loaded our asses into the van, and drove to West Long Branch, as I extended my current driving run to 13 hours and 800 miles. Once in West Long Branch, we drove around in circles for many units of time trying to find a motel we could afford, finally settling on the $50/night Sands Motor Lodge, which appeared to have been a stylish place to have sexual intercourse in 1974, but since then has mainly been the spot chosed by wine-cooler consuming, vandalism enthusiasts to defecate on carpet. We slept well for 7 hours, woke up as we were hustled out at 11:00 by a none-too-friendly gentleman who dressed like an extra from the Tattooine scenes of Star Wars. We drove to Chili's, where Ferrell meditated in the van, I slept in the van, and everyone else ate Chili's. We drove over to campus, met our bad-ass liaisons, loaded in, set up equipment and merch out in front of the Student Union, ate some lunchypoo, and then played an hour-long set to whosoever would pass by between classes from 3:20-4:20. The crowd got steadily larger as the show progressed and our climax was witnessed by quite a little throng of 70 or so people, three of whom had ever even heard of us before. It was nice to be hitting completely virgin territory, and it seemed to go over well. We sold some stuff, talked to people, and then were treated to a delightful free lunch by Student Union Board after we packed up. We departed at 6:00pm for the far western edge of Minnesota.

Saturday, 9/9/06 The Rathskellar - Memorial Union at University of Wisconsin-Madison (Madison, WI)

Having taken too long a hiatus from visiting our beloved Badgers, Ludo was at the fortunate end of Stace's good graces and got to come back for another round of at-school rocking in the Cheese State. After arriving home in St. Louis from a two-week writing sequesterage in Spring, Texas, and spending 24 hours collecting ourselves, and we piled in the van and drove northernly for Madison. Embraced our buddies in Treaty of Paris most warmedly and after a little eating, loaded in. Naturally however, since we'd just come from Texas, we had forgotted about how it gets coldish in Sconsin, and we were without proper vestements. No matter. We donned whatever hoodies and joggers remained of our depleted stock and were none the worse for it, despite of course looking like assholes for wearing our own band's gear. But that's just how we roll. Summer's Eve style... Anywho, we backlined with TOP and The Response, with whom we had shared the outdoor stage before (good guys!) on the indoor stage at the Rathskellar, because the Memorial Union was being a pussy, and moved the show inside due to moderate weather. We set up merch and equipment, did our pre-show meeting, and took in a rousing Treaty-Response one-two punch. The peoples trickled in over the several hours we were there, and eventually amassed a crowd of several hondo, that we clumsily rocked the shit out of, over the course of a one-hour power display. They sang, they sweated, they responded uncertainly to our awkward banter. It was beautiful. But as always they were amazingly good to us, right there with us the whole show, and delightfully enthusiastico all night. That's why we love Madison so. These Sconsonites just know how to be good rockpeople! After the sex had died down, we said our goodbyes and thank-you's and wish-ya-well's, packed up and caravanned with Nick-em-ups to Sun Prairie, where we alotted ourselves 5 hours for sleeping. The next day we would get up at 8:30 and drive to New Jersey. Yikes.

Friday, 9/1/06 Warehouse Live (Houston, TX)

Our first time in a long time in Houston proper playing a Ludo rock show was preceded by and followed by a lengthy rest at Chez Palermo, where we worked on new music. We loaded in to the beautiful and spacious new venue, set up backline and merch, and then walked all the way to Minute Maid Park in search of food. We settled ultimately for a Chinese buffet 30 yards from the Warehouse. Despite his "No Chinese Buffet" fiscal policy, Marshall eventually caved in and ate there as well. We were all proud of him. Back at the venue, Mollie showed up and took over merch (as she so capably does) while Marshall and I tried to spit gum into each other's mouths backstage. About an hour before we were scheduled to play, the band Revelation Theory declared they would not be playing because their lead singer lost his voice. Unfortunately though, they declared it five minutes before they were supposed to play (but it was cool because their tour manager gave me a pair of awesome earplugs, so yeah). After a brief scramble, we worked out that Ludo would burn up the clock by loading onstage methodically and with great slowness, and after our line check, the two young stallions in Without a Face rocked some more of their acoustic jams for the gathered peoples, aptly filling the time up until our set. We battled through a delicious hour of great sound and great lights (by a lighting guy more spirited than most performers), but alas, had to cut our opulent version of Good Will Hunting short. There was a decent turnout (couple hundred people in all for the whole show, including Matt's grandma) considering 311 was in town and we had played in Spring (a 45-minute drive away) for our previous dozen H-Town shows. We got to see many familiar faces (our two WLCA lovelies drove all the way down from Illinois for the show!) and old friends and make some new friendsies as well. The guys in Makeshifte were cool enough to loan Ferrell a guitar amp because his amp head was being carnivorous and unappealing. Then Makeshifte took the stage. They closed it out hard and the half of the crowd that was not there for Ludo rocked out to their set. All was fine in the Lone Star State. We said our goodbyes. We loaded out. Then we ate the Palermos' food and went to sleep. And so it was.

Saturday, 8/26/06 Juanita's (Little Rock, AR)

We checked out at 12:40 and hit the road for Little Rock, stopping at the YMCA on JFK Blvd for some Mattshalldrew out-working. Meanwhile the Tims hit up a Barnes & Noble Bookseller. After our workout, Marshall and I had a sauna in our boxers and then showered. Most sexily, we found that there was no curtain between the showers (in classic YMCA homo-erotic fashion), and Marshall and I showered facing away from each other, each of us with a hand over our danger zones. Pmo thought it would be really funny to take a picture of us and, boy was he right. Ha ha ha ha ha naked ha. So now Pmo has sexy gay porn of us. Whee! We reconvened with the Tims and headed over to Juanita's where we had another installment of their delicious Mehicano food. It was outstanding. Then we lazily loaded, lazily set up, and lazily lazed about, hung out with Haley for awhile, and then took in a phenomenally long acoustic/electric I-V-vi-IV set of Rob Thomasy jams that tittilated many gathered minions as Will and the Gunzelmen fired it off. The crowd loved it, and when they didn't love it enough, Will made them love it more! Then we took the stage and tocked off a 45-minute set of rocking, including Old MacDonald Had a Farm. E-i-e-i-o. Hung out, took pictures, signed stuff, as the Oklahomangels (including their new recruits) held down merch fantastically. Brave New Heart rocked a short set. We met many fine peoples, including one c-c-c-crazy gentleman who bought ALL EIGHT T-SHIRTS!!!! Awoogah! It was awesome. Then we said our g'nights, packed up and headed for Spring, TX, seven hours away.

Friday, 8/25/06 Arkansas Tech University (Russellville, AR)

We'd never been to Russellville before, but it appeared (according to the welcome sign outside a local motel) we were arriving at the same time as the "Lady Bass Masters." But we were going to play a rock show, and they were simply going to master bass via lures. We found Arkansas Tech (pronounced "TETCH" as we decided), and were most warmly talked down to our exact loading location. We loaded in, met our fine contacts there, set up equipment and merch, and proceeded to our little comfort room to learn some of the less familiar points of our 90-minute set. But hey, we could be a college alt-rock band this night. We took the stage (the floor (Matt got a drum riser (that bitch))), and rattled off so many songs that our brains twisted into pretzel brains that we then ate and digested in an appropriate manner. We kept thanking Arkansas Tetch throughout the show, until someone from the university came up to the stage and corrected us that it was pronounced "TECK." We were perplexed. We thought it was "TETCH" as in TETCH-nical. Hmmm... then during Good Will Hunting By Myself, Ferrell and I had a guitar solo duel, the winner of which of course was obviously apparent and prominently clear. The several dozen students in attendance were highly receptive and into the full 90-minute set which made it fun! What a night. We packed up, thanked everyone and headed back to our delightful rooms at the Hampton Inn.

Monday, 8/21/06 University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (Urbana, IL)

The Illini are so good to Ludo! We zipped on over to the university from the STL, arriving in time to meet the guys in Oval Opus and the peoples running sound. The stage overlooked the quad, where the standard frisbees and hacky-sacks flew threw the air. In the distance, bullshit-ninjas practiced bullshit ninjitsu. It was a beautiful day. Loaded in, merch went up, Ferrell restrang guitars, and finally we soundchecked. It looked as though we'd be playing to 14 familiar faces, but once showtime arrived, the crowd was 200 strong and very Ludo-friendly. High-energy, non-stop rocking until of course the rock had to stop. At one point, unfortunately, the entire crowd isolated and mocked one poor bastard without mercy until he cried. We got a picture of it. It was terrible. But then we sang "Home on the Range" and called it a show. Oval Opus took the stage next and acoustickishly alt-rocked most delectably. They were sharp! Jessica and Megan (or the Jackson Two, as I like to call them (as of just now)) ran over to merch and guarded it capably for us. Then we were treated to some free Subway by the Sorceror of Sandwich himself. It was the perfect end to a delicious night. Then we drove home while pretending not to be asleep.

Monday, 8/14/06 Emporia State University (Emporia, KS)

After an illustrious Midwest Music Summit Indianapolis weekend, we decided it was time to go to Kansas. Emporia to be exact. So we loaded up the van and headed west for the Great Beyond. And how warmly did Emporia State University welcome us! They helped us load in, we waited out the rain, set up, soundchecked, erected our merchandises, and then prepared to play the set of our lives! The "Welcome-to-College!" crowd was there in full force, and we amply rocked 400 faces clean off 400 heads, including a painfully drawn out Good Will Hunting breakdown, where the crowd did Row Your Boat in a five-minute round as I played with twigs out in the grass. Big finish, then we packed up, and were treated to a most delightful Applebee's din-din courtesy of the activities committee. We talked with them of times past and divided by future. Then we said our nighty-narts, and hit the road for the Great St. Louis.

Friday, 8/11/06     Monon Coffeehouse - Midwest Music Summit (Indianapolis, IN)

It had been three years and three days since Ludo played their first full-band show together at the Midwest Music Summit 2003. That show, by the way, was shit-piss awful. If I recall correctly, which I do, none of the backline really worked, Matt's kick drum slid across the floor away from him as he played, and we were being mercilessly heckled by 1:30 am bar-assholes. It was great. But not this time! We showed up at the Monon Coffeehouse after a delightful night of sleep at the Ball Family residence, grabbed a bite to eat and then loaded in. We were playing in a tent behind the coffeehouse thankfully, as inside there was only enough room for a singer-songwriter and maybe some forlorn wistfulness. In poured the Hoosiers from various nooks and crannies with names like Indianapolis, Muncie, Marion, and Valparaiso. There were about 100 people watching all told when we started the rocking and despite our two-week hiatus, the rock flowed rather easily from our loins. Half-hour of power and it was all over. We hung out for quite awhile, taking pictures and signing whatnots, broke down, loaded out, and retired back to the Balls'.

Friday, 7/28/06 Hedgpeth Festival (Twin Lakes, WI)

Due to a family emergency, Matt "Peemsies" Palermo had to be in Pittsburgh during Hedgpeth. We were up Poop's Stream. Fortunately though, Dan Monahan of The Dog & Everything frontman fame stepped up to the plate to be our fill-in drummer. We drove up to Chicago late Wednesday night, crashed in the arms of Megsnjen, arose Thursday morning, and trekked over to Tommy Constantino's house where T-Con was nice enough to let us practice with Dan. Over the course of a three-hour practice, we figured out what Ludo songs we could pull off, halfly learned them to Dan, and drank diet sodas. Constantino arrove and hugged us. We had more diet sodas. Then as we were loading out, a giant, thick glass pane flew off the top of the screen door, almost cut Marshall's arm off, and somehow hit the ground without shattering. Terror Level 5!!!! Code Red!!! Stay indoors at all costs! We headed back to Chicago proper, where we shacked up with Marc "The Diet" McClusky, recorded Elektra's Complex and played Fight Night until the wee hours, when we gibbled on back to Jen-n-megs's's's, and caught a few hours of eyes-shut down-laying. Got up groggily, drove for two hours, scooping up Dan on the way. Arrived at Hedgpeth, where an actual real-life pirate (minus the swashbuckles) opened the gate to let us in. Thunderchops intercepted us and lent a helping hand. The festival was incredibly well run (an off-the-charts grass-to-mud ratio AND blue trash cans literally littering the fields), and really poorly attended. Which was a shame because after we set up our merch tent, it was all rock 'n' roll. We dropped a steady and appropriate set, with Dan hitting 94% (by my count) of all the changes. Awesome. Sure, there were no Pmo fills in there, but we felt as though, given the situation, a less-filling set would suit the already full-looking crowd of fewer than 80 people watching us in our tent. Dan did it! He was a champ. Somewhere in Pittsburgh, Pmo was feeling a satisfying flow of blood to his hands - he knew the job had been done right. Megsnjen ran merch for us in the swampy heat, we chatted with a few attendees, signed stuff, etc. Then we took it upon ourselves to take in a magical weekend of music, featuring Primus, The Flaming Lips, Minus the Bear, They might Be Giants, Pomeroy, and the Dog too! It was a much better line-up than Warped Tour, but if an awesome-tree falls in an awesome-forest, and you're busy hanging out in the Lameville Town Square, you're gonna miss some hot shit. Here's to Hedgpeth happening again next year! And someone showing up! Metaphors!

Tuesday, 7/25/06 Warped Tour - UMB Bank Pavilion (St. Louis, MO)

After a bit of refreshment, Ludo was a-rarin' to go for STL Warped. After a T-shirt package tracking disaster, we met up at the Ernie Ball stage and were apprised as to the rules and schedules. Nicky had arrived the night beforefrom Omaha and was ready to run merch right to the finish line. We loaded in, set up merch, and set to work marking the flyers with our showtime, aided by Bert. As kids flooded in, we hit up the line, alerting them to our presence with flyering. As people came in they went to our merch table, and ninja distributed our flyers all around. There seemed to be Ludo shirts everywhere. Word. We took the stage for our 1:30 slot on the Ernie Ball stage, and it seemed like between 1,200 and 1,500 people were festooned most compactedly around the stage. We played through the always baffling backline, which was not ideal, but certainly more than manageable. We fired off a HOT 5-song set that practically leveled all civilization with its sing-alongability. The kids halfly moshed as Ludo fans often do. Then during Good Will Hunting By Myself, we had the whole crowd sing an a capella version of Jingle Bells to celebrate the bitterly cold Christmastimey weather we had that day. We then spent the rest of the day holding down the merch tent, signing stuff, selling stuff, taking pictures, and the like. At one point, Nicky collapsed from heat exhaustion, at which point we put her on a gurney, resuscitated her, and then put her right back to work. We promoted our forthcoming Sept. 23rd double-show Creepycrawl night of awesomeness all day. We kept on rocking until Warped Tour had been deemed finito, packed up, loaded out, went home and slept-em-ups.

Sunday, 7/23/06 Warped Tour - Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium (Denver, CO)

We left Saturday morning for Denver: Pmo, Marshall, Conman, and I. Ferrell's buddy was getting married and he would be joining us Sunday morning. Oh yeah. And we had a Bert. We arrived in Denver a little before midnight, where Matt's cousin, Jeff, took us into his home. He was actually moving though, so it was pretty much an empty unfurnished house and we were delighted to get some sleep in it. Early the next morning we gathered ourselves up and traipsed on over to the parking lot beside Mile High, where we loaded in (lamentingly without a dolly), and set up merch. Ferrell arrived from the airport in a taxi just in time to help us load. We played a 12:30 slot on the SmartPunk stage which is awesome, and started rocking immediately as The Early November finished up on the adjacent stage. We earned some fans with some hard rocking, and then loaded off. Silverstein immediately started their set on the adjacent stage, and were nice enough to give us props for the Faith No More cover. I think we at least should concede the assist to Faith No More on that one. Anywho, we then spent the remainder of the day hanging out under our nifty little merch tent, taking pictures, meeting people and selling stuff. We then packed up after a 10 hour stint, ran over to a nearby bar and grill, and did an interview with the coolies at ManiaTV. Hit the road shortly thereafter, hit a Denny's a little longer thereafter, and then I continued driving from 10:00pm to 10:30am all the way to St. Louis. Then we slept all day.

Thursday, 7/6/06 Top of the Park - Ann Arbor Summer Music Festival (Ann Arbor, MI)

After a long Tongie sabbatical and a brief hip-hip-Independence-Day-hooray, Ludo headed up 55, and over on 94, up into Michigan. Believe it or not, Ludo had NEVER played a show in the great state of Michigan. I KNOW! Ridiculous! But that would be rectified, courtesy of Brad Savage, 107.1, Tally Hall, and the Ann Arbor Summer Music Festival. And so we arrived after a leisurely 12-hour drive at the Marriott Residence Inn, where we crashed on Wednesday night. We got up the next morning, met up with Brad Savage at the 107.1 studios, and caught the tail end of a rousing Tally Hall on-air acoustic performance. Then we got to sit in live, strum a few Ludo tunes, and talk with B-rad of times past. Ann Arbor was all virgin territory for us and we were just delighted to be there, let alone on a sweet bill with an awesome band and on the radio with the Great Savage. After the interview, Matt, Marshall, and I worked out at the YMCA, while Ferrell stumbled on the largest vegan ding-dong he'd ever found - and ultimately, "the best thing [he'd] ever put in [his] mouth." Awesome. Met back at the hotel, where Beast-rad met us and from whence led us to the festival grounds. We loaded in, set up onstage, and at the merch booth. The lovely Miss Pier agreed most voluntarily to run merch for us, although she found our array quite intimidating. After some assuagance(?), she was good to go, and Ludo had to start playing to the gathering masses of enthusiastic Ann Arborists. The stage was great. The sound was stellar. The crowd was constantly growing, and by the end of our set, we were rocking hard to well over 1,000 people. It was way funstuff. Then Tally Hall took over at the outdoor festival of good feelings and great music. They were hometown heroes if ever heroes have had a home, not to mention putters-on of one amazing show. They've got delectable melodies, joyous harmonies, wacky instrumentation, and a snarky sense of humor. Ludo like. These guys are awesome. Definitely check them out if you like awesome stuff. After the show, we got to meet very many people who seemed either very grateful that we'd come to Ann Arbor, or very impressed that we didn't suck. Not sucking is the best, really. I prefer it to sucking. We broke down merch and without interrupting the post-show movie showing of "Crybaby," starring Johnny Depp, we loaded out, pulled away, ordered a couple pizzas at the hotel, ate them, drove over to hang out with the Tally Hall crew for a little bit, before finally declaring it a night. What a fine, fine, first-time show! The next day, we got up, had an awesome lunch with Beast-rad, held him close, thanked him profusely, and hit the road. A little less leisurely this time, I might add.

Friday, 6/23/06 The Granada (Lawrence, KS)

Amidst all our writing, this was to be one of only a handful of shows we would be playing all summer. And little did we know that it would be a doozy! We drove to Tonganoxie Thursday afternoon, loaded in to the LaRosh house, set up our shite, and practiced the set, while Shane went about his sportscasting behaviors. Denise and Kyle were in Europe until Saturday, so we had a partay! I mean we went and ate at La Familia in Lawrence, came back, practiced, then went over to the Tongie tennis courts, where the lights went off on us at midnight. Blast! We would later figure out that you could every so often pump the buttons on the breaker box and the lights would stay on forever! Tennis is awesome! Off topic. Where were we? Ah yes. The next day we got up and loaded the trailer and drove to Larry. We loaded in, set up merch, went to Chipotle (Marshall/Ferrell) and Mass. Street Deli (Pmo/Conman/me), ate and got back to the Granada where to our amazement there were people coming to our show. The Granada, it turns out, had "never received" all the posters, handbills, and electonic flyer we sent them, so we were to naturally assume no one knew about the show. But not so! Apparently, Matt's e-mail invites and our myspace invitations had a rather strong yield, as the floor began to fill up with young concert attendees. We made consistent use of the backstage facilities over the course of the evening as the three phenomenally different local bands rocked through their sets. Band 1: ! ! ! S C R E A M I N G ! ! ! ! Band 2: ~ ...acoustic... ~ Band 3: I totally forget (I was warming up at the time). Oops. Anyway, we took over, and although rusty, exploded through a relentless hour of Ludo power, hitting pretty much all the highlights with panache, and then ending with a conga line, an a capella rant, and finally an around the world that climaxed in a ridiculous series of oddly bunched hits, quarterbacked by Pmo, full of fake endings, and ultimately three minutes long. Entirely unprepared to do an encore, we let people vote for the final song. Lauren Jennings, at her actual 65th Ludo show, got to be the judge, and determined that the crowd wanted to hear Ghostbusters. So we sloppily shat our way through it, losing only a few popularity points along the way. We left it all out there. And as always had to clean it up afterwards, loading out, tasting Jimmy John's, hitting the road back for Tongie, where we would hole ourselves up for a week of intense writing, celebrate my Aunt Denise's and my cousin Shane's birthday, and find that Ludo just may be the biggest band vacationing in Tonganoxie in June 2006. We would have many a drive-by honking, Ludo-cheering fanfare experience, and people would be leaving Ludo love messages in soda straws on the LaRosh backyard and in condiments on their driveway. Face it, girls. Was it really worth the ketchup? Oh and for those of you in the Topeka area, don't forget to tune in to NBC's Channel 27 for the local news broadcasts this summer. Shane Howard himself will be reporting on sports like it's his goddamn job. It IS his goddamn job. God I love that kid!

Saturday, 6/10/06 Vaudeville Mews (Des Moines, IA)

Woke up at Casa de Fanciullo, and all of us but Convy went to the YMCA for a little afternoon workout. Whew! It's rough out there! Then we showered en masse, grabbed Convy and hit the road, two Tims and me in the van, while Matt, Marzall's cousin, and Markshale drove in Marspall's truck. We rolled up in Des Moines, parked illegally and started unloading with the light help of the suddenly arrived Kate and Jenna. They swooped in to help run merch. Yay! We set up merch, set up equipment, and proceeded to play pool and hang out. A dozen or two dozen people who actually knew who we were showed up to see us, besides whom the rest of the entering crowd was of the more mature variety. Heineken drinkers, if you will. The opening band rocked their set, and then we got up and did what we do. Which is form awesome-blisters on people's brains! We played a fun 40 minutes, and then loaded out the side door. The crowd was very receptive. Even the Heinekens clapped along in the back. Then Will Hoge played a scintillating 90-minute set that brought the house down. As people exited, we got to meet many of them and whatnots and it was all wonderful. Then we packed up, said our goodbyes, and drove through the night to St. Louis, stopping on the way at a gas station and then a McDonald's drive-thru. Why did we do that?

Friday, 6/9/06 Sokol Underground (Omaha, NE)

As promised, Ludo returned to Omaha! We took in a bountiful Will Hoge soundcheck, set up merch, and then instruments. Matt and Mars Hall went to Burger King and crowned themselves dukes of dinner. Nicky popped in to do merch. Once doors opened, there were a-many dozen peoples there for the rock show. As we were in the middle of a setlist meeting, we decided to take our talk to more private quarters: the little room backstage. When lo and behold, who walked in by Misty the Tour Managette of ABJ genesis, Vendetta Red fame, and Damone contemporarium. Plus she was sporting a very stylish Lauren Jennings who herself was sporting a very stylish Little Mermaid shirt. We played them some of the new demos on Conman's computer, and talked of times past. It was so good to catch up... Breaking Fall anyone? Tissue anyone? The opener, acoustic act Flyover Country did what they do very well, which is rock acoustically. Then we took stage, and after some minor adjustment period and all of Part I: Broken Bride, I got my guitar to make noise. Yay! Rattled off a killer 45-minute set of extreme power, including a rousing tribute to the U.S.A., and left the stage. Will Hoge took over. This guy is something. It's like Bruce Springsteen meets Not Bruce Springsteen and Not Bruce Springsteen totally won. He's amazing. His band is all talented players and the songs are undeniable. You can't lie to his songs either. You can't like tell them you were at the library, because they KNOW you were at Applebee's getting drunk with Kurt and Barry. That's how good they are. That show killed. We hung out with our amazingly top-notch Omaha peoples for awhile, and then took off for IHOP where we shared a table with Nicky and our five Eager Nebraska Beavers, one of whom was apparently to be hided by his father for staying out past curfew. Yikes. But he claimed over and over again that it was totally worth it to get to eat pancakes with us, which was cool. He is currently grounded without the possibility of parole. We talked on central-to-life philosophical quandaries and ate our delish breakfast foods until it was clearly the end of the meal. We said our goodbyes and retired to Chez Mark Fanciullo, where we claimed our little niches in the cozy basement lair, and fell asleep watching "Earth Girls Are Easy."

Tuesday, 5/30/06 The Varsity Theatre (Minneapolis, MN)

Got in right around 2:45 and loaded in. The Varsity Theatre is a splendiferous room of harem-esque swank. Like so many venues in the Twin Cities, it has a stink of Princey sex. Ludo likey. All the curtains and fabrics and candles and whatnot certainly made for a Skinemax type feel and an intimate setting for ultimate rock. Set up merch while Matt assembled drums and Marshall socialized. Intercepted Joelle and her minions outside and had them run merch for us. They were AWESOME! Excellent. It was all going according to plan. We were overjoyed to see Quietdrive on their big day and mucho grateful to get to share the stage with them at their big CD Release Show. It was indeed a special-ass night. This Providence from Seattle kicked the show off, followed by those amazing rockers in White Light Riot, and then Ludo jibble-jabbled onto the stage with the help of Thunderchops and RoboLuke (former QD tour manager). Awesome. We cranked out that trusty half-hour of power that Ludo is oh-so comfy cranking out in newish places. Part I: Broken Bride, Hum Along (Ferrell's guitar ceased to function), Please, Save Our City, Epic, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. Wow! And it was done. QD set up, did a sweet intro, and then rocked for a full hour of awesome. Afterwards, we hit the road... for the Lodge! AFTER PARTY! Awesome! Pizza! Good times! Hanging out! Quietdrive's friends and families are great people, and we most totally enjoyed hanging with them. Then we made way to the "AFTER-BAR" at Brandon's collegiate beer pong palace. After some goodnights and congratulatorios, we found a Super 8 annd superslept our asses off.

Sunday, 5/14/06 The Beat Kitchen (Chicago, IL)

Because of the insanely early load-in time, we decided to drive up to Chi-town on Saturday night and crash with Megs n-Jen. Unfortunately we didn't bother to call them until we were on the road though, and they were going to be at an Oh My God side project show in De Kalb until midnight or some such shit. No worries. We arrived near their new apartment, found a parking spot, and then proceeded to play a game. It's called Cell Phone Relay. Here's how to play. First, think of someone that at least most of the group knows. Make sure it's someone who doesn't mind getting messed with at 11:30pm on a Saturday night. Then you make sure everyone in the group has their phone number dialed into their phone, inluding your merch guy, Thunderchops, who the person will not know at all. That's when it begins. I think after a no-answer, we called Bert McClimax. I went first, pressed "send," let it ring, and then started talking to him. The moment he picked up, I signalled Convy who pressed "send," forcing Bert to click over, at which point I hung up, and Pmo called him. It continued like this all the way around the circle (ending with Thunderchops introducing himself as being "on tour with Ludo right now" and then proceeding to ask him what was up) until it came back to me. Everybody just pretty much asked what he was up to. When it got back to me, I clicked in and asked why he hung up on me. It was really funny. A lot funnier than this description, I'll tell you that, sir! Then we decided to mix it up a bit. We called Adam Richman and did the same thing. This time we started with Tim Convy, who informed Adam that we were in town, we were near Wrigley Field, and that he should meet up with us. Then I clicked in and said he should meet up with us, and that we were at the Vic watching Terminator 2 at the Brew & View. It continued down the line, with each of us saying we were somewhere else. Marshall was at a bar somewhere. Ferrell was at a vegan restaurant. I think Nick was at the top of the Sears Tower or something. Adam couldn't get enough... the joke was a hit! Then we did it to Tom from Holden. We tried to do it to Matt Kirby from Quietdrive, but he was too polite to click over in the middle of a conversation, so that fell to shit quickly. Other people just didn't answer. Lame! Anywho, after the slumber party crank call buzz had worn off, we decided we should probably kill time in a less douchey manner. So Ferrell meditated in the van, while the rest of us went down the street to meet Adam Richman, Kelly, and their Chicago benefactress at a diner, where we had some delicioso late-night fare. After yummies, Pmo and I called it a night, pulled Ferrell from his nirvana-land and intercepted a returning Jen-n-Megs for some sleepies. Meanwhile, Marshall led the party to a loud bar where the drinking continued and the conversation was inaudibly jovial. SLEPT. Got up, went straight to The Beat Kitchen, loaded in, set up, soundchecked, and readied ourselves for a Mother's Day fiasco. In the preparations process, I was the lead actor in a terrifying drama. I bumped Ferrell's amp as it sat at the back of the stage, entirely unaware that a few inches beyond it's outside wheel was a secret three-step drop-off. It rolled those few inches and tipped over as Nick, Kirby and I witnessed in horror, the 5150 head, the hot plate, AND his wireless receiver fell about 5 feet ONTO his pedal board. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! Oh my shitland, this was bad. Got Ferrell over there. Unplugged everything, retrieved all components, moved it to the middle of the stage, and carefully replugged everything in, finding to the amazement and jubilation of all setting up bands that it worked perfectly! How, we'll never know... I mean, that bitch fell HARD. The whole place went silent and everyone looked over in shock. But no matter, twas Mother's Day and miracles would abound! We had some delightfully free eatskies, the line formed outside, and then at the maniacally early 4:00pm, the door opened and the peopleses came in. They steadily arove over the next couple hours. Some crazy person and her sister Mamando ran merch, Miles from Midnight played first rockingly, followed by A.R., and then Quietdrive were particularly spunky that evening. We rocked as hard as we could, were cut off before we could do the end-of-the-tour finale song, were urged to immediately load off, everyone was kicked out before we could talk to all the peoples we wanted to. Luke from Victory was there, rocking out. Long-time friend and former bandmate, Dave Meltybread was there, being awesome. McClusky popped in and got his brain melted. Mango, Fournie, LeClerc, the whole shebang was shebonging. We signed what we could and took what pictures there was time allowed for, wished everyone a happy Mother's Day, and loaded out. I spent a bundle of time chatting with the crew from University of Chicago, who were going to be staging "Broken Bride" as a live-action performance in the Fall. They had many questions and ideas they wanted to share and it all sounded amazing. We said our bye-now's to A.R., Kelly, the Quietdrivers and all, and got the hell out of the venue. We had to make way for Captured! By Robots: a band made up of one man and seven robots. The idea obviously is that he was captured by robots and forced to play in their band. They were REAL fucking robots playing instruments. AND they were going to be performing wedding ceremonies at the show! Unfortunately, we had to miss it though, because Dan Friedman was in town with his good friend Ben, and we had some phenomenally expensive steak to eat. Gibson's was accomodating, all reports were that the Married by Captured! by Robots was AMAZING, we jumped in the van, and headed home. Oh what a Mother's Day it was!

Thursday, 5/11/06 House of Bricks (Des Moines, IA)

Somehow, after all this we'd never actually played in Des Moines. This was our chance, and it went smashingly! Loaded in on a blustery, non-warm late afternoon, set up merch, played some pool, backlined amps, took in some rock bands rocking. Then Convy decided he was hungry and walked with Justin to a Burger King that was a couple miles away. Bye guys! Be safe! Adam Richman entertained and insulted the crowd. Conman returned, knighted by the royalty of the BK Lounge, and we had our pre-show talk-it-up time. Rocked the sizable crowd HARD amidst the ghost town that seemed to be Des Moines, and there seemed to be a pretty good contingent of sing-alongers which was a delightful surprise. Then Quietdrive closed it out hard, we said our goodbyes and headed home for a couple days before our final show of the tour.

Wednesday, 5/10/06 Gabe's Oasis (Iowa City, IA)

Back at good ol' Gabe's! After two days collecting our various whatnots and despite deadly tornadoes, an outbreak of the mumps, and the looming threat of a bird flu pandemic, we needed to go to Iowa. We took the secret shortcut route up Highway 61 that cuts the five and a half hour trip down to three and a half hours, and for the first time in Ludo history, we found Gabe's back door to be open promptly at the load-in time. Up the rickety metal stairs and into the venue, whose charm can best be experienced in its dank, cavefish-infested bathrooms, we set up merch and backlined our amps. A little under 100 of our hawkeyed friends appeared. Taking Sides rocked them, Adam enriched them, Quietdrive silenced them, and we Ludid them and it was Ludone. Before we started playing, we had Thunderchops go around the room, asking people what Ludo songs they wanted to hear, writing it down on little slips of paper and then collecting them all in a pitcher, which I dubbed The Pitcher Of Justice. It was an All-Request Random-Draw Ludo show!!! We did a 14minute version of Goodwill Hunting By Myself, that included the audience forming a sex tunnel that each member of Ludo ran through and a group singalong. With enough time left for one song, we still hadn't played Part I: Broken Bride. But then Kevin from Quietdrive got onstage while we were deliberating over what to play and said into my mic, "This song is called Ghostbusters!" which started a ghostbusting frenzy! We had the crowd vote and it was deadlocked between Broken Bride and Ghostbusters. Fortunately though at the last moment we were told we had time to play both. We did. After the show, we had some Iowa City eats and I got to witness Adam Richman and Kelly eat Panchero's for the second time that day. Using exclusive space robotic technology, Kelly booked us a room in Des Moines where they were staying, we hit the road, drove for two hours, and had a slumber party at the ExtendedStay. ExtendedYay!!

Sunday, 5/7/06 The What's Up Lounge (Mankato, MN)
 
For the record, Minnesota is farther from St. Louis than you would think. It's like seventeen-far. That's dumb, tour-diary-speak for nine hours. Blech. Far. Tired. But rock was to be played and we were to be the players! Left at 8 in the morn. Ludo picked me up in Peoria, where I was dropped off after my cousin's lovely wedding in Indianapolis. The appropriate parties were married and I was tired. Arrived at 5 in the night. Mankato is a beautiful city, located to the south-southwest of the Twin Cities. We parked, loaded in our merch at theWhat's Up lounge, set it up, and put Thunderchops to work doing inventory. Marshall played Justin in pool most wetly, while the opening bands rocked their sets. When it was our turn, we loaded in up the metal fire escape stairs and set up on stage. There was only enough space for the equipment of a couple bands at a time to be in the room. We blasted through a 35 minute power set and then made way for Quietdrive, who rocked their home state crowd most viciously. Right before they played though, Convy and I were interviewed by a man from Chicago who called himself Frogvomit and hailed from a 'zine of the same name. He asked us a series of bewildering questions, the answers to which he recorded in a most elusive shorthand that he scribbled on a napkin. It was a two minute interview that ranged in topics from psychedelic drugs to consumption of barley. Wow. We then mounted up and drove back to St. Louis stopping, on the way to have a dance party in a gas station. That's why they neuter dogs.

Friday, 5/5/06 The Pageant (St. Louis, MO)

It was "Cinco de Mustache!" Got to the venue at 2:00pm, met Yason Snackenballs (soundman/engineer of "Broken Bride" fame) and Andrew Metcalf of John Burroughs High School, who was going to be helping his schoolmare Michael Eisenstein video the night's affairs. We soundchecked, while Nick set up merch, aided by the arriving ladies, Nicky and Ashley who would be running merch for us. They will heretofore be referred to as the Omaha Magicals. Bert arrived for lights purposes. We raised the Missouri flag, and it looked delightful. Score. Princeton showed up, followed by Adam "the Shit" Richman, and Quietdrive. Just as we finished soundchecking, we had to bust ass over to Clayton where we were to have a delicious dinner courtesy of 4-time Pro Bowler, Trevor Pryce. It was so good, I shat. That's not true. But it was way good a lot. Hurried back to the venue, where we had the upstairs dressing room at our disposal. I guess we're moving up in the world. Doors opened at 7:00, and the line that had gone way around the block started to pour in. I've never seen so many mustaches in my whole life. Dudes, chicks, adults, babies. It was insane. Some crazy girl in a huge sombrero took pics of everyone coming through the door who had a stache while Nick gave those deserving a ticket to get the free Cinco de Mustache T-shirt. Michael and Andrew ran around interviewing people about Ludo and mustaches and whatnot, as Flaco Jimenez played sweetly in the house. Then showtime! Adam Richman slayed. Princeton awesomely pounded the crowd into little sexpellets. Quietdrive drove loudly. Then we linechecked, as the house filled up until the crowd was almost 1,100 strong. We played a hard, hot, heavy set of 75 sextastic minutes. My mustache was coming off at one point, so I had Marshall unstache me in front of everyone. We played hard and it kicked ass. The crowd seemed to sing every single word. We closed with Air-Conditioned Love, walked off stage, and then returned for one more. During "Good Will Hunting By Myself," the crowd joined us in an unaccompanied recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. It was amazingly simultaneous. We got a picture of the entire crowd with their finger on their upper lip, forming a fingermustache... beautiful. Went around the world, said goodnight, and then left the stage. Immediately jumped out into the lion's den of merchandise, that the Omaha Magicals were deftly monitoring, slid into the crowd and started signing things and taking pictures. Fun much? Yeah! Then we loaded out as quickly as we could, and retired to Tim Convy's, along with Quietdrive, Adam Richman, Dan Friedman, and Trevor Pryce, for a festive get-together. But alas, I could not attend. I had to wake up early the next day and go to Indianapolis for my cousin's wedding. Which I did. Meanwhile, the slumber partiers arose and ate heartily at Mrs. Convy's welcoming breakfast table of life-affirming deliciousness.

Thursday, 5/4/06 The Outland Ballroom (Springfield, MO)

Spent Wednesday running around trying to get ready for Cinco de Mustache. Drove to Springfield, pulled in to the Outland Ballroom loading dock, where the crazy, angry parking fuhrer made anger noises at the club staff about his parking spots getting blocked. Roar! Douche. We loaded in, set up merch, set up equipment, ate spaghetti and salad courtesy of the venue, and then hung out backstage with A.R. and Q.D. Word. Played a rip-roaring set that culminated in the entire crowd singing "America, the Beautiful" and then lining up in a single file line that went all the way to the back of the club. It was amazing. We closed it out hard, and then skedaddled out the door to a home sweet home. We had to sleep for the next day was the big day.

Tuesday, 5/2/06 The Canopy Club (Urbana, IL)

Affectionately and most incorrectly dubbed "The Moustache Tour," our jaunt with Adam Richman and Quietdrive had begun. About 75 people came out on a studiously quiet Tuesday night during finals to rock their lives away, while their academics went down the shitter. Just kidding. Research has actually shown that going to a Ludo show the night before a final exam leads to greater relaxation and ultimately more stick-to-itiveness than simply studying and going to sleep. Improved reflexes, stamina, and social acuity are also known results. Compoundingly, most subjects also report a greater sense of purpose to their life after attending three or more of these events. Look it up. It's all true. Intercepting a road-ready Nick Sergenian, Marshall christened him "Thunderchops" and we set out to work. We simul-loaded in with Quietdrive, hugging them jovially as we lugged and schlepped. We set up our junk onstage and erected our merchandise. Adam Richman arrived and set up his juggernaut of a production, taking up more space than any act we've ever performed with (see: Joke). Then we joined Dan Friedman next door for some delicious Italian food. Mmm. Heather swooped in and ran merch. Adam Richman worked the room. Quietdrive broke it down. Then we got up and got down, with Jake the Snake on the soundboard, making it all sound great. Rip-roaring rock show. We closed with an extended version of "Good Will Hunting By Myself" including an a capella crowd performance of "I'm a Little Teapot," and then the crowd dividing up into straight lines and saluting. Then we went around the world, I karate-kicked Dan Friedman in the shoulder, and we called it a night. The show was very much a lot of fun very much totally. Yowsers. We packed up and drove home!

Saturday, 4/29/06 Texas Crawfish Festival - Crawfish Stage (Spring, TX)

There's a Motel 6 in Frontier City, OK, where you can approach the woman at the desk, ask about renting a room, and get looked at like you just spit blood in a baby's face. I'm pretty sure our words were, "We'd like to rent a room with two queen beds please," but her reaction was as though we'd said, "Why don't you eat a bucket of Galapagos tortoise shit, you bitchly hovercraft of Fallopia." "WHAT?" she demanded to know. "...uh...we'd like to rent a room please... if that's okay..." According to the look on her face, we were about five seconds from a big "FUCK YOU!" so we said, "Okay never mind, thanks anyway," and quickly walked away. Then Ferrell went up to the gentleman at the Super-8 down the street. Ferrell informed him that we'd like a room just for six hours or so to sleep and then we'd be on our way. The gentleman inquired, "When wil you be checking out?" Ferrell replied, "11:00... or noon, somewhere in there...." "Well, which is it?" came the retort. Slightly taken aback, Ferrell ventured a response, "Uh... I guess noon then." At this point the man, walked across the room, grabbed a sign off the wall, brought it over and held it in Ferrell's face. It said, "Check-out is at 11:00am." Alright, thank you for your time. Anyway, so he was a psycho dick as well. It started to feel a little bit like Bethlehem on Christmas Eve. Finally, we hit up a Quality Inn in Oklahoma City around 5:45 in the morning, where the customer service was more like "Sure, no problem," (crazy I know). We slept until 11:00 and then resumed our travels. It was a perfectly timed execution as we arrived in Spring at precisely the right moment. The Crawfeesh Festival was in full swing, and that meant non-stop git'r done crustacean consumption. Baked, drunk gentlemen had little light-up, orange-cone, handheld, directional indicator jobbies (as used on tarmacs), and they were directing traffic through the ever-spanning grass parking lots, as the many thousands from all over the Lone Star State descended in decadence on Old Town Spring. There was mud. The kind of parking lot mud that you daren't get stuck in, lest your neighbor question the sexual orientation of your pickup truck. And with a woot, truck after truck was able to spin its tires and 4-wheel drive that mud to hell, all escaping with a patriotism-affirming parking spot departure that won't raise any eyebrows in the church carnival circles (I hear Larry's truck cain't even git out've a lil bitty mudpit! Guffaw! I hear his Silverado is a faggot!). We loaded in while the first band played. When they were done, and with Mollie and Cherokee's help, we carried the merch over the stage, and set it up under the tent in the sopping, sinking, grass-stuffed mud. Scattered all about were the fallen claws of one unfortunate steamed crawfish after another. He is the filet mignon of creekfood, the lobster's ambitionless Mini-Me, the scuttling bayou-monger, and he was all over the ground. It was hard not to step on his various discarded body parts. Our merch girls were nauseated. After setting up, we ran away and each found food. Convy had chicken-on-a-stick, Matt had a steaming pile of crawfish, Marshall had nothing and Bud Light. Paris Green was on next and they kicked the crowd's ass. I found that my last-clean-shirt excuse wasn't working too well at the Texas Crawfish Festival, as I drew all manner of laughs and looks of horror, with my "Real Men Heart Unicorns" tee. I found it not the best attire for fair-wandering. Touche. Anyway, then we got onstage with the leisurely thirty-minute changeover, set up as quickly as we saw fit, and then commenced rocking to whatever Ludo fans weren't at prom, friends, family, fairgoers and more, all in all a few hundred peoples. The show went great, totally relaxed, nothing but good times. Everyone made little crawfish claws with their hands which I thought was cute. We got an encore we weren't prepared for, and rattled off Ghostbusters awkwardly and without a care in the world. It was hot. Then we broke down, signed stuff, took pictures, loaded up, headed over to Matt's, where Dan Friedman popped in wearing his lawyer costume. We had ribs, ham sandwiches, mac-n-cheese, beer, and talked of times past. But we had to get some sleep, for the next day was tennis, and beyond was the beginning of our tour with Quietdrive and Adam Richman. We had things to do!

Friday, 4/28/06 Rockhurst University (Kansas City, MO)

Out the door and in the van, we drove defiantly through the western edges of Missouri, stopping for Subway on the way. We got to Rockhurst right on time and tracked down Megan who led us to the appropriate spot. We backed our van right up to the double doors, and all the Rockstock folks helped carry in our stuffs. Set up onstage and merchishly, and were delighted to see our great mistress of massagerie, Miss Risa, there with her table, ready to rub. We were road-weary and her hands were like professional butter in our musculatures. Then some of the students on the activities committee were kind enough to drive us to Planet Sub where we had sandwiches and water. Mmmm... We returned, watched Minutes to Midnight rock, then took the stage. Jess Daetwiler appeared mysteriously and ran merch for us. The students, many of whom were from St. Louis were readst to rock, and it was awesome. A few sound issues (FEEDBACK!), but all in all a hot show. Afterwards we got to sign lots of stuff and take all manner of photograph with the various peoples. We thanked the committee members huggingly, grabbed our grape jelly and chips-n-salsa, and hit the road for... Wendy's. Then we hit the road for... a motel in the middle of nowhere - we had to be at the Texas Crawfish Festival at 7:00pm the next day, which left us with 13 hours of driving to do and only 6 hours for sleepage. What would Ludo do????

Thursday, 4/27/06 University of Arkansas-Fort Smith (Fort Smith, Arkansas)

So we went to the Holiday Inn in Fort Smith where there was a disgusting preponderance of conventioneers absolutely infesting the lobby. And they all swarmed in at once apparently, thus leaving the hotel staff scrambling to get the rooms ready. So they were either festooned around the lobby, drinking Miller Lite and smoking, or they were lined up at the front desk so they could act surprised and indignant to the staff. Even though they all knew the situation, I'm sure they fancied themselves deal-closers and powerbrokers, so they needed to act like demandoids and make sure they got checked in immediately. But there was no room for them to check in to. It was a mess. And a lot of people were acting stupid. They told Convy that our reservation was there, he just needed to get the room ready - it would be an hour. So Ludo popped open their laptops, imbibed some water and wireless internet, and plopped down in the lobby comfy chairs. Two hours later, Convy went to see what the deal was, at which point we found out our reservation had been cancelled in February, and we were supposed to be staying at the Baymont instead. Tee hee. So we called our contact at the university, explained why we were running a little late (after proudly being two hours early), checked into the right hotel, and headed over to campus. We were greeted by students and advisor, all of whom were very cool. They helped us set up under the bell tower outside. I tried to turn the van around in the tiny space and it almost got ugly, but with much coaching, I got it back around the circle and in position. Set up merch, soundchecked, made way for the opening band, Victoria, Incorporated, and headed over to the hospitality room where we were treated to some lovely pizza and other goodies. Yay! We went to go watch Victoria, Incorporated, but apparently they only got 20 minutes, because by the time we got there, they were aready packing up. Marshall got to see a couple songs though and said they were good, and that he would sign them to Saddle Creek. Then we took the stage, rattled off 75 minutes of pure rock to about 50 people. It was cool. Literally. It got cold again for some ungodly reason in Arkansas at the end of April. Totally unnecessary. But there was a good Fayetteville contingent amongst the Fort Smithers, and a good time was had by all. Sold some stuff, hung out for a bit, packed up, thanked the university peoples immensely, complimented the sound guys on stellar sound, got in the van and headed for the hotel. It was nice to get back at a reasonable hour. And we slept.

Wednesday, 4/26/06 Hendrix College (Conway, AR)

After 36 hours in Los Angeles and a showcase for Capitol, we flew Tuesday night from LAX to Detroit, where we landed at 5:00 in the morning, waited for two hours and then caught a flight to St. Louis. We'd left our van at The Parking Spot, retrieved it around 8:00 in the morning, drove it to Ferrell's, where we attached the trailer and had a quick bite. On the road by 9:30am, heading south for Arkansas! We were stupid tired. Slept and drove and whatnot. Arrived at Conway in time to check in to the hotel, and for me to play in the pool for 45 minutes. Then we headed on down to Hendrix College, where we were greeted by Simira and Michael and Tonya and everybody who helped bring us out for the show. The students helped us load in, and we set up onstage and merchwise. Warmly embraced our super buddies in Jupiter Sunrise, and were pleased to finally meet the young gentlemen in I Voted For Kodos. Cool guys. The college fed us, and we chatted. Marshall played some pool. It got unnecessarily cold as balls outside, and then I Voted For Kodos began their set. It was a-rockin!