Woke up like sleepy terminators at Convy's cousin Dan's house. Made our way over to Park West as it got colder and colder and more terribly colder. Confused, bewildered, and f-f-f-freezing, we loaded in amidst the wet sadness. Embraced The Hush Sound as we entered the lovely venue. Set up merch, backlined and found the green room, where chips, salsa, and PB&J awaited us. Courtney and Heather swooped in to run merch. A thousand kids dumped into the place, This Is My Suitcase played an energetic opening set, and then we got up there to do our business. And our business was making rock. The crowd received what we doled out most receivingly, and we had a great time doling - thrilled even that we were awake, let alone making such serious rock. Got out of the way for The Hush Sound to do their thing. Spent the rest of the night vigorously meeting peoples, signing things and taking photos over by the merch table. It was a great time. After saying our last goodbye, we loaded up merch, took awhile figuring out logistics and then departed, Convy toward O'Hare, I toward Midway, Nick toward Wisconsin, and the van to St. Louis. We would reunite in 2008.
Thursday, 12/27/07 The Pageant (St. Louis, MO)
A week of yuletide nonsense, a 12-hour roundtrip for Marshall and Ferrell to pick up our ailing and very expensively injured van, and a practice with a 10-piece Wisconsin horn section later, we were bedding down to play the show of our lives. Slept most fitfully on A Very Ludo Christmas Eve while visions of confetti cannons danced in our heads. Got up early-ish on Thursday and arrived at The Pageant a little after noon to load in and set up. Adrian, Bob, and Randy from The Pageant were there and ready to go. Under the watchful authoritavite eye of Nick Sergenian, we loaded in, set up equipment, and with the help of some Convy's, a Sergenian mother, my mother, and a load of Sun Prairians, we immediately started setting up the stage decorations. Erected the Christmas tree, decorated it, strung the lights, set up Santa's little corner. Inflated the inflatables, hung the backdrop, hung the L-U-D-O letters, set up the candy cane archway. Ran garland along the front of the stage along with lights, candy canes, poinsettias, wreaths, golden reindeer and hollow light-up plastic toy soldiers. Covered the drum riser and amps in snow, lights, garland, light-up Christmas pictures and the like. Made a little forest of light-up trees filled with snow between Ferrell's amp and the drum riser. Dumped hundreds of presents under the tree. Set up merch in the new storefront at the front of the venue. Boxes and boxes and boxes of T-shirts and hoodies and posters and pins. The line had already started forming around 11:00am. Wow. Jason Snackenballs showed up to run sound for us, as Bert and Tony from Mississippi Nights arrived to set up lights. Soundchecked a Ludo song. Then brought out the horn section and soundchecked with them. They would be joining us for "A Very Ludo Christmas," our big ol' finale song. Horns peaced out, The Hush Sound, Quietdrive, and Nothing Still backlined. Nothing Still soundchecked. Heather arrived to oversee costumes. We had two Santa Clauses (Nick and Mirak), Mrs. Claus (Heather), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, the Gingerbread Man, a Christmas Tree, Joseph, a Wise Man, an angel and well over a dozen elves. A whole gaggle of my relatives (Shane, Denise, Caroline, Hilary, Matt, Anna, Steve, Lisa and Holly) showed up to play the parts, as did various friends and associates. Nicky, Jessica and Megan showed up to run merch for us. Convy's mom was working on building a stocking-hung fireplace to go around his moog stand. All the actors arrived in different groups in different vehicles from different cities at different times. We got them in costume as quickly as possible, which required a fair amount of tights, blush, stuffing of snowmen, and taping of gingerbread. Meanwhile Mrs. Sergenian was overseeing the creation of gallons of hot cocoa. Donnie and Rifqa showed up ready to make sweet Island Street Teamage. They came bearing Mirak, Rifqa's brother who would play Santa Claus #1, while Nick attended to other various duties. A few other Street Teamies drove in from Dallas!! Stewart arrived with his photography team, and set up an "A Very Ludo Christmas" photo booth where everyone could get their picture taken with Santa Claus. Rudolph, Frosty, Gingerbread, and Tree all hit the line chaperoned by elves, dancing and entertaining the people, while passing out free hot cocoa to the few hundred waiting in line. It came in little plastic cups that said "I stood in line in the freezing cold for... A Very Ludo Christmas 2007!!!" Yay! Donnie and Rifqa played Ludo videos from their Island Street Team van outside for everyone waiting in line. It was cold and miserably wet outside. I couldn't believe some people had been there for seven hours. Everybody sang along to "Love Me Dead" when that video came on. Nick intercepted Dave Bush who came bearing confetti cannons and compression technology. I grabbed Mirak and the Edward Scissorhands track on my laptop and walked him through the opening sequence where he had to light up the tree using his magic. He then got dressed as Santa and headed over to the Ludo photo booth where he would be holding people on his sweaty lap for hours on end. Chris and Joe were filming everything and I think Doc lent a hand as well. DOORS OPENED. Mrs. Claus and a gaggle of elves passed out cookies and candy canes as people walked in, while the other Christmas characters danced about merrily. Glorious Christmas music played over the P.A.. There was no turning back now. The floodgates had opened. I think before they opened the doors, we had sold somewhere around 1600 or 1700 tickets. The most we'd ever sold at all was 1400 so we were ecstatic. Nothing Still took the stage after people steadily filed in for an hour. They rocked it. Quietdrive got up and killed it. The Hush Sound was outstanding. Then we set up our stage like we wanted it, linechecked, cued Edward Scissorhands, and sent Mirak on his way across the stage and into a winter wonderland. The crowd was restless and Christmas-like. We came out after Santa lit up the tree, strapped on our instruments and tore into Broken Bride as all the lights came up. The set went like this: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Go-Getter Greg, Roxy, Save Our City, Lake Pontchartrain, Saturday Night Thunderbolt, Love Me Dead, Girls on Trampolines, Epic, Good Will Hunting By Myself (featuring Santa Claus #2 - Nick) on guitar, and then we ran offstage, high-fived the owner of the Pageant, Joe Edwards, and then for an encore we came out and did Hum Along. The crowd was nutso. They were great the whole show and they were definitely still nutso at this point. Quietdrive, Nothing Still and The Hush Sound all joined us onstage. So did all the elves. So did the horn section. And of course Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, the Gingerbread Man, Frosty, Rudolph and a Tree. Dan from Last Fast Action and Katie Davis (both of whom had sung on the recording of the song) came out as well. We then played "A Very Ludo Christmas" and it was insane. Ginormous balloons filled with confetti bounced around the crowd. There was an explosion of confetti at the end. All the characters danced and jumped around stage. We went around the world, the lights went nuts, we thanked everyone, and then started throwing out presents to "Holly Jolly Christmas." It was like feeding-time. Insanity. We made our way over to the merch table, and set up at a signing table where we met a seemingly unending line of incredibly excited people for 45 minutes, signing stuff, taking photos, etc. Meanwhile, Nick and many others were tearing down all the decorations and loading out equipment for us. Various helpers were changing out of their costumes backstage. The merch room was PACKED, but with the new system it seemed like we could really sell stuff to, talk to, and sign stuff for way more people than in previous years. Finally they closed the doors, we ran off to pack up merch and decorations and equipment, and we said our farewells to all the wonderful helper people. We packed up, loaded out, and then around 1:30am we drove away from the Pageant and toward Chicago. All in all, we'd sold 2,250 tickets and there were easily 2,400 people there. No time to digest that ridiculous number. Drove through the night (each getting a couple hours of in-the-van sleep) straight to WGN Studios in Chicago, where we found ourselves in the middle of our third Chicago snowstorm in three trips to Chicago over a four-week period. Bullshit. It was 7:30 in the morning. We were delirious and deadlike. Brought in our acoustic instruments with the help of Nick and Curran Convy. Huddled frozen in the green room for a bit. Were escorted into a studio where we tried to warm up. My voice sounded like microwaved death. Played suddenly whenever they pointed at us and said, "Go!" Didn't know where we were or what was going on, but got through it somehow. What should've been only very exciting (our first time on a live television broadcast that big), was somewhat exciting, somewhat terrifying and confusing. Going on nationally syndicated live television to perform is not recommended after a 15-hour work day and then no sleep. But no one yelled at us or looked at us like we were assholes, so I guess we pulled it off. Trudged back to the van after thanking the fine people of WGN, and slip-slid all the way through the snowy streets to Convy's cousin Dan's house, where we all slept soundly for at least 200 minutes each.
Saturday, 12/15/07 Mojoe's Rock House (Tinley Park, IL)
What a freaking nightmare. What a horrible, stupid, assclown-filled nightmare featuring douche and sadness. Exhuasted from the previous night's/day's drive in from Dallas, we embarked on one of the worst Ludo trips in Ludo history. Headed toward ten inches of ice and snow, we left town on that Saturday morning, with hope in our hearts and doubt in our heads. The roads were rather nasty and nastier were they getting the closer we drove to Chicago. We got there and it was snowing like it meant it. The dude at the venue was rather gruff and unpleasant and didn't seem to care give two shits that we had shown up. Edison Glass and Deas Vail were stranded in Kansas City, so it would just be us and some locals. Mojoe's Rock House was a converted dance club, and as we were setting up merch, we watched them building a barricade between the house and the stage that could have held a gorilla. Meanwhile, the first band was setting up onstage (nice guys who had just hopped on the show at the last minute), and not only did they have wind chimes (among other percussion instruments), but they just couldn't stop playing the wind chimes. It started out as a pretty sound that over time grew to mock us and our plight with constant ethereal ringing. It was an odd juxtaposition: they were building the strongest barricade I'd ever seen at a rock show to keep a raucous crowd from trashing the stage, while the first band with wind chimes we'd ever shared the stage with was soundchecking. No one in the history of music has ever rushed a stage that has wind chimes on it. It's just not possible. The sound guy was really cool to us. The other bands played, some people showed up, all the while we were getting snowed in. We almost fell asleep as we waited to play. Eventually our number came up, we loaded on to the stage, set up, had great difficulty soundchecking (like 25 minutes of difficulty), and then launched into a 7-song set that included more banter than music. We talked endlessly about nothing. We had lost our minds. The stage smelled exactly like vomit. My mic smelled like socks at the YMCA. Then we felt bad because a few dozen very cool and faithful Ludo fans had come to hear us play and hadn't given up on the show yet... so we figured we should play more than just 7 songs. We did just that, kept it going and didn't let it stop until we had thoroughly done everything in as "nothing" a fashion as anything. Packed up and loaded out in what was now 8 inches of wet, slick and still falling snow. We realized that we were stranded in the immediate area, found a nearby hotel, slipped and slid our way down the streets, never coming to a complete stop for fear that we would get stuck. Slept a lot. Woke up the next day, stopped at American Sale Warehouse Outlet Store, bought some Christmas decorations, packed them away, and hit the road. The van turned evil and started screaming and bucking like a hell-beast somewhere around Joliet, not 15 miles from where we'd played. We would be spending another night in a hotel. All we wanted to do was get home. The van was dead. We walked through deep snow that night and saw No Country For Old Men at the semi-nearby movieplex. The next morning, we were told the van couldn't be ready for several days. We struggled in vain to find a rental vehicle with a hitch. Got a truck that would do the job. Wrong size hitch. Welded in place, so that it couldn't be switched out. Had to leave our trailer with all our stuff in it too. Grabbed what we needed to practice and play acoustic, and then four across the front seat drove all the way back to St. Louis, truly in misery, having missed and been forced to reschedule our on-air performance and visit to 105.7 The Point with Cornbread for later in the week. How would we get our van and trailer back in time for the show? Someone was going to have to drive back to Chicago and get it. SUCK.
Thursday, 12/13/07 Prophet Bar (Dallas, TX)
Awoke in a haze of weirdness, desperately wanting to rinse the debauchery of last night's show from our souls. Instead we grabbed some smoothies at a co-op and headed for Dallas. Got there just in time to load in, set up merch and get food. Cony, Ferrell, and I went to this place Convy knew about called Cosmic Cafe. It was Indian. And it was awesome. Back to the venue, found some quarters, fed the meters, and got ready to rock. Treaty of Paris, then Deas Vail blew their awesomeness right through the speakers as always, and then we shuffled onto the platform of rock. To the best crowd we've ever gotten to play to in Dallas, we blasted through seven meticulous Ludo musical quandaries: Go-Getter Greg, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Broken Bride, Good Will Hunting By Myself, and Epic. The sound was great, and our souls were unbridled, feeling fortunate to be rocking once more without the terror of the Lewis Carroll nightmare that ensued at the end of the previous night's show. Some former Upsiders showed up and gave us all superhugs. Mollie ran merch again, and Brendan and his brody showed up with another street teamer, Brittany. We shook hands and eventually hugged. After the show, they declared they would be coming to St. Louis for "A Very Ludo Christmas"... a wise choice my friends. Watched Edison Glass tear it up, hung out with our Lubbock contingent and our College Station contingent, and the great Sid Goldsmith. Packed up merch and equipment, loaded out and drove away. Up into Oklahoma, and across Missouri to St. Louis where we would be bedding down at the reasonable hour of 1:00 in the afternoon.
Wednesday, 12/12/07 Red Seven (Austin, TX)
Thrilled to finally be back down south where we could avoid the cold, we rolled out of bed on that Wednesday afternoon and stepped outside, only to be horrified by the bitter chill on the air. We're cursed! Apparently yesterday it was 70-degrees. And just like every idiot who lives in the really warm parts of the U.S., they all said, "Oh yay! Cold weather!" We informed them that there was a whole country full of frosty misery just 300 miles north and that they could move there if they wanted. No takers. Showed up at the club. No one there. Waited and waited until finally someone opened the door. There was a sign on the wall that said, "No Budweiser products on premises - because Bud is made in St. Louis and we hate the Cardinals." I guess Astros fans in Austin really hate St. Louis. That's funny. I don't remember giving a flying shit about the Astros. It's cute that somebody's got a rivalry there. Between that and the fact that after loading in we were told to leave because the promoter wasn't there yet and the club didn't want to watch over us, we felt like we were in for a night of warmth and pleasantries. Dispersed, found food, and returned to the club once we were welcome back. The people working there were cool to us (although we kept our St. Louisness a secret...). Set up merch, set up equipment, and then watched the wonder of all three of the other bands: Deas Vail, Treaty of Paris, and Edison Glass. Such power the three of them radiate! Such a smorgasbord too! Upside Rob appeared like a holy vision and high-fived us. Mollie ran merch and we got to meet another Island street teamer named Tina. Hi Tina! She had a camera and she did not fear using it on us. It was our first time not playing The Red-Eyed Fly in, oh I'd say roughly the previous nine trips down to Austin. So we didn't know what to expect... which makes sense because nothing could have prepared us for what ensued. We played like 11 songs in toto, and the show was generally standard (possibly even a little too pedestrian for the first nine songs). That is, until Good Will Hunting By Myself. We broke it down on the bridge, took a picture of the crowd and then shit got weird. A girl who (either via barbituates, hallucinogens, or gallons of liquor) was on another planet, took it upon herself to crawl most tippingly onto the stage and on her knees try to eat the center of my guitar. I didn't know what to do with her. Then she crawled away from me toward Ferrell and still on her knees, began to play his guitar with her teeth. It was like watching a car filled with eggs hit a train filled with children. It was horrifying. I couldn't figure out what was happening. Then I turned around and Marshall was standing on top of his 5-foot tall bass cabinet. He was basically on the ceiling. Then this group of girls kept trying to take a picture of my crotch. The train had completely left the tracks. No one knew what was happening. So we went with it. I tried to start the rant, but Crazy Girl got BACK up on stage and started crawling around after Ferrell again. Then we just did a disco beat and started dancing. Woot! Finished the set with Epic and I hid behind Pmo's drum kit. It was all crazypants. Loaded out, then we three guys of veganism went to this sweet-ass 24-hour cafe that had a bunch of vegetarian-type meals. Yums. Meanwhile, Pmo and Marshall hung out with Treaty of Paris. Both delectable options for the members of Ludo. Went back to the hotel, and had to sit in the lobby to get wireless internet access until the wee hours of the night. Joe Leonard and Tom Diasio were trying to put the finishing touches on the "A Very Ludo Christmas" video to Ludo's exact specifications. And they pulled it off! Went to bed after freezing for hours in the lobby while the hotel staff sat in the chairs next to us and watched the Tyra Banks show.
Tuesday, 12/11/07 King of Clubs (Claremore, OK)
The reports came across the wire and through the tubes: Oklahoma was encased in ice and widely without power. And as is the case with Oklahomans when experiencing any variety of weather, they were shutting down their state. But the tour decided to brave it! We drove toward the ice world through ugly, cold Scottish rain, fearing that at any moment it would all freeze and murder us. But we made it safely! Hurrah! But not before getting stuck 50 yards from the venue on the other side of a stopped train for half-an-hour. Sucked. Loaded in, set up, grabbed some food from the Boom-a-rang Diner, and then watched Treaty of Paris and Deas Vail. Great turn-out for Claremore! Especially considering the terror the Sooners were experiencing courtesy of inclemency. Just as we were pondering how fortunate we were to be on a tour with three quality, quality bands, the man called our number and it was time for us to do the rocking. Helped Deas Vail load off, helped ourselves load on, and then after some technical whatevers, launched into our half-hour set. Until the sound guy decided to make it a 25-minute set. I don't know if the whole show was running late or if he just didn't check the time right, but we barely got through 5 songs when he told us there was time for one more. Which was strange, since Edison Glass, who was headlining, rarely plays over 30 minutes themselves. There should have been plenty of time. But so goes the dumbness sometimes. During Hum Along, there was a guy who wore no sleeves and looked like he was in AFI, who in response to my entreating him and his friends to clap, got furiously angry and did wrathful monkey gestures of mockery. Then he left. According to witnesses, his quote upon exiting the venue was: "He was trying to tell me what to do... nobody tells me what to do! Not even my mom!" Loaded off stage, and made way for Edison Glass to play their ferocious brand of indie rock de penseur. High-fived Ashlee and the Oklahomangels. Hung out for awhile after the show, tore down merch and then got the hell out of Oklahoma as fast as we could. We didn't want to end up as part of their ice sculpture. Nor did we want getting forced into clapping by vengeant locals. Not even our moms can make us clap. Drove through the night and arrived in Austin around 9:00am, checked into a La Quinta, found their internet access to be shitty for time numero cinco in a row, sighed, said "Shucks," and went to sleep.
Monday, 12/10/07 Juanita's (Little Rock, AR)
Got up and drove from Mobile all the way up to Little Rock, arriving at La Quinta just in time to grab a few showers and head out the door. It was Sunday night and we had to celebrate Matt's birthday in the capital of Arkansas. Birthday dinner! Of the open restaurants, we found we could only agree on Outback Steakhouse. Fake Australian food it was! After that, we met up at Juanita's where Treaty of Paris had just finished watching Blind Melon play a set. We hung out with them and Haley, had some birthday cake courtesy of Haley, had some celebratory beers, ran next door, had more celebratory beers, and then eventually went to beddy-bye. Woke up on Monday early afternoon, had a meeting about the "A Very Ludo Christmas" show, then sauntered on over to Juanita's. Loaded in, set up merch, had some so good fajitas, warmed up, and then took in a sweet-ass rock show from Treaty of Paris, then Edison Glass. Played our 45 minutes of passionate rock, then only got to catch a few glimpses of Deas Vail as our load-out took way longer than expected. The box holding 5,000 Christmas flyers spilled all over the trailer. Boo! Hung out with some of our Arkansan buddies, tore down merch, headed back over to La Quinta, did some work, and fell asleep in the warm bosom of life.
Saturday, 12/8/07 Mars Hill Cafe (Mobile, AL)
Woke up after six hours, took super-speed showers, and hustled on down the lane to the venue voted Mobile, Alabama's #1 Christian Cafe Music Venue in a Strip Mall: The Mars Hill Cafe... worldwide, folks. Without Nick to run into the venue upon our arrival, greet the locals, and talk us down like an air traffic controller, we had to do it ourselves. Boo!!! Met Twon (aka MegaTwon, aka PosiTwon since he was so positive), who smiled and said we could load in whenever we wanted and play for however long we felt like playing and kind of do whatever. Except curse onstage of course. You got it, PosiTwon! Loaded in, set up merch, and listened to Treaty of Paris for well over an hour soundchecking with instrumental versions of alternative hits from the past 15 years. The catering tided us over, as did the delicious smoothies and wraps available at the counter. Such friendly atmosphere!! Such great food! No wonder there are so many Christians in the world, if they're all partying like this! Doors opened and the kids came forth like the tides of yore, eager to eat, rock, surf the web, and hang out together in a clean, positive place. Everyone knew each other from one of two places: (1) church, or (2) youth group. They were ready to rock and there were a LOT of them. Treaty of Paris exploded with a volcanic fury (I'm assuming because I had fallen asleep in the van... oops), Deas Vail played their rockgasmic set (I woke up in time for this one), and then we got to go on. With help from a ridiculously friendly sound crew (we're used to the charmingly-gruff-and-jaded-pony-tailed-rocker-who's-not-so-sure-about-us-at-first sound guy), we set up onstage, linechecked and began to rock. They were showing the Love Me Dead toothbrush video before our set (they were showing all the bands' videos), which got people suitably excited about oral hygiene, and then we rocked Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Go-Getter Greg, Lake Pontchartrain, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. We had their attention, and they seemed to be into it! Got out of Edison Glass' way, so E.G. could do what they do best, which is rock hard. Watched their set, met some kids, then packed up, loaded out, drove back to the hotel and walked next door to Denny's where we celebrated the beginning of Matt's birthday!!!! Delicious!! We went to bed with Mobile Birthday Dreams dancing in our brains.
Friday, 12/7/07 The AKA Lounge (Orlando, FL)
Awakened gradually by small people over the course of several hours, Ludo arose, showered and made our way down to the AKA Lounge where we had a load-in time of 1:00pm. This would be the earliest show Ludo had ever played that was not part of a festival or a noon show. Not entirely sure why. There wasn't really a loading zone outside the venue. We were told to park in the buses-only lane and start unloading. When a bus comes, we were supposed to move any items onto the curb, close and lock up the trailer, drive around the block, open back up and resume unloading. How often do the buses come, you ask? Every few minutes. Oh. We decided not to do that. Stole a couple metered parking spaces, threw on our flashers and started speed-loading with the help of the promoter. Down the street, up 23 stairs (in honor of Michael Jordan), and into a nice, cozy, upstairs loungey bar venue, with all manner of sweet, surrealistic art on the walls. Ran down the street, ate food, set up equipment and merch, and waited for no one to show up, because they were all still at school or work. Eventually, three people came and got to see Treaty of Paris. The crowd filled out a little more by the time Deas Vail was finished rocking, and we were poised to play for a somewhat less completely empty room. And we did. Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Save Our City, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, and Epic. Having apparently not gotten her fill of hanging out with Ludo in Gainesville, Georgia, Courtney's friend Mindi showed up ready to rock. My mother Nancy had to stay at home and watch my young padwan nephew Augustus, so she sadly had to miss the show. My older nephew Hank Frank however (as supervised by my sister Michelle and my broher-in-law Brad) got to see his first rock show ever and leapt around like a prancing elf the entire time. Ha. We loaded out immediately after the show, back down the stairs, all the way around the block to the only available nearby parking spot. Broke down merch and took it out as well. We made a few friends to be sure, but also contributed to the disappointment of a few more by playing so damn early. We apologized to those who missed the show, and promised we wouldn't play so early next time. The sound guy and the promoter were very nice to us, helping us get on our way, which we did a little after 7:45, making tracks for the Volpe-Roe Family Domicile. Brad was preparing us a delicioso vegan dish with walnuts and coconut milk and hearts of palm and squash and penne and other stuff, while Henry and Augustus were preparing cute gibberish and various senseless meanderings for our entertainment. The boys tried their hardest to stay awake, but eventually passed out mid-gesture face-down on the floor. We put them to bed, packed up our stuff, said our goodbyes to the fam, and started driving across Florida around half-past-midnight. Cutting a swath across the state and along the panhandle, we power-drove all the way to Mobile, Alabama Regional Airport, where we dropped off Nick around 9:00 in the morning. He was catching a flight to Memphis and a connection therein to Madison. The Sergenian family flooring business was gearing up for the holidays, and the talent of the heir apparent was needed. Meanwhile, Ludo was gearing up for a long winter's nap, and sadly parting with our organizobot Nick, rolled with glassy eyes over to La Quinta, where the wireless internet was spotty and the beds were comfy.
Thursday, 12/6/07 The Orpheum (Tampa, FL)
Woke up in the warm bosom of a sunny, Floridian December day. The Pug Named Yoda was whining. "Shut up, Yoda." A little pet-pet and he was happy again. Showered through the rotation that afternoon, high-fived my mom on the way out the door, and mounted the van 'n' trailer for Tampa! Home of The Buccaneers! Yarg!! The streets were paved with bricks in the Centro Ybor section of Tampa surrounding the venue and presented many clubs and restaurants and whatnots. How quaint! Loaded in to The Orpheum: a small bar venue with rock charm. Good-looking. A perfect place for Ludo to spend some time making friends and fans. Edison Glass soundchecked, we used the wireless in the neighborhood, Nick made a long and draining run to Fedex Kinko's to burn and mail some shit, and we set up merch. Then we went on the warpath for food. Found a place called Fresh Mouth down the street with Edison Glass and Deas Vail. Not bad. Good company. Wesley was asking about the cleanse I did. I think he was jealous of my shiny, sparkling lower intestine. I bet his has poop in it. Not really. I don't want to make that bet. Ran back to the venue, caught the end of Treaty of Paris, watched a bit of Deas Vail, had a pre-show Ludo meeting outside, and then slithered onto the stage. We blasted off in a spaceship bearing the following heat tiles: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, and Epic. The crowd was fun and responsive. A good gaggle of kids they've got here in the Tampa Bay metroplex. Or at least it would so seem. Made way for Edison Glass, who certainly had some fervent fans in the flock. Matt put away his drums and others otherwise combobulated our equipments. E.G. rocked off about 35 minutes of Edison Glassy action, we got to meet some peoples, we tore down merch, loaded out, said "Peace..." and drove away back toward the Volpe-Roe Family Domicile in Apopka. We got only a short way down I-4 when the rear tire of a pick-up in front of us blew out, sending the vehicle into a sharp right turn. It slammed into the wall on the shoulder around 60 or 70 miles per hour and then bounced back into the middle of the interstate. We pulled over immediately, and ran out to help, opening the door to a woman who was bloodied and disheveled. We didn't want to move her, but there was a lot of fluid leaking from the truck and a lot of smoke. Somewhat fearful that the truck would catch fire, we helped her out of the truck, keeping her weight off her right leg, the kneecap of which was clearly shattered - it looked quite wonky and broken. Although there was a LOT of blood coming out her nose and from cuts on her face and a nasty gouge on her unbroken leg, her white outfit was making it look even more gruesome. We called 911. Several other motorists helped direct traffic around the accident. A couple assholes almost hit us on the shoulder, so I hate those people. Pay attention and slow down, dumb-ass. She was trying to call various friends and family, but she was pretty disoriented and was having trouble finding numbers (the screen was also covered in blood, so go figure). We made several calls for her, but couldn't get a hold of anyone. By the time we tried our fifth number the paramedics arrived and we got the hell out of the way. Gave our statement and information to the police, said hey to Edison Glass who had pulled over to see what they deal was and if we were okay. Shaken up, we drove a little down the interstate, got off and went into a gas station, where a few of us cleaned blood from and disinfected our hands, arms, and faces (I was an idiot and got some on my face when I was calling her friends on her phone). Drove through some Wendy's for that ass, got a couple Subway sandwiches next door and continued east to Apopka, where we bedded down snuggly, well aware that Hank and Gus would be awakening shortly thereafter and screaming in child gibberish all day. I was excited! I haven't seen them in several months!!! Are they bigger? Are they smarter? Do they have more teeth? Are they saying crazier stuff? It's kind of like waiting for Christmas morning!!!!
Wednesday, 12/5/07 The Masquerade (Atlanta, GA)
After lounging lavishly around Courtney's lovely house in Gainesville, Georgia for a couple days, eating well and being productive, we headed 45 minutes into Atlanta to see what the city proper had in store for us. Stopped by and visited the offices where they make Adult Swim and the website superdeluxe.com. That was some exciting stuff! Then Matt and Marshall had a dream barbecue lunch at Fat Matt's (from Tenacious D) while Convy, Nick, and I had Subway. Subyay! Made our way over to the venue and loaded in. It was in a sexy, seedy part of Atlanta. Totally legit. And the venue itself was awesome. It looked like it should be guarded by trolls, run by vampires, and frequented by Tony Montana. There were three different rooms in the venue: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. We were playing in Hell. It was the first time I was truly charmed and delighted by utter filth in a venue. Cigarettes put out in brown liquid in plastic cups all over the bar. Beer bottles and napkins piled up in crevices on the stage. It was awesome! And they fed us! Delicious food! The walls were made of stone and mortar. It was certainly macabre and creepy. So good. The crew was very cool to us. We hung out with Edison Glass for awhile before the show, talking about all things life. Treaty of Paris came all disheveled and stressed because they'd lost a tire and been dicked over by some slow-moving goons at National Tire and Battery all afternoon, thus making them late. We felt for them... we have been there many times as well, our brothers. Just rest, and we will rub your feet. A local group of kind-ass rockers Rescue the Hero opened the show, followed by a delightful rocking from Deas Vail, and then a rejuvenated and driven Treaty of Paris. We took over from there, battling through a decent set of: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, Good Will Hunting By Myself, and Epic. Courtney and her fam were there, rocking out, as were Chad and Erin Jones (Ferrell's sis and bro-in-law irrespectively), and a whole gaggle of various deprived Southern Ludo fans who had paid a pretty penny of time-currency waiting for us to make it to Georgia. It was a good time indeed! Then Edison Glass was awesome as always, and the crowd hung out long enough to hug us and high-five us and whatever else they felt like doing. Loaded out with the help of Erin, Chad, and Courtney into the disappointingly freaking freezing Atlanta night, said our goodbyes to Erin and Chad, andt hen joined Courtney for a quick late-night dinner at a diner. It was good. Peaced out around 2:00 in the morning, and drove all the way to Apopka, Florida, where we arrove at the Volpe/Roe Family Domicile, featuring such characters as "My Mom Nancy" and "My Sister Michelle" and also starring "Brad, My Brother-in-Law," "My Two Rascalous Nephews" and "The Pug Named Yoda." We got there around 10:00am and hit the hay. I mean, we punched that hay in its hayface.
Sunday, 12/2/07 Canopy Club (Urbana, IL)
Got out of town by noon or so, and made tracks for the metroplex known as Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. Rejoined in our tour by Deas Vail and our boyfriends in Treaty of Paris, we were excited to be back in mid-Illinois, bringing rock for the consumption of the peoples. We got there and found out that we were playing in the front bar area of the venue, not in the main room. Okay. Loaded in and brought in all the new merch, set up our equipment, sorted through and organized all the new stuff. There was no soundcheck. We then split up and had dinner in various places. Yums. Deas Vail rocked. Treaty of Paris rocked. Edison Glass rocked. And then we got up and tried to rock as well. We did an all-request show. And here's what they requested: Epic, Drunken Lament, Broken Bride, Love Me Dead, Save Our City, Saturday Night Thunderbolt, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, and then an encore of Good Will Hunting By Myself, featuring Nick Thunderchops Sergenian playing my guitar parts for me. I just hung out and sang and then did the airplane on top of the crowd's hands. Whee. There was a late show, so we hustled to get the heck out of the way. Packed up merch after hanging out with some of the good peoples, packed up equipment, and loaded out, repacking the trailer as we went. Had some Papa John's and Taco Bell (Ferrell had lemonade), and we hit the road around midnight for Gainesville, Georgia (outside Atlanta), where Courtney would be awaiting our arrival with cookies and stuff. A straight drive through the night would get us there at 2:00pm the following day. Great time!
Saturday, 12/1/07 Subterranean (Chicago, IL)
We arose somewheres in Indiana, praying to Sweet Jesus that we would be granted us an extra hour. Somewhere along I-65, it came down from on high and went right into our clocks. Yay! And we needed it. We were running late because of the burgeoning winter storm that was descending on the Great Lakes region. Sleetiness and some snowy ice was all it took to send dozens of vehicles careening across the median and through the air. Crunchy vehicle bits were strewn everywhere. Yuck. We tediously made our way into Chicago and pulled up to the front of the Subterranean. Nick was informed that we needed to load in the front. The front was on North Avenue, a very busy Chicago street. It was blessed with a surplus of traffic that day. The sidewalk was a construction zone, fenced off with chain-link, and covered in tarps. Underneath the tarps right in front of the venue was wet cement. There was an 8-inch wide plank balanced a few inches above the tarp that we were to load our equipment across. It was icing and sleeting. The ramp coming out of the trailer was slick and icy. The street was slick and icy. The concrete was slick and icy. The plank was slick and icy. The guys working the construction site did not speak any English. Through gestures, sliding, slipping, and passing of equipment, we got it all in the door. But then there were the stairs. Ironically, the Subterranean was up two flights of stairs. Sounds Superterranean to me. Got it all in eventually, set up and soundchecked, and then intercepted Heather who had driven up from St. Louis with a carful of Ludo merch. Edison Glass showed up and loaded in in the rain (it had gotten a little warmer), but Deas Vail was stranded and were not going to be making it. Stuck in stopped traffic for 2 hours, and then stuck in West Lafayette, Indiana, they were screwed. The Frantic showed up though, and they were readst to bring the rock. We did an interview with Jules from Earphoria backstage while The Frantic soundchecked, so there's a strong possibility you can't hear a thing on the recording, but it was fun anyway. Doors opened, we vegans had some great food at Earwax (while Ferrell continued drinking his lemonade on Day 2 of his Master Cleanse), and the rhythm section found food elsewhere in the nasty cold. Got back, watched The Frantic totally rock, and then Edison Glass do the same. After that, we took the stage and blasted off a hot set of Girls on Trampolines, Drunken Lament Love Me Dead, Save Our City, Hello, My Name Is Your TV, Hum Along, Go-Getter Greg, Good Will Hunting By Myself, Lamb and the Dragon, Lake Pontchartrain, Broken Bride Part 1, and then encored with Epic. The crowd was raucous despite the frosty weather, and we dipped rather deeply into our party punch bowl of rock with our Ludo ladles. It was a fun show. We loaded out with equal tedium, thanked al our friends, allies, and fans, and then made way for Megs-n-jen's where we slept like baby people.
Friday, 11/30/07 The Basement (Columbus, OH)
After prancing laboriously around Rockefeller Center's Christmas wonderland on a brisk Thursday afternoon, we skedaddled out of town, and made serious headway towards Columbus. Stopped somewheres on I-70 south of Pittsburgh and got a room at a Comfort Inn. At some point, a mouse skittered across the carpet. Everyone was a-flutter, Marshall, Nick, and Convy reacting the most passionately. Ferrell began devising various trap methods, many of which were well implemented by all parties, but ultimately unsuccessful (i.e. the block both ends of the dresser he was hiding behind method... not a winner). For awhile Ferrell and I were crawling around on the floor trying to ferret him out. Everyone was involved in some way or another, some people directing or playing look-out while others trolled and partitioned. We eventually cornered him in the bathroom where Ferrell wrangled him in an ice bin and a towel with help from Convy's persistent air-traffic controlling. We all agreed he was very cute (like a furry golf ball with spindly little legs and a fast-beating heart), took him to the front desk where we presented him as a voucher for the vermin-in-the-room discount (which is $25 by the way), and then released him into the bitter cold - for which we all felt guilty. The rhythm section (Matt and Marshall) watched Mr. Brooks. Sleep consumed us. We arose and drove to Columbus, loaded in, soundchecked, ate at this place called Ted's right by the venue, came back, watched the other bands, played a bitching rock show and then broke down and loaded out. It was our first time in Columbus and everyone was very cool. Donnie and Rifqa were there from the Island Street Team with the magical Island Street Team van! Yay! Afterwards, we loaded out and then drove down the highway a bit with them, until we found a gas station Wendy's where we could share a bite. Not 100 yards from the gas station, we were approached by a man with a plan. And another man who was just doing regular run-of-the-mill panhandling. The first guy though informed us in rapid-fire succession that his daughter's boyfriend physically abused her, that he was probably going to kill her, and that he had several DVD's for sale for $5 apiece, or the package deal: 8 for $40. They were such popular titles as: UFC Hits, The Ring 2, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Universal Soldier 2, and Universal Soldier 3. Lots of delightfully violent movies he was selling in honor of his domestically abused daughter. He insisted they were on the up-and-up, NOT STOLEN. Whatever, here's $5 for some Ultimate Fighting videos. Good luck with your made-up daughter thing. Fast-forward to hanging out in the gas station a hundred yards away. There were all the same DVD titles with the same packaging and labels. Wow. That's pretty stupid. He was slinging his hot goods across the street from the place he'd just stolen them. We told the manager, they checked the security tapes, and sure enough there he and his goons were shoplifting the videos a half-hour before. Wow stupid. Said our night-nights to Donnie and Rifqa and then hit the road for somewheres Indiana a few hours outside Chicago. We had a lot of uploading of Christmas stuff to do for the myspace and our website and our merch store. After all, it was the first day of December!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, 11/28/07 The Knitting Factory - Tap Bar (New York City, NY)
After Thanksgiving had cornucoped down our gullets, we did some laundry and left St. Louis around 3:00pm for the Comfort Inn in Edgewater, New Jersey. Meeting Nick in Champaign, we continued eastward through the night and on into morning, arriving finally at our place of alighting in Edgewater around noon. Showered a little, slept less, and then made our way into the city to play our rock show. It was the first night of our tour with Edison Glass, Deas Vail, and our brothers in rock, Treaty of Paris. Twould be a truly mind-blowing tour. After craptasticking our way through oceans of traffic, we got to the venue a couple hours early. Threw on the flashers a couple hundred yards from the door (so as not to block the construction-constricted traffic), put the van in park, took out merch and whatever equipment we weren't borrowing and loaded it in the door, down the stairs and into the Tap Bar at The Knitting Factory. Embraced the TOP boys, cordially greeted our new tourmates in Deas Vail and Edison Glass, probably making a bad first impression as we took up way too much merch space as I was trying to sort through our new shipment of T-shirts. Eventually got out of their way, Marshall and Ferrell found parking (same lot as last time), whilst Nick, Convy, and Pmo set up onstage. We got to soundcheck for some reason (I guess because we got there so early), and then we made way for the other ducklings, McCloskey-style. The order was to be Vicio, Deas Vail, Treaty of Paris, Kristina Con Vita, Ludo and then Edison Glass (who was from just a stone's throw away). Doors opened, most of us had Quizno's, and all our buddies from Island started showing up, including some mofos we had not yet had the pleasure of meeting. Besides that, a ton of friends, family, and colleagues came out. And oh yeah, I think we may have had a number of fans there as well. It was intimate, this Tap Bar setting. Relaxed. Low-ceilinged. Horizonto. Unfortunately missed the first band and Deas Vail, caught almost all of Treaty of Paris (sounding great, boys), and then warmed up and schmoozed obligatorily before we had to play. Took the stage and blasted off nine songs of nine-a-licious fury: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Save Our City, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, Epic, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. Before Epic I recounted the story of the time I held a group discussion in my kindergarten class about the Challenger space shuttle tragedy, and how it went really poorly. Mostly because the contributing members were kindergarteners. Who (as a people) tend to be rather dull and uninsightful, albeit cute and snack-coveting. Anywho, we got the usually clap-repulsive Manhattan assembly to clap their damn hands, and wake up a little. Which was awesome. Ended Good Will Hunting with a lap around the room. Yes! Hung out, talked to all our peeps, watched Edison Glass rock strongly, tore down merch, loaded out equipment, and after some tearful goodbyes, hung out a bit and headed back to Edgewater. The next day held in store a trip to Rockefeller Center and we had to get our ice-skating beauty sleep!
Wednesday, 11/21/07 The Bottleneck (Lawrence, KS)
Snowing all the way down I-29, the road was inviting us nonetheless to spend Thanksgiving Eve in the Land of the Jayhawks. We hadn't played The Bottleneck in a mega-moon, and we were excited to be getting back there. It was our last show on the Spitalfield tour. It had been a great time, and to commemorate our touring brotherhood with The Graduate, The Forecast, and Spitalfield, we stopped by a truck stop to prepare the preparations for our grand finale pre-show ceremony. Five minutes before our set began, we called members of each band to the stage and upon their presence, presented them with presents: for The Graduate a statue of three dolphins ensconcing a coral reef, for The Forecast the bust of an Indian chief, and for Spitalfield a rustic Christmas scene painted on a large saw. It was what we needed to give them. Emotionally. We embraced them each and thanked them for two weeks of rockjoy. But enough festivities. It was time to make rock. We busted out Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Good Will Hunting By Myself, and Epic. Got out of the way, loaded out, watched the rest of the show, took tons of pictures, wished all our Kansan fansans a happy Thanksgiving, and took some beautiful photos of all the bands on the tour cavorting and cajoling together. All in all, it was a magical two weeks for Ludo, and we can't thank the other bands enough. Please be sure to check out each of the other bands' myspaces, listen to their music, and wish them luck on the rest of their tour. Congratulations to Spitalfield on almost a decade of superior rocking. It has been a grand run! And to the rest of you... we'll see you out on the road soon! We drove home, arriving in St. Louis on Thanksgiving morning around sunrise. Pilgrims!
Tuesday, 11/20/07 The Roxbury (Omaha, NE)
Didn't really do so much sleeping. Got to the hotel and immediately had a bunch of work to do for album artwork and merch ordering and whatnot. Slept for a few hours before having to pluck ourselves from the gently rising and falling bosom of slumber, only to be flung into a world of confusing venue-approaching. Back to The Roxbury for our second-to-last show on the Spitalfield farewell tour. We showed up about an hour late, loaded in, and set up our merch and equipment. Soundchecked with little help from the sound guy (Ferrell had no functioning monitor, and it didn't seem to phase him), and the doors opened shortly thereafter. Nicky showed up and ran merch for us. We took the stage and despite the hoarfrost, played a cockle-warming set of Ludolicious Thanksgivitude for the gathered Omahahas. Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Ghostbusters, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. Then we loaded out in the cold, intercepted some huge stage letters (L-U-D-O) from Jason the design wizard, and then watched The Graduate rock a brand-new set. It was sweet. I ran across the street to get a Quizno's sub. It was freezing cold so I bundled up. I got there at 8:50 and the door was locked. The sign said they closed at 9:00pm. There was a really cool "dude" kind of dude cleaning the counter inside. I got his attention to see what the deal was... maybe he had locked the door while he was in the back and had forgotten to open it again. He saw me and flashed me what appeared to be a peace-sign. You know, peace. As in "See you later, homey." Thinking there was no way his explanation (as a representative of Quizno's to a customer) of the situation was to say "Peace," I assumed he meant he would be there in two minutes. I stood there for another 4 minutes in the bitter cold, as he ignored me. Got his attention again. Then he was a little more communicative. He pointed at his ear and yelled, "Can't you hear? We're fucking closed!" That's weird. The sign says 9:00. It's 8:55. There are no other signs explaining any exceptions to this policy. I about lost my mind. I gave him a nice full-body gesture before walking away. I hadn't walked more than 20 yards when he finally took it upon himself to open the door. But it wasn't to make me a sandwich. No. He wouldn't spend the energy to make me a fucking sandwich while he should still have been open, but he did have the time (and the balls) to open the door to challenge me on the issue. I filled him in on the fact that he was a total douche, declined to fight him, and then called 866-4TOASTED to provide some customer feedback on Quizno's employee Vanilla Ice as I made the trek further down the street to Taco Bell. Got back, watched The Forecast and the Spitalfield. Great stuff. Ordered pizza, loaded out merch, hung out until Nick got paid, then headed on back to the hotel for some actual sleep. We soundly got some as I dreamt about urinating on that Quizno's guy's grave.
Monday, 11/19/07 The Marquis Theater (Denver, CO)
Got up at some point on Monday, still drunk on vegetables. Ferrell arose early and got the van an oil change. Somebody wins the gold-star of effort! It's Ferrell! Did a quick shower rotation, and made tracks for The Marquis Theater. It was like two hours away, and we did indeed spend a solid portion of that time in Mile-High traffic. Arove at the venue, parked across the street, fed the meters, and loaded in cheek by jowl with some care-free, high-speed surface street traffic zooming past. Got it all in there, set up merch, and unpacked our equipment. The Broncos were playing on Monday Night Football a little ways down the street, and Coors Field was just a stone's throw away. We were right in the center of it all. Denver, that is. We soundchecked healthily, then warmed up briefly in the van after finding some wireless internet and checking on how many views our Love Me Dead toothbrush video was getting that day. Ran in to play that durn show! Same set as the night before, it turned out. We did Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, and Lake Pontchartrain. Yep, same set. And once again, by the grace of Jehovah (and probably because of when we played on the Smartpunk stage at the Denver Warped Tour the year before), there was a congregation of lyric-lobbing Ludo-lovers living life large in the crowd. Awesome! It was a sweet venue too. After the show, we loaded out and chatted up the Denver denizens, eating the delicious pizza and calzones in which the venue's restaurant alter-ego let us partake. So good. So I hear. I ate more of my soup and then went to Wild Oats and made a salad. I also got some sexy probiotics into my system to replace all the colonic bacteria I had blasted out of my ass the previous month. Ewww... why did I ruin that perfectly delightful food talk with that putridness? It's just like Two Girls, One Cup. The other three bands blasted through their sets with maddeningly potent sexual power, we got to meet and spend time with two more delightful Denver street teamers (apparently there are 5 in total in Denver?!?! Crazy!), as well as Lenae, one of the two we'd met the night before. Street Team everywhere! I guess that's the idea right? We also got to spend a little time with a Ludo Ninja. Legit. Tore down merch, put it in the trailer, said huggy goodbyes to the other three bands, and after a prolonged synchronized wave from The Forecast, we drove toward Omaha, guided only by the sweet voice of the British lady inside our TomTom GPS unit. It looked like a nine-hour drive. And we'd be losing an hour when we changed to Central Time Zone. We wouldn't be arriving at the Comfort Inn & Suites before 11:00 in the morn. Go Team Drive!
Sunday, 11/18/07 The Black Sheep (Colorado Springs, CO)
Woke up barely in time to shower, did so, and then hauled on over to The Black Sheep. It had a parking lot not dissimilar from the one the night before at the venue in Salt Lake. What an unremarkable observation! Loaded in, set up, soundchecked after our headlining counterparts, and then prepared for the pod bay doors to open. And open they did. A few dozen mountain people gushed forth, a handful of whom were (serendipitously) excited to see Ludo. Met a couple lovely street teamers, as well as a nice, young lady who had never been to a rock show, but had requested to go see Ludo as the only thing she wanted for her birthday. Given our allotted playing time, we felt like we really had to deliver in those 30 minutes. So much pressure. We were up to it though.... Ludo got up and got down. Setlist: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, and Lake Pontchartrain. Bam! Leave the stage before we screw up the nice thing we made! Made way for The Graduate. Took some pictures and hung out. Ferrell, Convy, and I ran to Whole Foods. On my recovery from the cleanse, I was to have solid(ish) food for the first time on this night: homemade vegetable soup. And we'd gotten a room at an Extended Stay Hotel just for this occasion - it had a kitchen, and I was going to use it! Bought the ingredients, stopped at Wal-Mart to get a pot, and then jetted back to the venue in time to watch Spitalfield and let a miserable, starving Pmo take the van to find a meal of his own. Spitalfield finished up, the crowd was kind of confused about whether or not the show was over, we said our goodbyes to our new friends, loaded out merch and then busted back to our hotel room. We were eagerly awaiting the text from Joe Leonard that the Love Me Dead toothbrush video had finished uploading, so we could post it everywhere and show it to everyone. It wouldn't get up there until 6:00 in the morning. Blech. In the meantime, Marshall finished up some poster designs, and took some brand-new, next-generation pillowcase photos. With The Devil's Advocate on in the room and the majority of the band watching with rapt attention, I immediately started chopping vegetables. This soup-making was a long process (mostly from scratch and all organic), but I was ravenous to get it going - my focus was pinpoint. Two to three hours and a whole lot of Emeril-action later, it was ready. Diced onions and cubed potatoes sauteed in olive oil, chunked carrots, sliced celery, chopped red peppers, whole kernel corn, sweet peas, canned diced tomatoes, hair-thin noodles, kidney beans, fresh parsley, garlic salt, and a sprinkling of pepper. I threw some oyster crackers on that bitch and started eating my life away. It was so damn good, I almost died. Convy dug in too, and Marshall also dipped his beak in. Nick (who I found out later detests the smell of onions) left for awhile and then passed out cattywampus, limbs akimbo on our shared bed. I ate until soup was coming out of my ears. I had intended to write these tour diaries that night. But the soup slowed my brain function to a crawl, and after I'd had my fill, I awkwardly (droolingly (contentedly)) climbed under the covers and passed the eff out around 4:00am. The night-owl Marshall finished his graphic work and joined me on the sleepytrain, settling in for the ride, only a few cars back.
Saturday, 11/17/07 The Avalon Theater (Salt Lake City, UT)
Got up on Friday morning at the Hollywood City Inn, met with Brigitte at Mel's Diner, checked out Holly's apartment in Culver City and then decided to depart one of the most sprawling and automobile-obsessed metropolises in the world exactly at the beginning of Friday afternoon rush hour. So we parked for fifty miles or so. After the cluster-bang, we forged onward until we arrived at The Flamingo in Las Vegas! Our Victorville show was canceled, and the whole tour was going to Vegas for crazypants-time. We parked in a ten-minute 30-point-turn, 60-vehicle-stopping maneuver in the parking garage, found our swank, sextastic room on the 27th floor, hit the buffet and then hit the tables. I got saucy on the Video Poker 'til 3:00am, whilst Marshall and Matt gambled their lives away at roulette until 6:30 in the morning. Friday night marked the end of the 29th and final day of my Master Cleanse. Noisemakers! Got up Saturday, checked the buffet for some fresh-squeezed orange juice (line was too long), reattached the trailer (with far less traffic obstruction than the night before), and drove away, hurtling toward the capital of Utah at a feverish pace. After braving the torturous marauding of salt pirates, we finally made it to Salt Lake City and pulled into the gravel parking lot abutting The Avalon Theatre. Loaded in. Big-time. Set up merch and equipment. Backlined and made way for the opening local band. Marshall and Matt ran down to Astro-Burger and were disappointed by the fare. Meanwhile, Ferrell, Convy, and I booked it down to Wild Oats so I could get some fresh-squeezed orange juice (to help come off my cleanse), but we didn't have time for them to peel the oranges before juicing them. So I had some bitter-ass orange juice. Ferrell drank a double-shot of wheatgrass while Convy had a couple Naked Juices and arrived at the end of his quest to find the perfect vegan chocolate chip cookie: The Alternative Baking Company's "Chocolate Chip Cookie." But time was of the essence, so no one congratulated him. We tore back through the attractive shop-lined streets of Salt Lake, trying desperately to get back to the venue in time to load on. Nick called us and said the first band was starting their last song. God we were cutting it close. As we pulled up, the band was loading off. Yes! We jumped onstage and linechecked. We hadn't had any warm-ups but that orange juice was coursing through my veins, giving me a strength I had not known in a month. We told the SLC we were from the STL and blasted through a five-song set (all we had time for since the venue was doing ten-minute changeovers...) that went Broken Bride, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, and Save Our City. We were going to close with Good Will Hunting By Myself, but the crowd was asking for Save Our City instead. Okay. In fact, somehow, out of the 60 or so people who were there for our set, it seemed like 30 of them knew every word. Which is ridiculous. We've never been to Utah before. How was this possible? It was just like Phoenix. Apparently we had cultivated tiny pockets of fans in these states where we'd never been. It was another amazing surprise! Dude, we can't wait to get back to these places! Hung out with all these wonderful brand-new peoples, took some pictures, watched the other bands, and eventually loaded out. The next day, we were playing in Colorado Springs, Colorado. So we mounted up and headed east. After the first of many torturously slow 30-mph climbs of that night's trip (we'd had several in the previous days), we stopped in the northeast corner of Utah, and all bought really warm, silly hats at a gas station. Because it was colder than a witch's teat. Kept driving across the dark, barren moonscape of late-night Wyoming, taking I-80 past so many "Road Closed When Flashing" signs and "70 MPH Winds Possible" signs, worried that our failing oil gauge would lead to our engine exploding or something like that. Finally arrived in Colorado Springs around noon and bedded down for a few hours before we had to get to the venue. Crazy times!
Thursday, 11/15/07 The Knitting Factory (Los Angeles, CA)
Woke up at Melissa-n-Jeff's in Menifee, made our way through a shower rotation, and we hit the road, Marshall and Convy sporting brand-new haircuts. We dodged a lot of traffic bullets, evading snare after snarl on our way to the venue. The 101 took us to Hollywood, where we had to circumvent a clusterbang of vehicles. The nexus of the universe was on Hollywood Boulevard: the Victoria's Secret show featuring Kanye and the Spice Girls and a bunch of other crazy shit. People were loving it. Whatever. Ludo had to load in. Squeezed into the loading area behind The Knitting Factory, tightly sardined with The Forecast, Spitalfield and The Graduate. And three other metal bands who were playing in a different room at The Knitting Factory that night. Seven vans and six trailers. It was intense! But we loaded in anyway. Somehow. Set up merch, Ferrell changed his strings, Matt set up his drums... Ludo was getting ready for a rock show. Spitalfield soundchecked, Ludo warmed up and then set up onstage for our own little soundcheck. The sound was nice. Doors opened, and peoples entered. It was going to be a night of seeing lots of Ludo's favorite champions. During our soundcheck, we finally all got to meet our booking agent Andrew Buck in person, after seeing so many e-mails from him. He was truly a fine specimen of a man. I would even call him a speci-man. Then right before we started playing we ran into Scott Culver (director, Good Will Hunting By Myself video and otherwise accomplished and talented filmmaker) backstage. High-five! Then we got up there and started hittin' it! Go-Getter Greg, Love Me Dead, Broken Bride, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, and Epic. The crowd was like bears waking up from a deep winter slumber - sluggish, droppy, like molasses. But we were blasting rock-fire mercilessly at their heads. So many Ludo-assisting geniuses in the crowd: Joe and Tom (who do "The Ludo Video Thing" on our youtube channel), Paul Figueroa and Matt Bowen (who engineered our record), Jenna, Elyse, Jacque, and Holly (who had been transplanted from the Missouri-ish area), Brian (Marshall's boyhood chum and an Ultimate Fighter), as well as several good-looking fans from God-knows-where and Marshall's family and all of our friends. It was a lovefest. Afterwards, The Graduate killed it with a very Graduate-enthusiastic crowd, The Forecast predicted a heavy downpour of rock, and Spitalfield celebrated their last night in Los Angeles as a touring band with a fine, fine show. Met and hung out with Christine all night - she shelters pugs and works for Island (in that order). Unfortunately, a lot of our people got there late and missed the show because of that damn Victoria's Secret show blocking the street (and to think, I used to read that magazine!). It was a fine show though, and after a speedy load-out, many Ludo members peaced out and partied with various miscreants of the woodwork. Nick, Convy, and I headed to the Hollywood City Inn, where we'd done time in the past. Found parking in a CVS parking lot down the sketchy street, at the corner of Sunset and Western. Went back to the room, got up on that internet and started banging. On the keyboards! Sleep eventually suckered punched us in the back of the head and took away our consciousness for 7 hours.
Wednesday, 11/14/07 The Oneplace (Phoenix, AZ)
Woke up in Holbrook, Arizona. From the door to our room, you could see the highway. Beyond that all you saw was The Nothing from The Neverending Story. Back out on the motorway, we cleaved the desert expanse at 8.5 miles-per-gallon. It was our first time playing a show in Phoenix, albeit our fourth show in Arizona. The first was at a place called Minder Binder's in Tempe (where they didn't let us play until two in the morning - all the other bands had left and we played to the sound guy and Holden). And the other two were in Lake Havasu for the Family Guy Spring Break extravaganza. All I remember from that experience was that the other band, Showgun, had made themselves "All Access" laminates for the show. And it was ironic, because there was no real backstage area or security that would require "All Access." Ha. But this show was in Phoenix! We were excited. We rolled up, loaded in once the promoter got there, set up and then prepared for rock. The band other than Nick and me got some Chinesey-type food. Yum. I warmed up in the van and then we took in a performance by a band called 42 Eternal - they were cool customers. We only recognized a couple people out of the several dozen who were there by the time we went on, so we were pleasantly shocked when they all started singing along to our first song. Fair enough... we went with it! Somehow we had some Phoenix fans who had come out to see us. It went: Broken Bride, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, The Lamb and the Dragon, Lake Pontchartrain, and then Epic (point of interest: our cool points really seemed to go through the roof on this tour with that Faith No More action). Dude, all these long-time listeners, first-time attendees were down with every single lyric, and rocked out the entire time. It was really surprising and pretty exciting for us, since having never been to Phoenix, we were only hoping for maybe one or two Ludo fans to show up. Loaded off really quick, helped the Graduate on, and got out of the way. Loaded out, Nick got food, and we hung out with all the peeps who came out to see us, particularly for a long time with a large contingent of Tucson kids who were very cool. We also kicked it with several Ludo fans who had transplanted to Arizona from the Midwest (Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan), and we were all certainly happy to see each other. Everyone else who'd come out to see us for the first time had been waiting a LONG time to see Ludo, and it seemed like we didn't disappoint. The Forecast rocked it, and Spitalfield closed it out hard. We loaded out merch, said our goodbyes, and drove away. Ludo in Phoenix for the first time... awesome. Who knew?! A six-hour drive later, we were saying good morning to Marshall's mom in Menifee, California, and she was saying good night to us. Knitting Factory-Los Angeles tomorrow, boys... sleep up!
Tuesday, 11/13/07 The Launchpad (Albuquerque, NM)
Dragged ourselves out to ye olde horseless carriage known as "the Ludo van" and after a Schlotzsky's stop, we got out of Amarillo (aka Armadillo) right around 45 minutes late. Matt braved the harsh desert headwinds and the constant uphill (literally) battle of climbing the Rockies until we got all the way to Albuquerque. I wasn't sure of the pronunciation of the city's name, but eventually settled on "all-BOO-KWAR-kway," which of course is Navajo for "liberal artsy desert community." Very scenic drive and then a lovely town, hopping with all sorts of shops and restaurants and venues and whatnots. After some difficulty finding the venue, there it was! Named after the strong-chinned, accident-prone, stupid-but-loveable, crash-test-pilot, duckperson Launchpad McQuack from the hit T.V. show DuckTales, The Launchpad was a delightful and clean venue. We loaded in and set up super-quick. Doors were at 7:00. Our show began at 7:15. We played somewhat rustily and untrustily, but after Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along and Lake Pontchartrain, we dropped Epic like a bomb in the name of all three of the other bands, and it felt preposterously calamitous. In the words of Tour Manager Nick, "The show would have been way better if you'd just played Epic six times." Truer words, Nick, truer words.... During the other bands, we had a number of things to do: buy lemons and meals at a co-op, and make paper hats and other souvenirs in the bar area. The crowd was thin, but lemme tell ya... they were all fine people. It was our first sojourn to New Mexico and it was a nice introduction to a wonderful town, that there Allbookwarkway. We'll do it even better next time, New Mexicans! Jumped in the van and drove until Arizona was upon us. Found a hotel and made snoozes.
Monday, 11/12/07 The Conservatory (Oklahoma City, OK)
Ye olde Conservatory. Ludo remembers you well. We played there that one time on Breaking Fall in 2004, and then again on that one night when there was snow and ice on the ground. That's about all we had, those scant shreds of misty water-color memories. It was time to make some new ones. Turns out Spitalfield and The Graduate had something better to do than rock on the 12th day of November '07, but The Forecast and Ludo forged ahead anyway, hellbent on playing a show in the Sooner State, between Sauget and Albuquerque. Pulled around behind the venue, backed up to the door, and unloaded our giant black boxes we refer to as our equipment, as well as the gnarly-looking Rubbermaid bins we refer to as merchandise. Then ensued the hunt for food. The Conservatory isn't in the sexiest part of Oklahoma City (implying naturally that OKC does have a sexy side somewhere), but it certainly was dark and uninviting. It had THAT going for it at least. The eaters trolled with scarce luck, Pmo settling on Chinese, whilst Nick, Tim, and that other Tim put all their money in that Panera Bread real estate. If only the Chinese made bread... our band would converge over such a food and assimilate into one will. Ah well, it would not be the case on this Oklahomey night. Had to scurry on back to the venue before doors. I lost track of time and ended up setting up the merch late (scandal!), but Nick et al were there to pick up the slack (salvation!). Thank Lucifer! Our Oklahomangels slid in the door most slippily, as did the magical mistress of Ludo Ninjas, Miss Haley from Little Rock. John Estes even poked his head in. And his hand for a round of high-fives of course. Two local bands kicked off the show, and they were freakin' great! How delightful and refreshing! Ludo ludofied in the van for a warm-up session. It was warmy! Decided on a setlist and sauntered back inside in time to load on to the stage, line check, and then play a rock show. There were manidozen people there. And they were ready to rock it appeared. We went blamblamblam: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, Good Will Hunting By Myself, and then especially for our friends in the Forecast, Epic by Faith No More. It just felt right. As predicted, The Forecast took stage after us and did their own patented brand of superior rocking, and although half of them were coming down with colds, they still played with power. We hung out for awhile with our new friends from the Island Street Team, Brendan and Terry, said goodbye to the Oklahomangels, hugged John Estes and the lone representative from the amazing band The Effects, and then peaced the eff out. We went to Wendy's where Marshall ordered 5 or possibly 6 or 7-to-9 items. Lots of baked potatoes around that van, I'll tell ya. We all soiled the local sewers with our urine, got some gas and headed out. We would arrive in Amarillo at roughly 5:00am. Nick had a hotel room all ready for us. We would sleep in it until noon. Hurrah!
Sunday, 11/11/07 Pop's (Sauget, IL)
Woke up a little sooner than we would have liked on Sunday, gathered ourselves together and met up at my apartment, where we broke out our acoustic instruments and tried to quickly piece together an acoustic set. Ferrell on the 6-string, I on the 12-string, Marshall on the acoustic bass, Convy on the melodica and the Casio, and Pmo on his assbox (the box he sits on and hits)(it's awesome). Figured out that we could generally make our way through 6 songs. Sweet! Meanwhile, Nick was at Kinko's printing out flyers for that night's show. Got back and declared we needed to peace the eff out if we didn't want to be late. And who likes being late? Answer: assholes. Not wanting to be assholes, we hopped in the van and got moving. Arrived at Pop's a few minutes later, unloaded our entirely portable and unheavy acoustic instruments, grabbed all the merch, and loaded in. Set up the display and started warming up. The Sisters Heins showed up to play Merch Sales - The Game. They would ultimately win. Doors opened, and a couple hundred St. Louis area music enthusiasts gushed in. The first band was a group of local lads named Catch the Light. They had loud guitars and a Korg and they were a-rockin'. Then in a slight change of pace, The Graduate went on before us, dropping that hot rock set for which they are now notorious on the Spitalfield tour. This culminated with various drums being brought onstage and several different guys, including Tony (the drummer from The Forecast) beating along to the song all together. It sounded great. Then we got up there after a brief warm-up, plugged in for our unplugged set, and then just busted right into it. Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. Crap, the crowd was singing loud. It was intimate and assloads of fun. We all sat up there in our little semi-circle, playing Ludo songs like the crowd was a campfire-gathering on an Ozark gravel bar. It was an ideal first real acoustic show in a long time. I was jealous of Pmo's assbox though. Made way for The Forecast, who did it down and then made way for Spitalfield, who did their last St. Louis show right... even getting a chant for an encore after they'd already done two. Awesome. Said our goodbyes, packed up, headed out. Drove to Springfield where we laid in our hotel room and dreamed of sleeping in a hotel room.
Saturday, 11/10/07 Purdue Underground (West Lafayette, IN)
Having not played Indiana in multiple moons, Ludo was finally afforded the opportunity to rectify that dumbness. The Spitalfield tour would take us there!! Rolled up to a very tight, but cool venue in downtown West Lafayette. We'd never been there. Nice town, Boilermakers... nice town. It was a game day and the Purdue faithful were enthusiastically roaming the streets drunk. Loaded in and set up on the small and sexy stage. Merch we lugged upstairs and set up on a small and sexy table. Warmed up in the van. Heather swooped in to run merch. By the time we got back to the venue, a piece of paper couldn't have wheedled its way through the crowd. They were packed in their like sardines in a straitjacket! Which of course is not actually a meaningful simile. We blasted off our set and the crowd was completely into it. They were all smooshed together in that room and all the way up the stairs and about 4-deep around every foot of the overlooking second-floor railing, all of them raptly paying attention. It was awesome. And man, did they sing along! We dropped a hot set of Go-Getter Greg, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Broken Bride, and Lake Pontchartrain. It was en fuego in there! And tight! You couldn't think without asking the guy next to you to tilt his head away from yours an inch. So many familiar Indiana faces that we hadn't seen in quite some time. So many people who were hearing of us for the first time. And a surprising number of people we'd never seen before, but who certainly knew us. What a fine crowd that was! After the show, and a speedy, cold load-out, some band members ran down the street and had some Italian food, others took turns running the merch table. The toothbrushes were still flying like $1.00 magical hotcakes of joy. The other bands got up and one-by-one rocked the ever-loving crap out of the crowd. It was a very cool show. Lots of hugs and pictures later, we had to get out of town. Loaded up, headed out, gained back the hour that sick Indiana state line had stolen from us, and drove back to St. Louis, arriving at our sleeping pods around 4:30 or 5:00. Thank you, Purdue Underground. Thank you, West Lafayette. Thank you, Indiana. Oh hell, thank you, America.
Friday, 11/9/07 College of Dupage (Glen Ellyn, IL)
Left the Coralville Renaissance-Festivalesque Hotel around noon and headed Illinoisward. Nick was still driving separately. After the Glen Ellyn show, we were gonna be riding 6-deep in the Ludo van again. Alit softly on a loading dock at the College of Dupage right on time, where Megan and the COD crew greeted us and helped us load in. Arranged our equipment tidily on stage-left, set up the merch and then prepared for the show. I intercepted an incoming Ryan Gibeau, filmmaker extraordinaire from Boston, who was on a road trip with a friend and there to see a Ludo rock demonstration. We did our best to lay it down. The crowd was actually pretty fullish by the time we were finished and they were certainly rocking along. And man... we sold 43 toothbrushes! How nuts is that shit? The Graduate, The Forecast, and Spitalfield all did what they do incredibly well and the assembly was loving it. All in all, about 500-600 people were there. Awesome. It was sweet since it was Spitalfield's last show in the southwest suburbs of their hometown - they thanked their moms and dads and stuff. It was all very touching. Told everyone about our forthcoming December 1st show at The Subterranean, packed up our mule, and rode on over to the Oakbrook Terrace La Quinta where we saw Gibeau's latest cut and slept our little asses off.
Thursday, 11/8/07 The Picador (Iowa City, IA)
After a great night's sleep in what can only be referred to as "Ye Olde Best Western" (a Medieval-themed Best Western), we arose and plodded across Iowa City to the good old establishment of rock known as The Picador. Met everyone in The Forecast and some of the Spitalfield dudes, and got to re-greet our friends in The Graduate. Toted all our equipment and merchandise up the aft staircase, ingurgitated a Spitalfield soundcheck, and then upraised our equipment onto the stage, soundchecked ourselves, and had a quick pre-show meeting behind the club. The bone-frosting gelidity of the air outside brought a certain impermanence to the meeting, as we, after no belabored filibuster, scuttled back inside in search of warmer pastures. Not really enough time to warm up. The doors had been opened and our set was to commence shortly. Which it did. There was a menagerie of Ludo monomaniacs who had gotten the memorandum that we started early. They focalized at the front of the stage and rocked their minds away to the following septet of song: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Girls on Trampolines, Save Our City, Hum Along, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. Got down in a hurry and made way for The Graduate (totally rocked), The Forecast (totally rocked), and then Spitalfield (also totally rocked). It was the first show of our run with these dudes (and one dudette) and it went smashingly. Quite a great crowd came out for the spectacle, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. It marked the second night we were selling Ludo toothbrushes and they were going over like gangbusters. We loaded out the merch at the end of the night, and shuffled cutely back to our little nook at the Medieval-themed Best Western where we Knights of Now would get some productive internets and some delightful sleepums.
Wednesday, 11/7/07 The Hub (Cedar Falls, IA)
In Ludo's week off, ol' Jack Frost really started swinging his autumn junk around. It's a-gettin' cold there, little partridges! Gathered ourselves up and left St. Louis around 11:30 Wednesday morning, opting to take the secretive route up Highway 61 to get to Iowa, as opposed to the trendier, mainstream "drive through Illinois" way, which is totally for poseurs (Fr: Canadian posers). We shaved an hour or two off the drive, but still managed to get to Cedar Falls only barely on time. That's been happening to us a lot lately... we tend to lose hours on these drives. Perhaps we're being targeted as marks for time-travel mischief by Hiro Nakamura or Dr. Emmitt Brown. Either way, we don't need it, guys. Lugged in all our equipment and merch, set it up, counted some t-shirts, restrung some guitars, typed up drafts of e-mails... you know, the usual. Until of course the soundman was readst to blast off a soundcheck. It marked the first time I was playing through my new Marshall JCM-900 amplifier recently purchased on eBay. It sounded like a bear punching a rabbit across a continent... it was awesome. Good sound at The Hub. Good people too. Very kind to us. The Effects strolled in amidst our soundcheck and we all high-fived. Then we got our stuff outs the way to make room for them to set up and check. They sounded so good! So full and big! The Effects are better than ever! Yes! We all hung out after they were done. Ferrell, Convy, and Nick went to Subway. Marshall, Matt, and I played darts. Matt beat me in Cricket 2 out of 3 times. Grrr! That jerk! I'll get him one day. After what seemed like 5 lifetimes, the show began and The Effects were amazing, even having the testicular fortitude to play a Zeppelin cover and a Kiss cover. So good. We warmed up and climbed onstage, blasting out an hour of demi-power: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Girls on Trampolines, Save Our City, Love Me Dead, Saturday Night Thunderbolt, Topeka, Hum Along, Go-Getter Greg, Air-Conditioned Love, Lake Pontchartrain, The Lamb and the Dragon, and a disturbing rendition of Good Will Hunting By Myself. Dalton even played some hot tambourine at the end. The show culminated in me spinning around on the stage floor roughly 75 times while Convy knocked his keyboard off the stand and Marshall chased my tail. It was dizzying and moronic. We hung out for awhile, hugging, fiving, and slinging our merch to the fine peoples. This included our brand-new "You're Awful, I Love You" toothbrushes! Sold for $1. Cherished for the life of your teeth. Packed up in the bitter cold. Loaded out. Reorganized the trailer. Didn't leave until 3:00am. Drove to Iowa City where we checked in at a hotel in Coralville. We would be sleeping in the next day. Spitalfield won't want to see us if we haven't had our beauty sleep! Goodnight, Moon!
Thursday, 11/1/07 Knickerbocker's (Lincoln, NE)
Got out of Tonganoxie, Kansas around 2:00pm. We were finally playing a show in Lincoln again after so many moons. And not only were we going to be playing with our brodies, Anchondo again, BUT we were also going to rock with POMEROY!!!!!! Yes, the great, great, great Pomeroy. Loaded in at Knickerbocker's, greeted all of our brothers in rock, and prepared for the night's bacchanal. I set up merch, Pmo set up drums, and everyone else set up all their various stuffs. Some people had some Old Chicago pizza. Yums. I took complete advantage of the venue's facilities before doors opened. Unfortunately there was no door on the men's room stall however. Yikes. I was brave. And then Pmo filmed me. Thanks, Pmo. Glad I could share my dump. Doors opened, the peoples came in, and Anchondo started to ROCK. They were titillating as always. We helped them load offstage, and then (like a demented game of Tetris) struggled piece-by-piece to squeeze our equipment onstage. I wouldn't say we won said Tetris game, but we certainly used all the blocks. It was pretty tight up there. Pmo's kick was in my ass. Marshall was in Convy's ass. It was in no uncertain terms, tight. We started our set and the crowd was awesome. I'll tell you, the good people of Lincoln are always so amazing to Ludo. They were singing their tight little asses off and jumping quite promiscuously. A few songs in I was singing kind of like there was a badger in my esophagus. Fortunately though, the crowd was doing most of the singing for us. About four songs in, we were told by the sound guy we had time for two more songs. Okay. Wish we'd known that at the start. I picked up the setlist and ripped the three middle songs out. Tyson and Matt from Pomeroy stepped in though and said for us to go ahead and play three more. Which was very cool of them. All in all, we did Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Girls on Trampolines, Drunken Lament, Good Will Hunting By Myself, Hum Along, and Ghostbusters. Tragically, we had to cut Love Me Dead (which wellbodingly, we got a fair amount of flak for), but all in all the people got as much Ludo as we could slide in there for them. Hung out festively for the rest of the night with all the good people of Lincoln, watching Pomeroy destroy the stage with all their hot new songs and the classics that make the crowd go gaga. After the show we hung out on their bus a bit, loving life vicariously through them. We held onto our Pomeroy and Anchondo bretheren, bid them farewell, loaded out, threw some high-fives and hugs around to the Lincolnites, and then around 3:00 in the morning departed for Tonganoxie, where we would sleep for five glorious hours. Damn, it's starting to get cold. Guh...
Wednesday, 10/31/07 The Blue Note (Columbia, MO)
HALLOWEEN!!! Terror afoot!!! Every nook-goblin and cranny-demon denooking and uncrannying respectively!!! Woke up in Tonganoxie, struggled through our shower rotation, and then hit the road. Drove straight to the Buzz in Columbia (after some decoy misdirection from the DJ Shags threw us 20 miles past our destination), embraced the orientation-trickster Shags, brought in our acoustic stuff and got ready to do some on-air performings. Ferrell played a six-string acoustic, I played a 12-string acoustic, Marshall played his acoustic bass, Convy played the Casio, and Matt played a contraption we refer to as his "ass-box" - a crazy wooden box he sits on and keeps a beat on with his hands. Cool! Played Drunken Lament after some jocularities and chatting on-air, followed by some more chatting about our forthcoming show, "Nightmare on 9th Street 3: Halludoween," and then finally a performance of Part I: Broken Bride acoustic, featuring me ruining the last chorus with terrible "I just woke up" vocals. Fortunately, no one was offended enough by it to call in and complain. Yes! Got away with subpar service! That's always a relief. Drove straight to The Blue Note, at which point we the band devoured some complimentary pizza from Papa John's and some veggie-people foods from the Main Squeeze Deli. I had a delicious maple-syrup-cayenne lemonade to celebrate the 13th day of my Master Cleanse. Yeah! Take that! Brought in all the decorations we had in the van and loaded in equipment and merch as well. Started to set stuff up with the glorious soundman Dylan and his partner in crime whose name I always forget. We'll call him Monitor Mickey. He was going to be doing monitors and lights and cracking crazy jokes all night. Marshall set up the "Ludo" stencil on the the backdrop in eager anticipation of the blacklight paint that was en route. Heather had left work early with Amanda riding shotgun and a whole carload of Ludo Halloween necessities: spiderwebs, blacklight paint, an Andrew costume, 15 large blacklights, and a DVD of Killer Klowns from Outer Space. The blacklights had been delivered to her the night before (since we were in Topeka and couldn't be there to get them) by Dave Bush, former pioneer of Kirksville, Missouri's phenomenal funk band, Hazard to Ya Booty, and current developer of stage effects and compression technology. There was something special cooking in the Ludo pot. Heather and Mandy arrived around 3:30, Dylan and Monitor Mickey set up all the blacklights, Marshall started spraying the blacklight paint on the stencil, Convy, Pmo, and Ferrell started painting the bones of their costumes with blacklight paint, and I started festooning spiderwebs all over the stage. Heather and Mandy took care of merch set up. I guess they thought we were going to be paying them. Ha! Marshall was finding that the white blacklight paint was not showing up on the black backdrop, so Nick ran out and made several trips to various shops to find stronger, "popping-er" paint. Marshall sprayed diligently while Pmo kept hammering away at those costume bones. Squeezed in a soundcheck amidst all that nonsense, greeting The High Court as they strolled in for our (regrettably) final show with them, followed by the arrival of our brothers in rock, Anchondo. We went down to the dressing room and applied shitloads of make-up to our faces. Doors opened, The Buzz was passing out free T-shirts, and the costumes were looking amazing. There was a 9-foot tall grim reaper, Ronald McDonald, homemade Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick the Starfish, Lieutenant Dangle from Reno 911, Hunter S. Thompson from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Mega Man, Captain Hook and Tinkerbell (toddler-size), a box of Wheaties, two Pippi Longstockings, a banana, an emo Power Ranger, Wayne and Garth, and a host of so many other awesome costumes. Then of course, there were those who didn't dress up, for whom Shags MC'd a "biggest douchebag" contest onstage, the winner of which received a giant banana costume to wear for the rest of the night. Killer Klowns from Outer Space played on the big screen to greet all the concertgoers, The High Court got up as various funny things (Where's Waldo, a buttface, etc.) and rocked a hot half-hour set, followed by Anchondo as a very convincing Batman, Robin, The Riddler, and Joker. They KILLED it for 45 minutes of standby Anchondo rock, and brand-new songs that we'd never heard before that were completely nails! So good. The crowd went nuts and were about ready to explode by the time they were done. Then Shags (dressed as Kevin Federline schlepping around two babies) did the costume contest, the prizes for which included a meet and greet with Rob Zombie the next night, tickets to the Dane Cook show, $50 in Ludo merch and lots of other really cool shit. Lieutenant Dangle took home the gold. We were happy for him. Lights down. Cue "You're the Best" from Karate Kid. Enter four Cobra Kai thugs dressed as skeletons and the lone warrior Daniel Larusso, aka Daniel-san, as portrayed by Ralph Macchio circa 1986, and as trained by Mr. MIyagi (Pat Morita). Dave Bush (who had lost all his work that day, and had had to start from scratch) arrived ten minutes before our first song, and quick like a bunny, he and Nick set up the compressor thingies and cannons onstage for the confetti blasts. The Lamb and the Dragon! Confetti in the blacklight! Glowing skeletons! The backdrop popped off hot! We were pulling it off! Then it went Drunken Lament, Girls on Trampolines, Go-Getter Greg, Save Our City, Love Me Dead, Topeka, Saturday Night Thunderbolt, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, Broken Bride, and then we left! After some scripted manic chant-based coaxing, we came back, sprayed glowing tonic water, dropped Good Will Hunting By Myself, and then an explosive finale of Ghostbusters featuring black and orange confetti, and all the costume contesters and other bands onstage breaking it down. It was great! Everything went smooth as butter, thanks to Nick, Dave, Dylan, Monitor Mickey, Heather-n-Mandy, Anchondo, The High Court, The Buzz, The Blue Note, Kyle at merch, and everyone who dressed up to rock for Halloween! It was truly a memorable show for all of us. Got to embrace all the sweaty Columbia faithful. After much deliberation, packing up, and talking, we grabbed some El Rancho and Jimmy John's, finally departing for Tonganoxie around 2:30 in the morning. I as driving. I fell asleep at some point apparently and woke up 40 miles from Kansas at a rest stop in the driver's seat around 5:30 in the morning. Uh oh. Got Nick to take over driving. We didn't get to Tongie until 7:30 in the morning. Uh... bad news. Immediately fell asleep.
Tuesday, 10/30/07 The Boobie Trap (Topeka, KS)
Ah yes... the old Boobie Trap. It had been too long. We made a sultry saunter across Missouri to arrive in the capital of Kansas shortly after 6:00pm on All Hallows' Eve Eve. The place was Halloweened to the nines. Nice.... Decorations always get me fired up! That and costumes. Have some holiday spirit! Intercepted The High Court in The Boobie Trap parking lot - a parking lot which, as Tim Ferrell pointed out, represents the majority of the scenery we've seen of Topeka over the years. The people started rolling in shortly after we brought in all our stuff, so many familiar faces and many new ones as well. A LOT of smoking going on. Like a shitload. Like more than you would expect to see in a French brothel circa 1986. This was an observation we made. Another observation was that Topeka is absolutely teeming with flashing arrow signs. You know, the kind that small businesses will have in front of their place, pointing people with a flashing bulbed arrow toward the building. The kind that have a letterboard underneath said arrow so that you can tell people exactly what's inside said building. Advertisements like "50-CENT WINGS TONITE" or "WELCOME LANCASTER WOMEN'S HOCKEY TEAM" or "KARAOKE TUESDAY CANCELLED, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE." In Topeka, Kansas you can find one every 100 yards or so. I had a theory. That they were all made in Topeka and sold quite aggressively to local business owners. I checked several of the signs. Yep. Made in Topeka. Crazy! An acoustic duo kicked the night off, followed closely on their heels by The High Court. We took over where The High Court had left off, rocking our hearts out to the sardiney populous within the confines of The Boob. We even played "Topeka." Gangbustas! Then Ghostbusters. Good night. Played Epic because some nice drunk people wanted that shit to happen. So we hooked them up. Broke down, said our goodbyes and see-you-soons and headed to Tonganoxie. On the way Nick hit a deer with the trailer fender. Yikes! Entertained Shane for a bit, then busted out to Sleepland for a few hours.
Saturday, 10/27/07 King of Clubs (Claremore, OK)
Ludo had never played at a club in Claremore. On Saturday, the 27th of October in the year 2007, we would. Arose in Springfield at our Best Western of Excellent Lobbies and had a dee-lish breakfast/lunch thing (not brunch really) at George's Diner. Departed shortly thereafter. I was sitting in the driver's seat. Which could only mean one thing... I was driving. Yes. The van. And I did so until we arrived in Claremore, where Ashlee was waiting for us at King of Clubs, with an embrace and a guarantee. Set up merch while the rest of the peoples ran down the street to get food. Marshall, Matt, and Nick went to Boomerang Diner, where they devoured a lot of goodness. Marshall had a grilled cheese sandwich, onion rings, mashed potatoes and gravy; Matt had a grilled chicken and tater tots; and Nick had a grilled cheese and mashed potatoes and gravy. Meanwhile at a nearby grocery store, Convy ate a small "thing of fruit" while Ferrell snarfed down some crambled tofu and some poppyseed muffins and some almonds and some walnuts and some raisins and some water. I sipped my fresh-squeezed organic lemon juice mixed with Grade B organic maple syrup and cayenne pepper. So yummo. Greeted all the Oklahomangels lovingly - they had all their cameras and costume bits. When the band got back, we watched Thailand Hustle and then The Physiques and then a little bittle of The High Court. We had to warm up! So we did so in the van. Taking the stage shortly thereafter, we battered out a scintillating set of 45 minutes including a busting-out of Faith No More's Epic to try and impress our tourmates. A lovely bevy of RSU sorority ladies showed up six songs into our set and audially received the final 5 songs. Nice. Madison Avenue played last and played well. Broke down and loaded out. Hugged it out with all our friends and colleagues, thanked the King of Clubs for being such a fine monarch of venues (very clean/attractive place!), got in our little rig and drove through the night back to St. Louis. Okies... you're ooooooo-kay!
It was a seven-hour drive somehow from Omaha to Springfield, even with our efficiently timed stops (12-minute, 16-minute, and 4-minute). This inefficiency saddened us, but we had left early enough that we were on time! Yay! Loaded in, set up, grabbed some food, and warmed up. We were ubertitillated to wrap our ten arms around the four bodies of Ha Ha Tonka's members. Creepy sentence. Regardless, we embraced our brothers in rock gleefully. It had been far too long since we'd seen them. The High Court came in, high-fives blazing. Damn, it started getting colder than a witch's tit outside! And I don't know if you've ever gotten into heavy-petting with a sorceress, but that hangy nubbin is COLD! Anywho, we met a cool dude named Nova, who was there celebrating his big 18th birthday with his parents, Steve and Sta and his little sister Maria. Great people. Steve kept yelling, "Landlot!" at random points throughout the night. Ha ha! Landlot... what a creep. Commenceth the show. The High Court rocked. Ludo did some vocal warm-ups in the van. Then we hit the stage and hit it hard. Awkwardly, but hard. There were about 150 people up in the club and we dropped some Ludo up on dey heads. They seemed to enjoy that immensely. Made way for the unflappable Ha Ha Tonka, who sounded superoid as always. Hugs, high-fives, and a load-out later, we made our way over to D's house, where we did some hanging out with our band buddies, followed by a deep slumber at the Best Western. Sleepies...
Thursday, 10/25/07 The Roxbury (Omaha, NE)
After futzing around in our Comfort Inn hotel room all day Wednesday, Ludo was ready and eager to rejoin our brethren in Omaha. Hustled on over to The Roxbury, loaded in and set up. Nicky rolled up and prepared to run merch for us. All the preparations were prepared. Matt got his new kick drum head! Awesome. The guys in The High Court rolled up, and we all met each other. Very cool dudes. Barely anyone showed up to the show. There were roughly 19 people there. BUT... The High Court rocked! Then we rocked! Then we said, "Hey let's go play a show in Springfield, MO tomorrow, and then in a few weeks, come back to the Roxbury and rock with Spitalfield. Sounds good! Great work team!" Thanks to everybody who came out. Hopefully next time you'll have more company. In the meantime, we'll prepare more preparations.
Tuesday, 10/23/07 The Vault (Buffalo, MN)
Practiced Monday afternoon and made our way to the Pageant where we watched Ween play an amazing rock show. They're so good. We left from the Pageant and drove directly to Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, where we arrived at dawn and caught a few hours of sleep in the Sergenianly Abodeous basement. Left at 11:30 for the Northwest suburbs of the Twin Cities. Bonked around in traffic through Minneapolis, and pulled up to The Vault in Buffalo, MN about an hour after load-in. Yikes! We found out The High Court had dropped off the show, as had one of the two local bands. So it was Ludo and an acoustic solo performance by Jimmy Barnett. He kicked off the night with a sailing acoustic show of delightful songs. After about 40 minutes of goodness, he stepped down and we got up there and to a crowd of roughly 16 (that eventually became 12), Ludo busted out a fresh October set of sick and delightful wonderments. Dropped a new cover for the first time in front of people, and brought back an old favorite from the Halloween grave. I was rocking quite a slippery headache so singing hard wasn't feeling so good. We were having a great time though. Toward the end of the set, I had the entire crowd go to the back of the room and we played Red Light, Green Light. The winner got a group hug. It was warmish. After an intimate hour of power, we tore down our stuffs, chatted with our new and not-so-new friends, packed up and headed to Omaha. Around 14 in the morning we entered a delicious room at the Comfort Inn. A day-off and a sleep-in was in our future.
Friday, 10/5/07 Boston University (Boston, MA)
Woke up a little closer to our planned departure time of noon than Tour Manager Nick "Thunderchops" Sergenian would have preferred. I tried desperately to get a hold of someone at the Boston University radio station to do an 11:30 phone interview with them, but they didn't seem too into the notion of picking up the phone. Whatevs. Their loss, I guess. But boy, did I have some gems to drop on-air for them! Next time, next time.... The band didn't actually fully assemble in the van until around 12:45 or so, and we hit the road toward Boston, growing later and later as we sat in more and more traffic in the New Haven, Connecticut area. I guess those Eli geniuses over at Yale still haven't figured out how to cure traffic. Either that or they just stay inside their fortress and let the plebeians of Greater New Haven congest in squallor. Smart. To be sure, we were going to be LATE. Turned out that all of Connecticut was bumper-to-bumper. Yikes. Sat in some Boston traffic. Arrived at the student union building loading dock at Boston University right around when doors were supposed to open. Loaded in very quickly with the help of countless BU worker bee ladies. Set up our equipment and merch, warmed up, and listened to the Brooklyn band, Breaking Laces. Super-nice dudes and a great sound. We met Catarina from the Island Street Team and her roommate, who were aggressively putting up posters and being delightful. We ate some tortilla chips and PB&J, hung out with our Emerson College crew, and prepared to rock. We dropped an exciting hot-as-magma set on several dozen BU students. After the show we did an interview with an indie film crew about, you know, life on the road and whatnot. Said our goodbyes, thanked all the amazing people at BU for treating us so fine, tearfully embraced our Emerson buds, and then left around 2:00am for St. Louis. Roughly 21 hours later, we arrived back in the Lou. It was right around 11:00pm and we was sleepy. Good tour, everybody, good tour...
Thursday, 10/4/07 Grape Street Pub (Philadelphia, PA)
After a visit to purevolume, some hanging out with our new friends from Emerson College, and a Wednesday night doing internets and sleeping hard, we arose Thursday morning and checked out of the Southboro Red Roof Inn on our fifth and final day of occupancy. Drove out of Massachusetts and across the grand expanse of Connecticut, through the southeastern tip of New York, southwesternly across New Jersey, and into Pennsylvania, where we pulled up at the Grape Street Pub shortly before 6:00pm. It took some difficult maneuvering of the van and trailer to negotiate the insanely tight turns in the upper-crusty, opulently parked-on streets around the venue. We didn't want to hit anyone's awesome car. Loaded in, reorganized the merch (hell yeah!), and then skedaddled over to various eateries: Convy had rice at a Japanese place, Ferrell ate a delicious burrito, Marshall and Nick ate gyros at Riverside Pizza, whilst Pmo and I had pizzas at the trendy/eclectic Couch Tomato. That's the breakdown. Ludo's eating statistics for October 4th, 2007 are now etched in the history books for posterity. Got back to the venue just in time to set up merch, greet Jennifer Feliciano with hugs, meet Kiera (the wizardess from the Island street team) and listen to the beginning of the first band's set. They were called Stealing December, but we had some warming up to do, so we ran out to the van (where an ill-feeling Tim Convy was napping) and sang through some stuff. At the end of their set, we loaded onstage, did a quick line-check for a talented and attentive sound crew, and then started rocking. Same set as the Knitting Factory, but with a different kind of 'tude. Not necessarily better, just differenter. The crowd was a 21+ crowd. Which means they were there to drink and maybe see some rock - definitely to hear Stroke 9 play that little black backpack song. Would there be enough high-fives to go around? Only time would tell. The people started off quite sedentary and beery. But then they started moving and drinking some Red Bull 'n' vodkas. Yeah! At one point, I stopped the show, and would not continue until at least SOMEBODY got up from the cordoned-off, cocktail-tabled, adult holding pen in the back of the room, and came up near the stage. It was a sweetly uncomfortable 60 seconds before the amazing way-pavers Dianna and Miranda arose and came up to the front. We closed it out hard and got the hell out of the way, so that Kill the Alarm could get up and destroy the stage. They did so. We chatted some peoples up who were very complimentary and excited to find out about Ludo. Since it was our first time in Philadelphia, it was a start-from-scratch scenario, which is not unlike a scratch-and-sniff scenario. Either way you're scratching - it simply comes down to a matter of choosing between starting and sniffing. I'll leave that decision to the ancients. Nick said the show was "okay." Which we've come to find out means it was good energy overall, but there were enough mistakes to make the average attendee sick to their stomach. Thanks, Nick! After KTA, Stroke 9 played until 12:30am. Then they encored until 1:10, which is an impressive feat in any venue. We packed up, said farewell to our new friends and then hit the road with the Conman at the wheel, Nick riding shotgun, and the rest of us riding asleep. Ludo would make their way towards Boston, find a hotel in East Brunswick, New Jersey, and check in for a slight bit of sleep. It would truly be an Orwellian adventure.
After some nutty, crazy, guerilla run-n-gun, shoestring budget, DIY, crackerjack team, college whiz kid, rock-video shooting, we were tired. But EXCITED! Because we were playing in Connecticut for the first time on Tuesday night! Hurrah! We rolled up at the Webster Underground in downtown Hartford at a reasonable hour, fully prepared to rock. Loaded in, ordered some Chinese, chatted up the Juilliard-pianist/Greek-immigrant bartender, and warmed up, singing sweetly together a capella in the basement of the venue. The opening band, Tempest Edge, rocked to a gaggle of friends/fans whom we begged to stick around for our show. Then there was a solo acoustic gentleman who rocked for roughly 14 minutes. Then Ludo was to play. With 12 people in the crowd (half of which had performed that night) and the bar closed down, we rocked a set not dissimilar to the one we'd played in NYC, except with the addition of Save Our City. They were basically closing the place down around us since there were so few people there. But that holy dozen people stuck it out and stayed through the whole thing, which was awesome. The show was entirely finished by 9:15, and we were out of there by 10:00. Just for shits, we pulled over and played an acoustic set at a gas station for some Ludo fans on our way out of town. They were smoking cigarettes near the pumps though, so fearing explosion, we kept the show brief and to the point. Drove back to Southboro, MA to our Red Roof Inn that we were calling home. We were going to visit purevolume in Boston the next day, and we had to get our winkie-sleepies. Goodnight, Moon!
Saturday, 9/29/07 The Knitting Factory (New York, NY)
Ludo was excited. We were going to be playing our first real show in NYC. It wasn't a showcase. It wasn't a pay-to-play. It was a show. And it was at the famed Knitting Factory. Drove from St. Louis to Edgewater, New Jersey on Thursday, crashing at the Comfort Inn that night. Friday was a diverse day. That morning, we took the bus into Manhattan, took the subway from Port Authority to Wall Street and had lunch with our friends-in-management, Dave and Drew. Then we had Mexican food with some of our buddies at Island. Chris Convy showed up and led us back to a friend's apartment where we filmed ourselves, our friends, and more of ourselves, all brushing our teeth in the bathroom. This went on until 4:00 in the morning. Grabbed some shut-eye, arose in the early afternoon, and brought the van and trailer into the city and parked it perilously outside the Knitting Factory. After load-in, we drove around for TWO HOURS trying to find parking. Ah, the joy of driving in Manhattan. Scarfed down some Subway sandwiches, set up merch and soundchecked. Shortly thereafter, the doors opened, the concert-goers came in, and Ludo warmed up in the green room. Met some of the guys in Nine Days. Very cool dudes. On our way to the stage the second band, Paging Grace, showed up rather tardily after apparently getting in a car accident on the way there. Sucked. We empathized, but not for too long, because we had a show to play. Got up and rocked a 40-minute set to a Ludo-heavy early-crowd of about 60 people. We dids Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, Epic, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. It felt scintillicious. Got the hell off the stage, and then hung out for the rest of the night but the merch table, chatting, schmoozing, reminiscing, fraternizing with all the fine fans, friends, and family who had come out to see us. Unfortunately we missed all of Paging Grace's and Nine Days' sets. Sounded good from the merch room though. Anywho, we loaded out around 11:00pm, and immediately bid farewell to the Big Apple, making the arduous trek toward Boston. We had a hot video shoot the next morning, and we needed to get our beauty sleep. We found our final resting place (bed, not grave) about 40 minutes away from downtown Boston at a Red Roof Inn. We would stay there for like five days. So we made ourselves at home.
Friday, 9/21/07 The Whole - University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (Minneapolis, MN)
A week of yuletide nonsense, a 12-hour roundtrip for Marshall and Ferrell to pick up our ailing and very expensively injured van, and a practice with a 10-piece Wisconsin horn section later, we were bedding down to play the show of our lives. Slept most fitfully on A Very Ludo Christmas Eve while visions of confetti cannons danced in our heads. Got up early-ish on Thursday and arrived at The Pageant a little after noon to load in and set up. Adrian, Bob, and Randy from The Pageant were there and ready to go. Under the watchful authoritavite eye of Nick Sergenian, we loaded in, set up equipment, and with the help of some Convy's, a Sergenian mother, my mother, and a load of Sun Prairians, we immediately started setting up the stage decorations. Erected the Christmas tree, decorated it, strung the lights, set up Santa's little corner. Inflated the inflatables, hung the backdrop, hung the L-U-D-O letters, set up the candy cane archway. Ran garland along the front of the stage along with lights, candy canes, poinsettias, wreaths, golden reindeer and hollow light-up plastic toy soldiers. Covered the drum riser and amps in snow, lights, garland, light-up Christmas pictures and the like. Made a little forest of light-up trees filled with snow between Ferrell's amp and the drum riser. Dumped hundreds of presents under the tree. Set up merch in the new storefront at the front of the venue. Boxes and boxes and boxes of T-shirts and hoodies and posters and pins. The line had already started forming around 11:00am. Wow. Jason Snackenballs showed up to run sound for us, as Bert and Tony from Mississippi Nights arrived to set up lights. Soundchecked a Ludo song. Then brought out the horn section and soundchecked with them. They would be joining us for "A Very Ludo Christmas," our big ol' finale song. Horns peaced out, The Hush Sound, Quietdrive, and Nothing Still backlined. Nothing Still soundchecked. Heather arrived to oversee costumes. We had two Santa Clauses (Nick and Mirak), Mrs. Claus (Heather), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, the Gingerbread Man, a Christmas Tree, Joseph, a Wise Man, an angel and well over a dozen elves. A whole gaggle of my relatives (Shane, Denise, Caroline, Hilary, Matt, Anna, Steve, Lisa and Holly) showed up to play the parts, as did various friends and associates. Nicky, Jessica and Megan showed up to run merch for us. Convy's mom was working on building a stocking-hung fireplace to go around his moog stand. All the actors arrived in different groups in different vehicles from different cities at different times. We got them in costume as quickly as possible, which required a fair amount of tights, blush, stuffing of snowmen, and taping of gingerbread. Meanwhile Mrs. Sergenian was overseeing the creation of gallons of hot cocoa. Donnie and Rifqa showed up ready to make sweet Island Street Teamage. They came bearing Mirak, Rifqa's brother who would play Santa Claus #1, while Nick attended to other various duties. A few other Street Teamies drove in from Dallas!! Stewart arrived with his photography team, and set up an "A Very Ludo Christmas" photo booth where everyone could get their picture taken with Santa Claus. Rudolph, Frosty, Gingerbread, and Tree all hit the line chaperoned by elves, dancing and entertaining the people, while passing out free hot cocoa to the few hundred waiting in line. It came in little plastic cups that said "I stood in line in the freezing cold for... A Very Ludo Christmas 2007!!!" Yay! Donnie and Rifqa played Ludo videos from their Island Street Team van outside for everyone waiting in line. It was cold and miserably wet outside. I couldn't believe some people had been there for seven hours. Everybody sang along to "Love Me Dead" when that video came on. Nick intercepted Dave Bush who came bearing confetti cannons and compression technology. I grabbed Mirak and the Edward Scissorhands track on my laptop and walked him through the opening sequence where he had to light up the tree using his magic. He then got dressed as Santa and headed over to the Ludo photo booth where he would be holding people on his sweaty lap for hours on end. Chris and Joe were filming everything and I think Doc lent a hand as well. DOORS OPENED. Mrs. Claus and a gaggle of elves passed out cookies and candy canes as people walked in, while the other Christmas characters danced about merrily. Glorious Christmas music played over the P.A.. There was no turning back now. The floodgates had opened. I think before they opened the doors, we had sold somewhere around 1600 or 1700 tickets. The most we'd ever sold at all was 1400 so we were ecstatic. Nothing Still took the stage after people steadily filed in for an hour. They rocked it. Quietdrive got up and killed it. The Hush Sound was outstanding. Then we set up our stage like we wanted it, linechecked, cued Edward Scissorhands, and sent Mirak on his way across the stage and into a winter wonderland. The crowd was restless and Christmas-like. We came out after Santa lit up the tree, strapped on our instruments and tore into Broken Bride as all the lights came up. The set went like this: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Go-Getter Greg, Roxy, Save Our City, Lake Pontchartrain, Saturday Night Thunderbolt, Love Me Dead, Girls on Trampolines, Epic, Good Will Hunting By Myself (featuring Santa Claus #2 - Nick) on guitar, and then we ran offstage, high-fived the owner of the Pageant, Joe Edwards, and then for an encore we came out and did Hum Along. The crowd was nutso. They were great the whole show and they were definitely still nutso at this point. Quietdrive, Nothing Still and The Hush Sound all joined us onstage. So did all the elves. So did the horn section. And of course Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, the Gingerbread Man, Frosty, Rudolph and a Tree. Dan from Last Fast Action and Katie Davis (both of whom had sung on the recording of the song) came out as well. We then played "A Very Ludo Christmas" and it was insane. Ginormous balloons filled with confetti bounced around the crowd. There was an explosion of confetti at the end. All the characters danced and jumped around stage. We went around the world, the lights went nuts, we thanked everyone, and then started throwing out presents to "Holly Jolly Christmas." It was like feeding-time. Insanity. We made our way over to the merch table, and set up at a signing table where we met a seemingly unending line of incredibly excited people for 45 minutes, signing stuff, taking photos, etc. Meanwhile, Nick and many others were tearing down all the decorations and loading out equipment for us. Various helpers were changing out of their costumes backstage. The merch room was PACKED, but with the new system it seemed like we could really sell stuff to, talk to, and sign stuff for way more people than in previous years. Finally they closed the doors, we ran off to pack up merch and decorations and equipment, and we said our farewells to all the wonderful helper people. We packed up, loaded out, and then around 1:30am we drove away from the Pageant and toward Chicago. All in all, we'd sold 2,250 tickets and there were easily 2,400 people there. No time to digest that ridiculous number. Drove through the night (each getting a couple hours of in-the-van sleep) straight to WGN Studios in Chicago, where we found ourselves in the middle of our third Chicago snowstorm in three trips to Chicago over a four-week period. Bullshit. It was 7:30 in the morning. We were delirious and deadlike. Brought in our acoustic instruments with the help of Nick and Curran Convy. Huddled frozen in the green room for a bit. Were escorted into a studio where we tried to warm up. My voice sounded like microwaved death. Played suddenly whenever they pointed at us and said, "Go!" Didn't know where we were or what was going on, but got through it somehow. What should've been only very exciting (our first time on a live television broadcast that big), was somewhat exciting, somewhat terrifying and confusing. Going on nationally syndicated live television to perform is not recommended after a 15-hour work day and then no sleep. But no one yelled at us or looked at us like we were assholes, so I guess we pulled it off. Trudged back to the van after thanking the fine people of WGN, and slip-slid all the way through the snowy streets to Convy's cousin Dan's house, where we all slept soundly for at least 200 minutes each.
What a freaking nightmare. What a horrible, stupid, assclown-filled nightmare featuring douche and sadness. Exhuasted from the previous night's/day's drive in from Dallas, we embarked on one of the worst Ludo trips in Ludo history. Headed toward ten inches of ice and snow, we left town on that Saturday morning, with hope in our hearts and doubt in our heads. The roads were rather nasty and nastier were they getting the closer we drove to Chicago. We got there and it was snowing like it meant it. The dude at the venue was rather gruff and unpleasant and didn't seem to care give two shits that we had shown up. Edison Glass and Deas Vail were stranded in Kansas City, so it would just be us and some locals. Mojoe's Rock House was a converted dance club, and as we were setting up merch, we watched them building a barricade between the house and the stage that could have held a gorilla. Meanwhile, the first band was setting up onstage (nice guys who had just hopped on the show at the last minute), and not only did they have wind chimes (among other percussion instruments), but they just couldn't stop playing the wind chimes. It started out as a pretty sound that over time grew to mock us and our plight with constant ethereal ringing. It was an odd juxtaposition: they were building the strongest barricade I'd ever seen at a rock show to keep a raucous crowd from trashing the stage, while the first band with wind chimes we'd ever shared the stage with was soundchecking. No one in the history of music has ever rushed a stage that has wind chimes on it. It's just not possible. The sound guy was really cool to us. The other bands played, some people showed up, all the while we were getting snowed in. We almost fell asleep as we waited to play. Eventually our number came up, we loaded on to the stage, set up, had great difficulty soundchecking (like 25 minutes of difficulty), and then launched into a 7-song set that included more banter than music. We talked endlessly about nothing. We had lost our minds. The stage smelled exactly like vomit. My mic smelled like socks at the YMCA. Then we felt bad because a few dozen very cool and faithful Ludo fans had come to hear us play and hadn't given up on the show yet... so we figured we should play more than just 7 songs. We did just that, kept it going and didn't let it stop until we had thoroughly done everything in as "nothing" a fashion as anything. Packed up and loaded out in what was now 8 inches of wet, slick and still falling snow. We realized that we were stranded in the immediate area, found a nearby hotel, slipped and slid our way down the streets, never coming to a complete stop for fear that we would get stuck. Slept a lot. Woke up the next day, stopped at American Sale Warehouse Outlet Store, bought some Christmas decorations, packed them away, and hit the road. The van turned evil and started screaming and bucking like a hell-beast somewhere around Joliet, not 15 miles from where we'd played. We would be spending another night in a hotel. All we wanted to do was get home. The van was dead. We walked through deep snow that night and saw No Country For Old Men at the semi-nearby movieplex. The next morning, we were told the van couldn't be ready for several days. We struggled in vain to find a rental vehicle with a hitch. Got a truck that would do the job. Wrong size hitch. Welded in place, so that it couldn't be switched out. Had to leave our trailer with all our stuff in it too. Grabbed what we needed to practice and play acoustic, and then four across the front seat drove all the way back to St. Louis, truly in misery, having missed and been forced to reschedule our on-air performance and visit to 105.7 The Point with Cornbread for later in the week. How would we get our van and trailer back in time for the show? Someone was going to have to drive back to Chicago and get it. SUCK.
Awoke in a haze of weirdness, desperately wanting to rinse the debauchery of last night's show from our souls. Instead we grabbed some smoothies at a co-op and headed for Dallas. Got there just in time to load in, set up merch and get food. Cony, Ferrell, and I went to this place Convy knew about called Cosmic Cafe. It was Indian. And it was awesome. Back to the venue, found some quarters, fed the meters, and got ready to rock. Treaty of Paris, then Deas Vail blew their awesomeness right through the speakers as always, and then we shuffled onto the platform of rock. To the best crowd we've ever gotten to play to in Dallas, we blasted through seven meticulous Ludo musical quandaries: Go-Getter Greg, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Broken Bride, Good Will Hunting By Myself, and Epic. The sound was great, and our souls were unbridled, feeling fortunate to be rocking once more without the terror of the Lewis Carroll nightmare that ensued at the end of the previous night's show. Some former Upsiders showed up and gave us all superhugs. Mollie ran merch again, and Brendan and his brody showed up with another street teamer, Brittany. We shook hands and eventually hugged. After the show, they declared they would be coming to St. Louis for "A Very Ludo Christmas"... a wise choice my friends. Watched Edison Glass tear it up, hung out with our Lubbock contingent and our College Station contingent, and the great Sid Goldsmith. Packed up merch and equipment, loaded out and drove away. Up into Oklahoma, and across Missouri to St. Louis where we would be bedding down at the reasonable hour of 1:00 in the afternoon.
Thrilled to finally be back down south where we could avoid the cold, we rolled out of bed on that Wednesday afternoon and stepped outside, only to be horrified by the bitter chill on the air. We're cursed! Apparently yesterday it was 70-degrees. And just like every idiot who lives in the really warm parts of the U.S., they all said, "Oh yay! Cold weather!" We informed them that there was a whole country full of frosty misery just 300 miles north and that they could move there if they wanted. No takers. Showed up at the club. No one there. Waited and waited until finally someone opened the door. There was a sign on the wall that said, "No Budweiser products on premises - because Bud is made in St. Louis and we hate the Cardinals." I guess Astros fans in Austin really hate St. Louis. That's funny. I don't remember giving a flying shit about the Astros. It's cute that somebody's got a rivalry there. Between that and the fact that after loading in we were told to leave because the promoter wasn't there yet and the club didn't want to watch over us, we felt like we were in for a night of warmth and pleasantries. Dispersed, found food, and returned to the club once we were welcome back. The people working there were cool to us (although we kept our St. Louisness a secret...). Set up merch, set up equipment, and then watched the wonder of all three of the other bands: Deas Vail, Treaty of Paris, and Edison Glass. Such power the three of them radiate! Such a smorgasbord too! Upside Rob appeared like a holy vision and high-fived us. Mollie ran merch and we got to meet another Island street teamer named Tina. Hi Tina! She had a camera and she did not fear using it on us. It was our first time not playing The Red-Eyed Fly in, oh I'd say roughly the previous nine trips down to Austin. So we didn't know what to expect... which makes sense because nothing could have prepared us for what ensued. We played like 11 songs in toto, and the show was generally standard (possibly even a little too pedestrian for the first nine songs). That is, until Good Will Hunting By Myself. We broke it down on the bridge, took a picture of the crowd and then shit got weird. A girl who (either via barbituates, hallucinogens, or gallons of liquor) was on another planet, took it upon herself to crawl most tippingly onto the stage and on her knees try to eat the center of my guitar. I didn't know what to do with her. Then she crawled away from me toward Ferrell and still on her knees, began to play his guitar with her teeth. It was like watching a car filled with eggs hit a train filled with children. It was horrifying. I couldn't figure out what was happening. Then I turned around and Marshall was standing on top of his 5-foot tall bass cabinet. He was basically on the ceiling. Then this group of girls kept trying to take a picture of my crotch. The train had completely left the tracks. No one knew what was happening. So we went with it. I tried to start the rant, but Crazy Girl got BACK up on stage and started crawling around after Ferrell again. Then we just did a disco beat and started dancing. Woot! Finished the set with Epic and I hid behind Pmo's drum kit. It was all crazypants. Loaded out, then we three guys of veganism went to this sweet-ass 24-hour cafe that had a bunch of vegetarian-type meals. Yums. Meanwhile, Pmo and Marshall hung out with Treaty of Paris. Both delectable options for the members of Ludo. Went back to the hotel, and had to sit in the lobby to get wireless internet access until the wee hours of the night. Joe Leonard and Tom Diasio were trying to put the finishing touches on the "A Very Ludo Christmas" video to Ludo's exact specifications. And they pulled it off! Went to bed after freezing for hours in the lobby while the hotel staff sat in the chairs next to us and watched the Tyra Banks show.
Awakened gradually by small people over the course of several hours, Ludo arose, showered and made our way down to the AKA Lounge where we had a load-in time of 1:00pm. This would be the earliest show Ludo had ever played that was not part of a festival or a noon show. Not entirely sure why. There wasn't really a loading zone outside the venue. We were told to park in the buses-only lane and start unloading. When a bus comes, we were supposed to move any items onto the curb, close and lock up the trailer, drive around the block, open back up and resume unloading. How often do the buses come, you ask? Every few minutes. Oh. We decided not to do that. Stole a couple metered parking spaces, threw on our flashers and started speed-loading with the help of the promoter. Down the street, up 23 stairs (in honor of Michael Jordan), and into a nice, cozy, upstairs loungey bar venue, with all manner of sweet, surrealistic art on the walls. Ran down the street, ate food, set up equipment and merch, and waited for no one to show up, because they were all still at school or work. Eventually, three people came and got to see Treaty of Paris. The crowd filled out a little more by the time Deas Vail was finished rocking, and we were poised to play for a somewhat less completely empty room. And we did. Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Save Our City, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, and Epic. Having apparently not gotten her fill of hanging out with Ludo in Gainesville, Georgia, Courtney's friend Mindi showed up ready to rock. My mother Nancy had to stay at home and watch my young padwan nephew Augustus, so she sadly had to miss the show. My older nephew Hank Frank however (as supervised by my sister Michelle and my broher-in-law Brad) got to see his first rock show ever and leapt around like a prancing elf the entire time. Ha. We loaded out immediately after the show, back down the stairs, all the way around the block to the only available nearby parking spot. Broke down merch and took it out as well. We made a few friends to be sure, but also contributed to the disappointment of a few more by playing so damn early. We apologized to those who missed the show, and promised we wouldn't play so early next time. The sound guy and the promoter were very nice to us, helping us get on our way, which we did a little after 7:45, making tracks for the Volpe-Roe Family Domicile. Brad was preparing us a delicioso vegan dish with walnuts and coconut milk and hearts of palm and squash and penne and other stuff, while Henry and Augustus were preparing cute gibberish and various senseless meanderings for our entertainment. The boys tried their hardest to stay awake, but eventually passed out mid-gesture face-down on the floor. We put them to bed, packed up our stuff, said our goodbyes to the fam, and started driving across Florida around half-past-midnight. Cutting a swath across the state and along the panhandle, we power-drove all the way to Mobile, Alabama Regional Airport, where we dropped off Nick around 9:00 in the morning. He was catching a flight to Memphis and a connection therein to Madison. The Sergenian family flooring business was gearing up for the holidays, and the talent of the heir apparent was needed. Meanwhile, Ludo was gearing up for a long winter's nap, and sadly parting with our organizobot Nick, rolled with glassy eyes over to La Quinta, where the wireless internet was spotty and the beds were comfy.
Woke up in the warm bosom of a sunny, Floridian December day. The Pug Named Yoda was whining. "Shut up, Yoda." A little pet-pet and he was happy again. Showered through the rotation that afternoon, high-fived my mom on the way out the door, and mounted the van 'n' trailer for Tampa! Home of The Buccaneers! Yarg!! The streets were paved with bricks in the Centro Ybor section of Tampa surrounding the venue and presented many clubs and restaurants and whatnots. How quaint! Loaded in to The Orpheum: a small bar venue with rock charm. Good-looking. A perfect place for Ludo to spend some time making friends and fans. Edison Glass soundchecked, we used the wireless in the neighborhood, Nick made a long and draining run to Fedex Kinko's to burn and mail some shit, and we set up merch. Then we went on the warpath for food. Found a place called Fresh Mouth down the street with Edison Glass and Deas Vail. Not bad. Good company. Wesley was asking about the cleanse I did. I think he was jealous of my shiny, sparkling lower intestine. I bet his has poop in it. Not really. I don't want to make that bet. Ran back to the venue, caught the end of Treaty of Paris, watched a bit of Deas Vail, had a pre-show Ludo meeting outside, and then slithered onto the stage. We blasted off in a spaceship bearing the following heat tiles: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, and Epic. The crowd was fun and responsive. A good gaggle of kids they've got here in the Tampa Bay metroplex. Or at least it would so seem. Made way for Edison Glass, who certainly had some fervent fans in the flock. Matt put away his drums and others otherwise combobulated our equipments. E.G. rocked off about 35 minutes of Edison Glassy action, we got to meet some peoples, we tore down merch, loaded out, said "Peace..." and drove away back toward the Volpe-Roe Family Domicile in Apopka. We got only a short way down I-4 when the rear tire of a pick-up in front of us blew out, sending the vehicle into a sharp right turn. It slammed into the wall on the shoulder around 60 or 70 miles per hour and then bounced back into the middle of the interstate. We pulled over immediately, and ran out to help, opening the door to a woman who was bloodied and disheveled. We didn't want to move her, but there was a lot of fluid leaking from the truck and a lot of smoke. Somewhat fearful that the truck would catch fire, we helped her out of the truck, keeping her weight off her right leg, the kneecap of which was clearly shattered - it looked quite wonky and broken. Although there was a LOT of blood coming out her nose and from cuts on her face and a nasty gouge on her unbroken leg, her white outfit was making it look even more gruesome. We called 911. Several other motorists helped direct traffic around the accident. A couple assholes almost hit us on the shoulder, so I hate those people. Pay attention and slow down, dumb-ass. She was trying to call various friends and family, but she was pretty disoriented and was having trouble finding numbers (the screen was also covered in blood, so go figure). We made several calls for her, but couldn't get a hold of anyone. By the time we tried our fifth number the paramedics arrived and we got the hell out of the way. Gave our statement and information to the police, said hey to Edison Glass who had pulled over to see what they deal was and if we were okay. Shaken up, we drove a little down the interstate, got off and went into a gas station, where a few of us cleaned blood from and disinfected our hands, arms, and faces (I was an idiot and got some on my face when I was calling her friends on her phone). Drove through some Wendy's for that ass, got a couple Subway sandwiches next door and continued east to Apopka, where we bedded down snuggly, well aware that Hank and Gus would be awakening shortly thereafter and screaming in child gibberish all day. I was excited! I haven't seen them in several months!!! Are they bigger? Are they smarter? Do they have more teeth? Are they saying crazier stuff? It's kind of like waiting for Christmas morning!!!!
After lounging lavishly around Courtney's lovely house in Gainesville, Georgia for a couple days, eating well and being productive, we headed 45 minutes into Atlanta to see what the city proper had in store for us. Stopped by and visited the offices where they make Adult Swim and the website superdeluxe.com. That was some exciting stuff! Then Matt and Marshall had a dream barbecue lunch at Fat Matt's (from Tenacious D) while Convy, Nick, and I had Subway. Subyay! Made our way over to the venue and loaded in. It was in a sexy, seedy part of Atlanta. Totally legit. And the venue itself was awesome. It looked like it should be guarded by trolls, run by vampires, and frequented by Tony Montana. There were three different rooms in the venue: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. We were playing in Hell. It was the first time I was truly charmed and delighted by utter filth in a venue. Cigarettes put out in brown liquid in plastic cups all over the bar. Beer bottles and napkins piled up in crevices on the stage. It was awesome! And they fed us! Delicious food! The walls were made of stone and mortar. It was certainly macabre and creepy. So good. The crew was very cool to us. We hung out with Edison Glass for awhile before the show, talking about all things life. Treaty of Paris came all disheveled and stressed because they'd lost a tire and been dicked over by some slow-moving goons at National Tire and Battery all afternoon, thus making them late. We felt for them... we have been there many times as well, our brothers. Just rest, and we will rub your feet. A local group of kind-ass rockers Rescue the Hero opened the show, followed by a delightful rocking from Deas Vail, and then a rejuvenated and driven Treaty of Paris. We took over from there, battling through a decent set of: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, Good Will Hunting By Myself, and Epic. Courtney and her fam were there, rocking out, as were Chad and Erin Jones (Ferrell's sis and bro-in-law irrespectively), and a whole gaggle of various deprived Southern Ludo fans who had paid a pretty penny of time-currency waiting for us to make it to Georgia. It was a good time indeed! Then Edison Glass was awesome as always, and the crowd hung out long enough to hug us and high-five us and whatever else they felt like doing. Loaded out with the help of Erin, Chad, and Courtney into the disappointingly freaking freezing Atlanta night, said our goodbyes to Erin and Chad, andt hen joined Courtney for a quick late-night dinner at a diner. It was good. Peaced out around 2:00 in the morning, and drove all the way to Apopka, Florida, where we arrove at the Volpe/Roe Family Domicile, featuring such characters as "My Mom Nancy" and "My Sister Michelle" and also starring "Brad, My Brother-in-Law," "My Two Rascalous Nephews" and "The Pug Named Yoda." We got there around 10:00am and hit the hay. I mean, we punched that hay in its hayface.
Got out of town by noon or so, and made tracks for the metroplex known as Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. Rejoined in our tour by Deas Vail and our boyfriends in Treaty of Paris, we were excited to be back in mid-Illinois, bringing rock for the consumption of the peoples. We got there and found out that we were playing in the front bar area of the venue, not in the main room. Okay. Loaded in and brought in all the new merch, set up our equipment, sorted through and organized all the new stuff. There was no soundcheck. We then split up and had dinner in various places. Yums. Deas Vail rocked. Treaty of Paris rocked. Edison Glass rocked. And then we got up and tried to rock as well. We did an all-request show. And here's what they requested: Epic, Drunken Lament, Broken Bride, Love Me Dead, Save Our City, Saturday Night Thunderbolt, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, and then an encore of Good Will Hunting By Myself, featuring Nick Thunderchops Sergenian playing my guitar parts for me. I just hung out and sang and then did the airplane on top of the crowd's hands. Whee. There was a late show, so we hustled to get the heck out of the way. Packed up merch after hanging out with some of the good peoples, packed up equipment, and loaded out, repacking the trailer as we went. Had some Papa John's and Taco Bell (Ferrell had lemonade), and we hit the road around midnight for Gainesville, Georgia (outside Atlanta), where Courtney would be awaiting our arrival with cookies and stuff. A straight drive through the night would get us there at 2:00pm the following day. Great time!
We arose somewheres in Indiana, praying to Sweet Jesus that we would be granted us an extra hour. Somewhere along I-65, it came down from on high and went right into our clocks. Yay! And we needed it. We were running late because of the burgeoning winter storm that was descending on the Great Lakes region. Sleetiness and some snowy ice was all it took to send dozens of vehicles careening across the median and through the air. Crunchy vehicle bits were strewn everywhere. Yuck. We tediously made our way into Chicago and pulled up to the front of the Subterranean. Nick was informed that we needed to load in the front. The front was on North Avenue, a very busy Chicago street. It was blessed with a surplus of traffic that day. The sidewalk was a construction zone, fenced off with chain-link, and covered in tarps. Underneath the tarps right in front of the venue was wet cement. There was an 8-inch wide plank balanced a few inches above the tarp that we were to load our equipment across. It was icing and sleeting. The ramp coming out of the trailer was slick and icy. The street was slick and icy. The concrete was slick and icy. The plank was slick and icy. The guys working the construction site did not speak any English. Through gestures, sliding, slipping, and passing of equipment, we got it all in the door. But then there were the stairs. Ironically, the Subterranean was up two flights of stairs. Sounds Superterranean to me. Got it all in eventually, set up and soundchecked, and then intercepted Heather who had driven up from St. Louis with a carful of Ludo merch. Edison Glass showed up and loaded in in the rain (it had gotten a little warmer), but Deas Vail was stranded and were not going to be making it. Stuck in stopped traffic for 2 hours, and then stuck in West Lafayette, Indiana, they were screwed. The Frantic showed up though, and they were readst to bring the rock. We did an interview with Jules from Earphoria backstage while The Frantic soundchecked, so there's a strong possibility you can't hear a thing on the recording, but it was fun anyway. Doors opened, we vegans had some great food at Earwax (while Ferrell continued drinking his lemonade on Day 2 of his Master Cleanse), and the rhythm section found food elsewhere in the nasty cold. Got back, watched The Frantic totally rock, and then Edison Glass do the same. After that, we took the stage and blasted off a hot set of Girls on Trampolines, Drunken Lament Love Me Dead, Save Our City, Hello, My Name Is Your TV, Hum Along, Go-Getter Greg, Good Will Hunting By Myself, Lamb and the Dragon, Lake Pontchartrain, Broken Bride Part 1, and then encored with Epic. The crowd was raucous despite the frosty weather, and we dipped rather deeply into our party punch bowl of rock with our Ludo ladles. It was a fun show. We loaded out with equal tedium, thanked al our friends, allies, and fans, and then made way for Megs-n-jen's where we slept like baby people.
After prancing laboriously around Rockefeller Center's Christmas wonderland on a brisk Thursday afternoon, we skedaddled out of town, and made serious headway towards Columbus. Stopped somewheres on I-70 south of Pittsburgh and got a room at a Comfort Inn. At some point, a mouse skittered across the carpet. Everyone was a-flutter, Marshall, Nick, and Convy reacting the most passionately. Ferrell began devising various trap methods, many of which were well implemented by all parties, but ultimately unsuccessful (i.e. the block both ends of the dresser he was hiding behind method... not a winner). For awhile Ferrell and I were crawling around on the floor trying to ferret him out. Everyone was involved in some way or another, some people directing or playing look-out while others trolled and partitioned. We eventually cornered him in the bathroom where Ferrell wrangled him in an ice bin and a towel with help from Convy's persistent air-traffic controlling. We all agreed he was very cute (like a furry golf ball with spindly little legs and a fast-beating heart), took him to the front desk where we presented him as a voucher for the vermin-in-the-room discount (which is $25 by the way), and then released him into the bitter cold - for which we all felt guilty. The rhythm section (Matt and Marshall) watched Mr. Brooks. Sleep consumed us. We arose and drove to Columbus, loaded in, soundchecked, ate at this place called Ted's right by the venue, came back, watched the other bands, played a bitching rock show and then broke down and loaded out. It was our first time in Columbus and everyone was very cool. Donnie and Rifqa were there from the Island Street Team with the magical Island Street Team van! Yay! Afterwards, we loaded out and then drove down the highway a bit with them, until we found a gas station Wendy's where we could share a bite. Not 100 yards from the gas station, we were approached by a man with a plan. And another man who was just doing regular run-of-the-mill panhandling. The first guy though informed us in rapid-fire succession that his daughter's boyfriend physically abused her, that he was probably going to kill her, and that he had several DVD's for sale for $5 apiece, or the package deal: 8 for $40. They were such popular titles as: UFC Hits, The Ring 2, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Universal Soldier 2, and Universal Soldier 3. Lots of delightfully violent movies he was selling in honor of his domestically abused daughter. He insisted they were on the up-and-up, NOT STOLEN. Whatever, here's $5 for some Ultimate Fighting videos. Good luck with your made-up daughter thing. Fast-forward to hanging out in the gas station a hundred yards away. There were all the same DVD titles with the same packaging and labels. Wow. That's pretty stupid. He was slinging his hot goods across the street from the place he'd just stolen them. We told the manager, they checked the security tapes, and sure enough there he and his goons were shoplifting the videos a half-hour before. Wow stupid. Said our night-nights to Donnie and Rifqa and then hit the road for somewheres Indiana a few hours outside Chicago. We had a lot of uploading of Christmas stuff to do for the myspace and our website and our merch store. After all, it was the first day of December!!!!!!!!
After Thanksgiving had cornucoped down our gullets, we did some laundry and left St. Louis around 3:00pm for the Comfort Inn in Edgewater, New Jersey. Meeting Nick in Champaign, we continued eastward through the night and on into morning, arriving finally at our place of alighting in Edgewater around noon. Showered a little, slept less, and then made our way into the city to play our rock show. It was the first night of our tour with Edison Glass, Deas Vail, and our brothers in rock, Treaty of Paris. Twould be a truly mind-blowing tour. After craptasticking our way through oceans of traffic, we got to the venue a couple hours early. Threw on the flashers a couple hundred yards from the door (so as not to block the construction-constricted traffic), put the van in park, took out merch and whatever equipment we weren't borrowing and loaded it in the door, down the stairs and into the Tap Bar at The Knitting Factory. Embraced the TOP boys, cordially greeted our new tourmates in Deas Vail and Edison Glass, probably making a bad first impression as we took up way too much merch space as I was trying to sort through our new shipment of T-shirts. Eventually got out of their way, Marshall and Ferrell found parking (same lot as last time), whilst Nick, Convy, and Pmo set up onstage. We got to soundcheck for some reason (I guess because we got there so early), and then we made way for the other ducklings, McCloskey-style. The order was to be Vicio, Deas Vail, Treaty of Paris, Kristina Con Vita, Ludo and then Edison Glass (who was from just a stone's throw away). Doors opened, most of us had Quizno's, and all our buddies from Island started showing up, including some mofos we had not yet had the pleasure of meeting. Besides that, a ton of friends, family, and colleagues came out. And oh yeah, I think we may have had a number of fans there as well. It was intimate, this Tap Bar setting. Relaxed. Low-ceilinged. Horizonto. Unfortunately missed the first band and Deas Vail, caught almost all of Treaty of Paris (sounding great, boys), and then warmed up and schmoozed obligatorily before we had to play. Took the stage and blasted off nine songs of nine-a-licious fury: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Save Our City, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, Epic, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. Before Epic I recounted the story of the time I held a group discussion in my kindergarten class about the Challenger space shuttle tragedy, and how it went really poorly. Mostly because the contributing members were kindergarteners. Who (as a people) tend to be rather dull and uninsightful, albeit cute and snack-coveting. Anywho, we got the usually clap-repulsive Manhattan assembly to clap their damn hands, and wake up a little. Which was awesome. Ended Good Will Hunting with a lap around the room. Yes! Hung out, talked to all our peeps, watched Edison Glass rock strongly, tore down merch, loaded out equipment, and after some tearful goodbyes, hung out a bit and headed back to Edgewater. The next day held in store a trip to Rockefeller Center and we had to get our ice-skating beauty sleep!
Snowing all the way down I-29, the road was inviting us nonetheless to spend Thanksgiving Eve in the Land of the Jayhawks. We hadn't played The Bottleneck in a mega-moon, and we were excited to be getting back there. It was our last show on the Spitalfield tour. It had been a great time, and to commemorate our touring brotherhood with The Graduate, The Forecast, and Spitalfield, we stopped by a truck stop to prepare the preparations for our grand finale pre-show ceremony. Five minutes before our set began, we called members of each band to the stage and upon their presence, presented them with presents: for The Graduate a statue of three dolphins ensconcing a coral reef, for The Forecast the bust of an Indian chief, and for Spitalfield a rustic Christmas scene painted on a large saw. It was what we needed to give them. Emotionally. We embraced them each and thanked them for two weeks of rockjoy. But enough festivities. It was time to make rock. We busted out Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Good Will Hunting By Myself, and Epic. Got out of the way, loaded out, watched the rest of the show, took tons of pictures, wished all our Kansan fansans a happy Thanksgiving, and took some beautiful photos of all the bands on the tour cavorting and cajoling together. All in all, it was a magical two weeks for Ludo, and we can't thank the other bands enough. Please be sure to check out each of the other bands' myspaces, listen to their music, and wish them luck on the rest of their tour. Congratulations to Spitalfield on almost a decade of superior rocking. It has been a grand run! And to the rest of you... we'll see you out on the road soon! We drove home, arriving in St. Louis on Thanksgiving morning around sunrise. Pilgrims!
Didn't really do so much sleeping. Got to the hotel and immediately had a bunch of work to do for album artwork and merch ordering and whatnot. Slept for a few hours before having to pluck ourselves from the gently rising and falling bosom of slumber, only to be flung into a world of confusing venue-approaching. Back to The Roxbury for our second-to-last show on the Spitalfield farewell tour. We showed up about an hour late, loaded in, and set up our merch and equipment. Soundchecked with little help from the sound guy (Ferrell had no functioning monitor, and it didn't seem to phase him), and the doors opened shortly thereafter. Nicky showed up and ran merch for us. We took the stage and despite the hoarfrost, played a cockle-warming set of Ludolicious Thanksgivitude for the gathered Omahahas. Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Ghostbusters, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. Then we loaded out in the cold, intercepted some huge stage letters (L-U-D-O) from Jason the design wizard, and then watched The Graduate rock a brand-new set. It was sweet. I ran across the street to get a Quizno's sub. It was freezing cold so I bundled up. I got there at 8:50 and the door was locked. The sign said they closed at 9:00pm. There was a really cool "dude" kind of dude cleaning the counter inside. I got his attention to see what the deal was... maybe he had locked the door while he was in the back and had forgotten to open it again. He saw me and flashed me what appeared to be a peace-sign. You know, peace. As in "See you later, homey." Thinking there was no way his explanation (as a representative of Quizno's to a customer) of the situation was to say "Peace," I assumed he meant he would be there in two minutes. I stood there for another 4 minutes in the bitter cold, as he ignored me. Got his attention again. Then he was a little more communicative. He pointed at his ear and yelled, "Can't you hear? We're fucking closed!" That's weird. The sign says 9:00. It's 8:55. There are no other signs explaining any exceptions to this policy. I about lost my mind. I gave him a nice full-body gesture before walking away. I hadn't walked more than 20 yards when he finally took it upon himself to open the door. But it wasn't to make me a sandwich. No. He wouldn't spend the energy to make me a fucking sandwich while he should still have been open, but he did have the time (and the balls) to open the door to challenge me on the issue. I filled him in on the fact that he was a total douche, declined to fight him, and then called 866-4TOASTED to provide some customer feedback on Quizno's employee Vanilla Ice as I made the trek further down the street to Taco Bell. Got back, watched The Forecast and the Spitalfield. Great stuff. Ordered pizza, loaded out merch, hung out until Nick got paid, then headed on back to the hotel for some actual sleep. We soundly got some as I dreamt about urinating on that Quizno's guy's grave.
Got up at some point on Monday, still drunk on vegetables. Ferrell arose early and got the van an oil change. Somebody wins the gold-star of effort! It's Ferrell! Did a quick shower rotation, and made tracks for The Marquis Theater. It was like two hours away, and we did indeed spend a solid portion of that time in Mile-High traffic. Arove at the venue, parked across the street, fed the meters, and loaded in cheek by jowl with some care-free, high-speed surface street traffic zooming past. Got it all in there, set up merch, and unpacked our equipment. The Broncos were playing on Monday Night Football a little ways down the street, and Coors Field was just a stone's throw away. We were right in the center of it all. Denver, that is. We soundchecked healthily, then warmed up briefly in the van after finding some wireless internet and checking on how many views our Love Me Dead toothbrush video was getting that day. Ran in to play that durn show! Same set as the night before, it turned out. We did Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, and Lake Pontchartrain. Yep, same set. And once again, by the grace of Jehovah (and probably because of when we played on the Smartpunk stage at the Denver Warped Tour the year before), there was a congregation of lyric-lobbing Ludo-lovers living life large in the crowd. Awesome! It was a sweet venue too. After the show, we loaded out and chatted up the Denver denizens, eating the delicious pizza and calzones in which the venue's restaurant alter-ego let us partake. So good. So I hear. I ate more of my soup and then went to Wild Oats and made a salad. I also got some sexy probiotics into my system to replace all the colonic bacteria I had blasted out of my ass the previous month. Ewww... why did I ruin that perfectly delightful food talk with that putridness? It's just like Two Girls, One Cup. The other three bands blasted through their sets with maddeningly potent sexual power, we got to meet and spend time with two more delightful Denver street teamers (apparently there are 5 in total in Denver?!?! Crazy!), as well as Lenae, one of the two we'd met the night before. Street Team everywhere! I guess that's the idea right? We also got to spend a little time with a Ludo Ninja. Legit. Tore down merch, put it in the trailer, said huggy goodbyes to the other three bands, and after a prolonged synchronized wave from The Forecast, we drove toward Omaha, guided only by the sweet voice of the British lady inside our TomTom GPS unit. It looked like a nine-hour drive. And we'd be losing an hour when we changed to Central Time Zone. We wouldn't be arriving at the Comfort Inn & Suites before 11:00 in the morn. Go Team Drive!
Woke up barely in time to shower, did so, and then hauled on over to The Black Sheep. It had a parking lot not dissimilar from the one the night before at the venue in Salt Lake. What an unremarkable observation! Loaded in, set up, soundchecked after our headlining counterparts, and then prepared for the pod bay doors to open. And open they did. A few dozen mountain people gushed forth, a handful of whom were (serendipitously) excited to see Ludo. Met a couple lovely street teamers, as well as a nice, young lady who had never been to a rock show, but had requested to go see Ludo as the only thing she wanted for her birthday. Given our allotted playing time, we felt like we really had to deliver in those 30 minutes. So much pressure. We were up to it though.... Ludo got up and got down. Setlist: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, and Lake Pontchartrain. Bam! Leave the stage before we screw up the nice thing we made! Made way for The Graduate. Took some pictures and hung out. Ferrell, Convy, and I ran to Whole Foods. On my recovery from the cleanse, I was to have solid(ish) food for the first time on this night: homemade vegetable soup. And we'd gotten a room at an Extended Stay Hotel just for this occasion - it had a kitchen, and I was going to use it! Bought the ingredients, stopped at Wal-Mart to get a pot, and then jetted back to the venue in time to watch Spitalfield and let a miserable, starving Pmo take the van to find a meal of his own. Spitalfield finished up, the crowd was kind of confused about whether or not the show was over, we said our goodbyes to our new friends, loaded out merch and then busted back to our hotel room. We were eagerly awaiting the text from Joe Leonard that the Love Me Dead toothbrush video had finished uploading, so we could post it everywhere and show it to everyone. It wouldn't get up there until 6:00 in the morning. Blech. In the meantime, Marshall finished up some poster designs, and took some brand-new, next-generation pillowcase photos. With The Devil's Advocate on in the room and the majority of the band watching with rapt attention, I immediately started chopping vegetables. This soup-making was a long process (mostly from scratch and all organic), but I was ravenous to get it going - my focus was pinpoint. Two to three hours and a whole lot of Emeril-action later, it was ready. Diced onions and cubed potatoes sauteed in olive oil, chunked carrots, sliced celery, chopped red peppers, whole kernel corn, sweet peas, canned diced tomatoes, hair-thin noodles, kidney beans, fresh parsley, garlic salt, and a sprinkling of pepper. I threw some oyster crackers on that bitch and started eating my life away. It was so damn good, I almost died. Convy dug in too, and Marshall also dipped his beak in. Nick (who I found out later detests the smell of onions) left for awhile and then passed out cattywampus, limbs akimbo on our shared bed. I ate until soup was coming out of my ears. I had intended to write these tour diaries that night. But the soup slowed my brain function to a crawl, and after I'd had my fill, I awkwardly (droolingly (contentedly)) climbed under the covers and passed the eff out around 4:00am. The night-owl Marshall finished his graphic work and joined me on the sleepytrain, settling in for the ride, only a few cars back.
Got up on Friday morning at the Hollywood City Inn, met with Brigitte at Mel's Diner, checked out Holly's apartment in Culver City and then decided to depart one of the most sprawling and automobile-obsessed metropolises in the world exactly at the beginning of Friday afternoon rush hour. So we parked for fifty miles or so. After the cluster-bang, we forged onward until we arrived at The Flamingo in Las Vegas! Our Victorville show was canceled, and the whole tour was going to Vegas for crazypants-time. We parked in a ten-minute 30-point-turn, 60-vehicle-stopping maneuver in the parking garage, found our swank, sextastic room on the 27th floor, hit the buffet and then hit the tables. I got saucy on the Video Poker 'til 3:00am, whilst Marshall and Matt gambled their lives away at roulette until 6:30 in the morning. Friday night marked the end of the 29th and final day of my Master Cleanse. Noisemakers! Got up Saturday, checked the buffet for some fresh-squeezed orange juice (line was too long), reattached the trailer (with far less traffic obstruction than the night before), and drove away, hurtling toward the capital of Utah at a feverish pace. After braving the torturous marauding of salt pirates, we finally made it to Salt Lake City and pulled into the gravel parking lot abutting The Avalon Theatre. Loaded in. Big-time. Set up merch and equipment. Backlined and made way for the opening local band. Marshall and Matt ran down to Astro-Burger and were disappointed by the fare. Meanwhile, Ferrell, Convy, and I booked it down to Wild Oats so I could get some fresh-squeezed orange juice (to help come off my cleanse), but we didn't have time for them to peel the oranges before juicing them. So I had some bitter-ass orange juice. Ferrell drank a double-shot of wheatgrass while Convy had a couple Naked Juices and arrived at the end of his quest to find the perfect vegan chocolate chip cookie: The Alternative Baking Company's "Chocolate Chip Cookie." But time was of the essence, so no one congratulated him. We tore back through the attractive shop-lined streets of Salt Lake, trying desperately to get back to the venue in time to load on. Nick called us and said the first band was starting their last song. God we were cutting it close. As we pulled up, the band was loading off. Yes! We jumped onstage and linechecked. We hadn't had any warm-ups but that orange juice was coursing through my veins, giving me a strength I had not known in a month. We told the SLC we were from the STL and blasted through a five-song set (all we had time for since the venue was doing ten-minute changeovers...) that went Broken Bride, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, and Save Our City. We were going to close with Good Will Hunting By Myself, but the crowd was asking for Save Our City instead. Okay. In fact, somehow, out of the 60 or so people who were there for our set, it seemed like 30 of them knew every word. Which is ridiculous. We've never been to Utah before. How was this possible? It was just like Phoenix. Apparently we had cultivated tiny pockets of fans in these states where we'd never been. It was another amazing surprise! Dude, we can't wait to get back to these places! Hung out with all these wonderful brand-new peoples, took some pictures, watched the other bands, and eventually loaded out. The next day, we were playing in Colorado Springs, Colorado. So we mounted up and headed east. After the first of many torturously slow 30-mph climbs of that night's trip (we'd had several in the previous days), we stopped in the northeast corner of Utah, and all bought really warm, silly hats at a gas station. Because it was colder than a witch's teat. Kept driving across the dark, barren moonscape of late-night Wyoming, taking I-80 past so many "Road Closed When Flashing" signs and "70 MPH Winds Possible" signs, worried that our failing oil gauge would lead to our engine exploding or something like that. Finally arrived in Colorado Springs around noon and bedded down for a few hours before we had to get to the venue. Crazy times!
Woke up at Melissa-n-Jeff's in Menifee, made our way through a shower rotation, and we hit the road, Marshall and Convy sporting brand-new haircuts. We dodged a lot of traffic bullets, evading snare after snarl on our way to the venue. The 101 took us to Hollywood, where we had to circumvent a clusterbang of vehicles. The nexus of the universe was on Hollywood Boulevard: the Victoria's Secret show featuring Kanye and the Spice Girls and a bunch of other crazy shit. People were loving it. Whatever. Ludo had to load in. Squeezed into the loading area behind The Knitting Factory, tightly sardined with The Forecast, Spitalfield and The Graduate. And three other metal bands who were playing in a different room at The Knitting Factory that night. Seven vans and six trailers. It was intense! But we loaded in anyway. Somehow. Set up merch, Ferrell changed his strings, Matt set up his drums... Ludo was getting ready for a rock show. Spitalfield soundchecked, Ludo warmed up and then set up onstage for our own little soundcheck. The sound was nice. Doors opened, and peoples entered. It was going to be a night of seeing lots of Ludo's favorite champions. During our soundcheck, we finally all got to meet our booking agent Andrew Buck in person, after seeing so many e-mails from him. He was truly a fine specimen of a man. I would even call him a speci-man. Then right before we started playing we ran into Scott Culver (director, Good Will Hunting By Myself video and otherwise accomplished and talented filmmaker) backstage. High-five! Then we got up there and started hittin' it! Go-Getter Greg, Love Me Dead, Broken Bride, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, and Epic. The crowd was like bears waking up from a deep winter slumber - sluggish, droppy, like molasses. But we were blasting rock-fire mercilessly at their heads. So many Ludo-assisting geniuses in the crowd: Joe and Tom (who do "The Ludo Video Thing" on our youtube channel), Paul Figueroa and Matt Bowen (who engineered our record), Jenna, Elyse, Jacque, and Holly (who had been transplanted from the Missouri-ish area), Brian (Marshall's boyhood chum and an Ultimate Fighter), as well as several good-looking fans from God-knows-where and Marshall's family and all of our friends. It was a lovefest. Afterwards, The Graduate killed it with a very Graduate-enthusiastic crowd, The Forecast predicted a heavy downpour of rock, and Spitalfield celebrated their last night in Los Angeles as a touring band with a fine, fine show. Met and hung out with Christine all night - she shelters pugs and works for Island (in that order). Unfortunately, a lot of our people got there late and missed the show because of that damn Victoria's Secret show blocking the street (and to think, I used to read that magazine!). It was a fine show though, and after a speedy load-out, many Ludo members peaced out and partied with various miscreants of the woodwork. Nick, Convy, and I headed to the Hollywood City Inn, where we'd done time in the past. Found parking in a CVS parking lot down the sketchy street, at the corner of Sunset and Western. Went back to the room, got up on that internet and started banging. On the keyboards! Sleep eventually suckered punched us in the back of the head and took away our consciousness for 7 hours.
Ye olde Conservatory. Ludo remembers you well. We played there that one time on Breaking Fall in 2004, and then again on that one night when there was snow and ice on the ground. That's about all we had, those scant shreds of misty water-color memories. It was time to make some new ones. Turns out Spitalfield and The Graduate had something better to do than rock on the 12th day of November '07, but The Forecast and Ludo forged ahead anyway, hellbent on playing a show in the Sooner State, between Sauget and Albuquerque. Pulled around behind the venue, backed up to the door, and unloaded our giant black boxes we refer to as our equipment, as well as the gnarly-looking Rubbermaid bins we refer to as merchandise. Then ensued the hunt for food. The Conservatory isn't in the sexiest part of Oklahoma City (implying naturally that OKC does have a sexy side somewhere), but it certainly was dark and uninviting. It had THAT going for it at least. The eaters trolled with scarce luck, Pmo settling on Chinese, whilst Nick, Tim, and that other Tim put all their money in that Panera Bread real estate. If only the Chinese made bread... our band would converge over such a food and assimilate into one will. Ah well, it would not be the case on this Oklahomey night. Had to scurry on back to the venue before doors. I lost track of time and ended up setting up the merch late (scandal!), but Nick et al were there to pick up the slack (salvation!). Thank Lucifer! Our Oklahomangels slid in the door most slippily, as did the magical mistress of Ludo Ninjas, Miss Haley from Little Rock. John Estes even poked his head in. And his hand for a round of high-fives of course. Two local bands kicked off the show, and they were freakin' great! How delightful and refreshing! Ludo ludofied in the van for a warm-up session. It was warmy! Decided on a setlist and sauntered back inside in time to load on to the stage, line check, and then play a rock show. There were manidozen people there. And they were ready to rock it appeared. We went blamblamblam: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, Good Will Hunting By Myself, and then especially for our friends in the Forecast, Epic by Faith No More. It just felt right. As predicted, The Forecast took stage after us and did their own patented brand of superior rocking, and although half of them were coming down with colds, they still played with power. We hung out for awhile with our new friends from the Island Street Team, Brendan and Terry, said goodbye to the Oklahomangels, hugged John Estes and the lone representative from the amazing band The Effects, and then peaced the eff out. We went to Wendy's where Marshall ordered 5 or possibly 6 or 7-to-9 items. Lots of baked potatoes around that van, I'll tell ya. We all soiled the local sewers with our urine, got some gas and headed out. We would arrive in Amarillo at roughly 5:00am. Nick had a hotel room all ready for us. We would sleep in it until noon. Hurrah!
Woke up a little sooner than we would have liked on Sunday, gathered ourselves together and met up at my apartment, where we broke out our acoustic instruments and tried to quickly piece together an acoustic set. Ferrell on the 6-string, I on the 12-string, Marshall on the acoustic bass, Convy on the melodica and the Casio, and Pmo on his assbox (the box he sits on and hits)(it's awesome). Figured out that we could generally make our way through 6 songs. Sweet! Meanwhile, Nick was at Kinko's printing out flyers for that night's show. Got back and declared we needed to peace the eff out if we didn't want to be late. And who likes being late? Answer: assholes. Not wanting to be assholes, we hopped in the van and got moving. Arrived at Pop's a few minutes later, unloaded our entirely portable and unheavy acoustic instruments, grabbed all the merch, and loaded in. Set up the display and started warming up. The Sisters Heins showed up to play Merch Sales - The Game. They would ultimately win. Doors opened, and a couple hundred St. Louis area music enthusiasts gushed in. The first band was a group of local lads named Catch the Light. They had loud guitars and a Korg and they were a-rockin'. Then in a slight change of pace, The Graduate went on before us, dropping that hot rock set for which they are now notorious on the Spitalfield tour. This culminated with various drums being brought onstage and several different guys, including Tony (the drummer from The Forecast) beating along to the song all together. It sounded great. Then we got up there after a brief warm-up, plugged in for our unplugged set, and then just busted right into it. Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. Crap, the crowd was singing loud. It was intimate and assloads of fun. We all sat up there in our little semi-circle, playing Ludo songs like the crowd was a campfire-gathering on an Ozark gravel bar. It was an ideal first real acoustic show in a long time. I was jealous of Pmo's assbox though. Made way for The Forecast, who did it down and then made way for Spitalfield, who did their last St. Louis show right... even getting a chant for an encore after they'd already done two. Awesome. Said our goodbyes, packed up, headed out. Drove to Springfield where we laid in our hotel room and dreamed of sleeping in a hotel room.
Having not played Indiana in multiple moons, Ludo was finally afforded the opportunity to rectify that dumbness. The Spitalfield tour would take us there!! Rolled up to a very tight, but cool venue in downtown West Lafayette. We'd never been there. Nice town, Boilermakers... nice town. It was a game day and the Purdue faithful were enthusiastically roaming the streets drunk. Loaded in and set up on the small and sexy stage. Merch we lugged upstairs and set up on a small and sexy table. Warmed up in the van. Heather swooped in to run merch. By the time we got back to the venue, a piece of paper couldn't have wheedled its way through the crowd. They were packed in their like sardines in a straitjacket! Which of course is not actually a meaningful simile. We blasted off our set and the crowd was completely into it. They were all smooshed together in that room and all the way up the stairs and about 4-deep around every foot of the overlooking second-floor railing, all of them raptly paying attention. It was awesome. And man, did they sing along! We dropped a hot set of Go-Getter Greg, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Hum Along, Broken Bride, and Lake Pontchartrain. It was en fuego in there! And tight! You couldn't think without asking the guy next to you to tilt his head away from yours an inch. So many familiar Indiana faces that we hadn't seen in quite some time. So many people who were hearing of us for the first time. And a surprising number of people we'd never seen before, but who certainly knew us. What a fine crowd that was! After the show, and a speedy, cold load-out, some band members ran down the street and had some Italian food, others took turns running the merch table. The toothbrushes were still flying like $1.00 magical hotcakes of joy. The other bands got up and one-by-one rocked the ever-loving crap out of the crowd. It was a very cool show. Lots of hugs and pictures later, we had to get out of town. Loaded up, headed out, gained back the hour that sick Indiana state line had stolen from us, and drove back to St. Louis, arriving at our sleeping pods around 4:30 or 5:00. Thank you, Purdue Underground. Thank you, West Lafayette. Thank you, Indiana. Oh hell, thank you, America.
After a great night's sleep in what can only be referred to as "Ye Olde Best Western" (a Medieval-themed Best Western), we arose and plodded across Iowa City to the good old establishment of rock known as The Picador. Met everyone in The Forecast and some of the Spitalfield dudes, and got to re-greet our friends in The Graduate. Toted all our equipment and merchandise up the aft staircase, ingurgitated a Spitalfield soundcheck, and then upraised our equipment onto the stage, soundchecked ourselves, and had a quick pre-show meeting behind the club. The bone-frosting gelidity of the air outside brought a certain impermanence to the meeting, as we, after no belabored filibuster, scuttled back inside in search of warmer pastures. Not really enough time to warm up. The doors had been opened and our set was to commence shortly. Which it did. There was a menagerie of Ludo monomaniacs who had gotten the memorandum that we started early. They focalized at the front of the stage and rocked their minds away to the following septet of song: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Girls on Trampolines, Save Our City, Hum Along, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. Got down in a hurry and made way for The Graduate (totally rocked), The Forecast (totally rocked), and then Spitalfield (also totally rocked). It was the first show of our run with these dudes (and one dudette) and it went smashingly. Quite a great crowd came out for the spectacle, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. It marked the second night we were selling Ludo toothbrushes and they were going over like gangbusters. We loaded out the merch at the end of the night, and shuffled cutely back to our little nook at the Medieval-themed Best Western where we Knights of Now would get some productive internets and some delightful sleepums.
In Ludo's week off, ol' Jack Frost really started swinging his autumn junk around. It's a-gettin' cold there, little partridges! Gathered ourselves up and left St. Louis around 11:30 Wednesday morning, opting to take the secretive route up Highway 61 to get to Iowa, as opposed to the trendier, mainstream "drive through Illinois" way, which is totally for poseurs (Fr: Canadian posers). We shaved an hour or two off the drive, but still managed to get to Cedar Falls only barely on time. That's been happening to us a lot lately... we tend to lose hours on these drives. Perhaps we're being targeted as marks for time-travel mischief by Hiro Nakamura or Dr. Emmitt Brown. Either way, we don't need it, guys. Lugged in all our equipment and merch, set it up, counted some t-shirts, restrung some guitars, typed up drafts of e-mails... you know, the usual. Until of course the soundman was readst to blast off a soundcheck. It marked the first time I was playing through my new Marshall JCM-900 amplifier recently purchased on eBay. It sounded like a bear punching a rabbit across a continent... it was awesome. Good sound at The Hub. Good people too. Very kind to us. The Effects strolled in amidst our soundcheck and we all high-fived. Then we got our stuff outs the way to make room for them to set up and check. They sounded so good! So full and big! The Effects are better than ever! Yes! We all hung out after they were done. Ferrell, Convy, and Nick went to Subway. Marshall, Matt, and I played darts. Matt beat me in Cricket 2 out of 3 times. Grrr! That jerk! I'll get him one day. After what seemed like 5 lifetimes, the show began and The Effects were amazing, even having the testicular fortitude to play a Zeppelin cover and a Kiss cover. So good. We warmed up and climbed onstage, blasting out an hour of demi-power: Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Girls on Trampolines, Save Our City, Love Me Dead, Saturday Night Thunderbolt, Topeka, Hum Along, Go-Getter Greg, Air-Conditioned Love, Lake Pontchartrain, The Lamb and the Dragon, and a disturbing rendition of Good Will Hunting By Myself. Dalton even played some hot tambourine at the end. The show culminated in me spinning around on the stage floor roughly 75 times while Convy knocked his keyboard off the stand and Marshall chased my tail. It was dizzying and moronic. We hung out for awhile, hugging, fiving, and slinging our merch to the fine peoples. This included our brand-new "You're Awful, I Love You" toothbrushes! Sold for $1. Cherished for the life of your teeth. Packed up in the bitter cold. Loaded out. Reorganized the trailer. Didn't leave until 3:00am. Drove to Iowa City where we checked in at a hotel in Coralville. We would be sleeping in the next day. Spitalfield won't want to see us if we haven't had our beauty sleep! Goodnight, Moon!
Got out of Tonganoxie, Kansas around 2:00pm. We were finally playing a show in Lincoln again after so many moons. And not only were we going to be playing with our brodies, Anchondo again, BUT we were also going to rock with POMEROY!!!!!! Yes, the great, great, great Pomeroy. Loaded in at Knickerbocker's, greeted all of our brothers in rock, and prepared for the night's bacchanal. I set up merch, Pmo set up drums, and everyone else set up all their various stuffs. Some people had some Old Chicago pizza. Yums. I took complete advantage of the venue's facilities before doors opened. Unfortunately there was no door on the men's room stall however. Yikes. I was brave. And then Pmo filmed me. Thanks, Pmo. Glad I could share my dump. Doors opened, the peoples came in, and Anchondo started to ROCK. They were titillating as always. We helped them load offstage, and then (like a demented game of Tetris) struggled piece-by-piece to squeeze our equipment onstage. I wouldn't say we won said Tetris game, but we certainly used all the blocks. It was pretty tight up there. Pmo's kick was in my ass. Marshall was in Convy's ass. It was in no uncertain terms, tight. We started our set and the crowd was awesome. I'll tell you, the good people of Lincoln are always so amazing to Ludo. They were singing their tight little asses off and jumping quite promiscuously. A few songs in I was singing kind of like there was a badger in my esophagus. Fortunately though, the crowd was doing most of the singing for us. About four songs in, we were told by the sound guy we had time for two more songs. Okay. Wish we'd known that at the start. I picked up the setlist and ripped the three middle songs out. Tyson and Matt from Pomeroy stepped in though and said for us to go ahead and play three more. Which was very cool of them. All in all, we did Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Girls on Trampolines, Drunken Lament, Good Will Hunting By Myself, Hum Along, and Ghostbusters. Tragically, we had to cut Love Me Dead (which wellbodingly, we got a fair amount of flak for), but all in all the people got as much Ludo as we could slide in there for them. Hung out festively for the rest of the night with all the good people of Lincoln, watching Pomeroy destroy the stage with all their hot new songs and the classics that make the crowd go gaga. After the show we hung out on their bus a bit, loving life vicariously through them. We held onto our Pomeroy and Anchondo bretheren, bid them farewell, loaded out, threw some high-fives and hugs around to the Lincolnites, and then around 3:00 in the morning departed for Tonganoxie, where we would sleep for five glorious hours. Damn, it's starting to get cold. Guh...
HALLOWEEN!!! Terror afoot!!! Every nook-goblin and cranny-demon denooking and uncrannying respectively!!! Woke up in Tonganoxie, struggled through our shower rotation, and then hit the road. Drove straight to the Buzz in Columbia (after some decoy misdirection from the DJ Shags threw us 20 miles past our destination), embraced the orientation-trickster Shags, brought in our acoustic stuff and got ready to do some on-air performings. Ferrell played a six-string acoustic, I played a 12-string acoustic, Marshall played his acoustic bass, Convy played the Casio, and Matt played a contraption we refer to as his "ass-box" - a crazy wooden box he sits on and keeps a beat on with his hands. Cool! Played Drunken Lament after some jocularities and chatting on-air, followed by some more chatting about our forthcoming show, "Nightmare on 9th Street 3: Halludoween," and then finally a performance of Part I: Broken Bride acoustic, featuring me ruining the last chorus with terrible "I just woke up" vocals. Fortunately, no one was offended enough by it to call in and complain. Yes! Got away with subpar service! That's always a relief. Drove straight to The Blue Note, at which point we the band devoured some complimentary pizza from Papa John's and some veggie-people foods from the Main Squeeze Deli. I had a delicious maple-syrup-cayenne lemonade to celebrate the 13th day of my Master Cleanse. Yeah! Take that! Brought in all the decorations we had in the van and loaded in equipment and merch as well. Started to set stuff up with the glorious soundman Dylan and his partner in crime whose name I always forget. We'll call him Monitor Mickey. He was going to be doing monitors and lights and cracking crazy jokes all night. Marshall set up the "Ludo" stencil on the the backdrop in eager anticipation of the blacklight paint that was en route. Heather had left work early with Amanda riding shotgun and a whole carload of Ludo Halloween necessities: spiderwebs, blacklight paint, an Andrew costume, 15 large blacklights, and a DVD of Killer Klowns from Outer Space. The blacklights had been delivered to her the night before (since we were in Topeka and couldn't be there to get them) by Dave Bush, former pioneer of Kirksville, Missouri's phenomenal funk band, Hazard to Ya Booty, and current developer of stage effects and compression technology. There was something special cooking in the Ludo pot. Heather and Mandy arrived around 3:30, Dylan and Monitor Mickey set up all the blacklights, Marshall started spraying the blacklight paint on the stencil, Convy, Pmo, and Ferrell started painting the bones of their costumes with blacklight paint, and I started festooning spiderwebs all over the stage. Heather and Mandy took care of merch set up. I guess they thought we were going to be paying them. Ha! Marshall was finding that the white blacklight paint was not showing up on the black backdrop, so Nick ran out and made several trips to various shops to find stronger, "popping-er" paint. Marshall sprayed diligently while Pmo kept hammering away at those costume bones. Squeezed in a soundcheck amidst all that nonsense, greeting The High Court as they strolled in for our (regrettably) final show with them, followed by the arrival of our brothers in rock, Anchondo. We went down to the dressing room and applied shitloads of make-up to our faces. Doors opened, The Buzz was passing out free T-shirts, and the costumes were looking amazing. There was a 9-foot tall grim reaper, Ronald McDonald, homemade Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick the Starfish, Lieutenant Dangle from Reno 911, Hunter S. Thompson from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Mega Man, Captain Hook and Tinkerbell (toddler-size), a box of Wheaties, two Pippi Longstockings, a banana, an emo Power Ranger, Wayne and Garth, and a host of so many other awesome costumes. Then of course, there were those who didn't dress up, for whom Shags MC'd a "biggest douchebag" contest onstage, the winner of which received a giant banana costume to wear for the rest of the night. Killer Klowns from Outer Space played on the big screen to greet all the concertgoers, The High Court got up as various funny things (Where's Waldo, a buttface, etc.) and rocked a hot half-hour set, followed by Anchondo as a very convincing Batman, Robin, The Riddler, and Joker. They KILLED it for 45 minutes of standby Anchondo rock, and brand-new songs that we'd never heard before that were completely nails! So good. The crowd went nuts and were about ready to explode by the time they were done. Then Shags (dressed as Kevin Federline schlepping around two babies) did the costume contest, the prizes for which included a meet and greet with Rob Zombie the next night, tickets to the Dane Cook show, $50 in Ludo merch and lots of other really cool shit. Lieutenant Dangle took home the gold. We were happy for him. Lights down. Cue "You're the Best" from Karate Kid. Enter four Cobra Kai thugs dressed as skeletons and the lone warrior Daniel Larusso, aka Daniel-san, as portrayed by Ralph Macchio circa 1986, and as trained by Mr. MIyagi (Pat Morita). Dave Bush (who had lost all his work that day, and had had to start from scratch) arrived ten minutes before our first song, and quick like a bunny, he and Nick set up the compressor thingies and cannons onstage for the confetti blasts. The Lamb and the Dragon! Confetti in the blacklight! Glowing skeletons! The backdrop popped off hot! We were pulling it off! Then it went Drunken Lament, Girls on Trampolines, Go-Getter Greg, Save Our City, Love Me Dead, Topeka, Saturday Night Thunderbolt, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, Broken Bride, and then we left! After some scripted manic chant-based coaxing, we came back, sprayed glowing tonic water, dropped Good Will Hunting By Myself, and then an explosive finale of Ghostbusters featuring black and orange confetti, and all the costume contesters and other bands onstage breaking it down. It was great! Everything went smooth as butter, thanks to Nick, Dave, Dylan, Monitor Mickey, Heather-n-Mandy, Anchondo, The High Court, The Buzz, The Blue Note, Kyle at merch, and everyone who dressed up to rock for Halloween! It was truly a memorable show for all of us. Got to embrace all the sweaty Columbia faithful. After much deliberation, packing up, and talking, we grabbed some El Rancho and Jimmy John's, finally departing for Tonganoxie around 2:30 in the morning. I as driving. I fell asleep at some point apparently and woke up 40 miles from Kansas at a rest stop in the driver's seat around 5:30 in the morning. Uh oh. Got Nick to take over driving. We didn't get to Tongie until 7:30 in the morning. Uh... bad news. Immediately fell asleep.
Ah yes... the old Boobie Trap. It had been too long. We made a sultry saunter across Missouri to arrive in the capital of Kansas shortly after 6:00pm on All Hallows' Eve Eve. The place was Halloweened to the nines. Nice.... Decorations always get me fired up! That and costumes. Have some holiday spirit! Intercepted The High Court in The Boobie Trap parking lot - a parking lot which, as Tim Ferrell pointed out, represents the majority of the scenery we've seen of Topeka over the years. The people started rolling in shortly after we brought in all our stuff, so many familiar faces and many new ones as well. A LOT of smoking going on. Like a shitload. Like more than you would expect to see in a French brothel circa 1986. This was an observation we made. Another observation was that Topeka is absolutely teeming with flashing arrow signs. You know, the kind that small businesses will have in front of their place, pointing people with a flashing bulbed arrow toward the building. The kind that have a letterboard underneath said arrow so that you can tell people exactly what's inside said building. Advertisements like "50-CENT WINGS TONITE" or "WELCOME LANCASTER WOMEN'S HOCKEY TEAM" or "KARAOKE TUESDAY CANCELLED, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE." In Topeka, Kansas you can find one every 100 yards or so. I had a theory. That they were all made in Topeka and sold quite aggressively to local business owners. I checked several of the signs. Yep. Made in Topeka. Crazy! An acoustic duo kicked the night off, followed closely on their heels by The High Court. We took over where The High Court had left off, rocking our hearts out to the sardiney populous within the confines of The Boob. We even played "Topeka." Gangbustas! Then Ghostbusters. Good night. Played Epic because some nice drunk people wanted that shit to happen. So we hooked them up. Broke down, said our goodbyes and see-you-soons and headed to Tonganoxie. On the way Nick hit a deer with the trailer fender. Yikes! Entertained Shane for a bit, then busted out to Sleepland for a few hours.
Ludo had never played at a club in Claremore. On Saturday, the 27th of October in the year 2007, we would. Arose in Springfield at our Best Western of Excellent Lobbies and had a dee-lish breakfast/lunch thing (not brunch really) at George's Diner. Departed shortly thereafter. I was sitting in the driver's seat. Which could only mean one thing... I was driving. Yes. The van. And I did so until we arrived in Claremore, where Ashlee was waiting for us at King of Clubs, with an embrace and a guarantee. Set up merch while the rest of the peoples ran down the street to get food. Marshall, Matt, and Nick went to Boomerang Diner, where they devoured a lot of goodness. Marshall had a grilled cheese sandwich, onion rings, mashed potatoes and gravy; Matt had a grilled chicken and tater tots; and Nick had a grilled cheese and mashed potatoes and gravy. Meanwhile at a nearby grocery store, Convy ate a small "thing of fruit" while Ferrell snarfed down some crambled tofu and some poppyseed muffins and some almonds and some walnuts and some raisins and some water. I sipped my fresh-squeezed organic lemon juice mixed with Grade B organic maple syrup and cayenne pepper. So yummo. Greeted all the Oklahomangels lovingly - they had all their cameras and costume bits. When the band got back, we watched Thailand Hustle and then The Physiques and then a little bittle of The High Court. We had to warm up! So we did so in the van. Taking the stage shortly thereafter, we battered out a scintillating set of 45 minutes including a busting-out of Faith No More's Epic to try and impress our tourmates. A lovely bevy of RSU sorority ladies showed up six songs into our set and audially received the final 5 songs. Nice. Madison Avenue played last and played well. Broke down and loaded out. Hugged it out with all our friends and colleagues, thanked the King of Clubs for being such a fine monarch of venues (very clean/attractive place!), got in our little rig and drove through the night back to St. Louis. Okies... you're ooooooo-kay!
It was a seven-hour drive somehow from Omaha to Springfield, even with our efficiently timed stops (12-minute, 16-minute, and 4-minute). This inefficiency saddened us, but we had left early enough that we were on time! Yay! Loaded in, set up, grabbed some food, and warmed up. We were ubertitillated to wrap our ten arms around the four bodies of Ha Ha Tonka's members. Creepy sentence. Regardless, we embraced our brothers in rock gleefully. It had been far too long since we'd seen them. The High Court came in, high-fives blazing. Damn, it started getting colder than a witch's tit outside! And I don't know if you've ever gotten into heavy-petting with a sorceress, but that hangy nubbin is COLD! Anywho, we met a cool dude named Nova, who was there celebrating his big 18th birthday with his parents, Steve and Sta and his little sister Maria. Great people. Steve kept yelling, "Landlot!" at random points throughout the night. Ha ha! Landlot... what a creep. Commenceth the show. The High Court rocked. Ludo did some vocal warm-ups in the van. Then we hit the stage and hit it hard. Awkwardly, but hard. There were about 150 people up in the club and we dropped some Ludo up on dey heads. They seemed to enjoy that immensely. Made way for the unflappable Ha Ha Tonka, who sounded superoid as always. Hugs, high-fives, and a load-out later, we made our way over to D's house, where we did some hanging out with our band buddies, followed by a deep slumber at the Best Western. Sleepies...
After futzing around in our Comfort Inn hotel room all day Wednesday, Ludo was ready and eager to rejoin our brethren in Omaha. Hustled on over to The Roxbury, loaded in and set up. Nicky rolled up and prepared to run merch for us. All the preparations were prepared. Matt got his new kick drum head! Awesome. The guys in The High Court rolled up, and we all met each other. Very cool dudes. Barely anyone showed up to the show. There were roughly 19 people there. BUT... The High Court rocked! Then we rocked! Then we said, "Hey let's go play a show in Springfield, MO tomorrow, and then in a few weeks, come back to the Roxbury and rock with Spitalfield. Sounds good! Great work team!" Thanks to everybody who came out. Hopefully next time you'll have more company. In the meantime, we'll prepare more preparations.
Practiced Monday afternoon and made our way to the Pageant where we watched Ween play an amazing rock show. They're so good. We left from the Pageant and drove directly to Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, where we arrived at dawn and caught a few hours of sleep in the Sergenianly Abodeous basement. Left at 11:30 for the Northwest suburbs of the Twin Cities. Bonked around in traffic through Minneapolis, and pulled up to The Vault in Buffalo, MN about an hour after load-in. Yikes! We found out The High Court had dropped off the show, as had one of the two local bands. So it was Ludo and an acoustic solo performance by Jimmy Barnett. He kicked off the night with a sailing acoustic show of delightful songs. After about 40 minutes of goodness, he stepped down and we got up there and to a crowd of roughly 16 (that eventually became 12), Ludo busted out a fresh October set of sick and delightful wonderments. Dropped a new cover for the first time in front of people, and brought back an old favorite from the Halloween grave. I was rocking quite a slippery headache so singing hard wasn't feeling so good. We were having a great time though. Toward the end of the set, I had the entire crowd go to the back of the room and we played Red Light, Green Light. The winner got a group hug. It was warmish. After an intimate hour of power, we tore down our stuffs, chatted with our new and not-so-new friends, packed up and headed to Omaha. Around 14 in the morning we entered a delicious room at the Comfort Inn. A day-off and a sleep-in was in our future.
Woke up a little closer to our planned departure time of noon than Tour Manager Nick "Thunderchops" Sergenian would have preferred. I tried desperately to get a hold of someone at the Boston University radio station to do an 11:30 phone interview with them, but they didn't seem too into the notion of picking up the phone. Whatevs. Their loss, I guess. But boy, did I have some gems to drop on-air for them! Next time, next time.... The band didn't actually fully assemble in the van until around 12:45 or so, and we hit the road toward Boston, growing later and later as we sat in more and more traffic in the New Haven, Connecticut area. I guess those Eli geniuses over at Yale still haven't figured out how to cure traffic. Either that or they just stay inside their fortress and let the plebeians of Greater New Haven congest in squallor. Smart. To be sure, we were going to be LATE. Turned out that all of Connecticut was bumper-to-bumper. Yikes. Sat in some Boston traffic. Arrived at the student union building loading dock at Boston University right around when doors were supposed to open. Loaded in very quickly with the help of countless BU worker bee ladies. Set up our equipment and merch, warmed up, and listened to the Brooklyn band, Breaking Laces. Super-nice dudes and a great sound. We met Catarina from the Island Street Team and her roommate, who were aggressively putting up posters and being delightful. We ate some tortilla chips and PB&J, hung out with our Emerson College crew, and prepared to rock. We dropped an exciting hot-as-magma set on several dozen BU students. After the show we did an interview with an indie film crew about, you know, life on the road and whatnot. Said our goodbyes, thanked all the amazing people at BU for treating us so fine, tearfully embraced our Emerson buds, and then left around 2:00am for St. Louis. Roughly 21 hours later, we arrived back in the Lou. It was right around 11:00pm and we was sleepy. Good tour, everybody, good tour...
After a visit to purevolume, some hanging out with our new friends from Emerson College, and a Wednesday night doing internets and sleeping hard, we arose Thursday morning and checked out of the Southboro Red Roof Inn on our fifth and final day of occupancy. Drove out of Massachusetts and across the grand expanse of Connecticut, through the southeastern tip of New York, southwesternly across New Jersey, and into Pennsylvania, where we pulled up at the Grape Street Pub shortly before 6:00pm. It took some difficult maneuvering of the van and trailer to negotiate the insanely tight turns in the upper-crusty, opulently parked-on streets around the venue. We didn't want to hit anyone's awesome car. Loaded in, reorganized the merch (hell yeah!), and then skedaddled over to various eateries: Convy had rice at a Japanese place, Ferrell ate a delicious burrito, Marshall and Nick ate gyros at Riverside Pizza, whilst Pmo and I had pizzas at the trendy/eclectic Couch Tomato. That's the breakdown. Ludo's eating statistics for October 4th, 2007 are now etched in the history books for posterity. Got back to the venue just in time to set up merch, greet Jennifer Feliciano with hugs, meet Kiera (the wizardess from the Island street team) and listen to the beginning of the first band's set. They were called Stealing December, but we had some warming up to do, so we ran out to the van (where an ill-feeling Tim Convy was napping) and sang through some stuff. At the end of their set, we loaded onstage, did a quick line-check for a talented and attentive sound crew, and then started rocking. Same set as the Knitting Factory, but with a different kind of 'tude. Not necessarily better, just differenter. The crowd was a 21+ crowd. Which means they were there to drink and maybe see some rock - definitely to hear Stroke 9 play that little black backpack song. Would there be enough high-fives to go around? Only time would tell. The people started off quite sedentary and beery. But then they started moving and drinking some Red Bull 'n' vodkas. Yeah! At one point, I stopped the show, and would not continue until at least SOMEBODY got up from the cordoned-off, cocktail-tabled, adult holding pen in the back of the room, and came up near the stage. It was a sweetly uncomfortable 60 seconds before the amazing way-pavers Dianna and Miranda arose and came up to the front. We closed it out hard and got the hell out of the way, so that Kill the Alarm could get up and destroy the stage. They did so. We chatted some peoples up who were very complimentary and excited to find out about Ludo. Since it was our first time in Philadelphia, it was a start-from-scratch scenario, which is not unlike a scratch-and-sniff scenario. Either way you're scratching - it simply comes down to a matter of choosing between starting and sniffing. I'll leave that decision to the ancients. Nick said the show was "okay." Which we've come to find out means it was good energy overall, but there were enough mistakes to make the average attendee sick to their stomach. Thanks, Nick! After KTA, Stroke 9 played until 12:30am. Then they encored until 1:10, which is an impressive feat in any venue. We packed up, said farewell to our new friends and then hit the road with the Conman at the wheel, Nick riding shotgun, and the rest of us riding asleep. Ludo would make their way towards Boston, find a hotel in East Brunswick, New Jersey, and check in for a slight bit of sleep. It would truly be an Orwellian adventure.
After some nutty, crazy, guerilla run-n-gun, shoestring budget, DIY, crackerjack team, college whiz kid, rock-video shooting, we were tired. But EXCITED! Because we were playing in Connecticut for the first time on Tuesday night! Hurrah! We rolled up at the Webster Underground in downtown Hartford at a reasonable hour, fully prepared to rock. Loaded in, ordered some Chinese, chatted up the Juilliard-pianist/Greek-immigrant bartender, and warmed up, singing sweetly together a capella in the basement of the venue. The opening band, Tempest Edge, rocked to a gaggle of friends/fans whom we begged to stick around for our show. Then there was a solo acoustic gentleman who rocked for roughly 14 minutes. Then Ludo was to play. With 12 people in the crowd (half of which had performed that night) and the bar closed down, we rocked a set not dissimilar to the one we'd played in NYC, except with the addition of Save Our City. They were basically closing the place down around us since there were so few people there. But that holy dozen people stuck it out and stayed through the whole thing, which was awesome. The show was entirely finished by 9:15, and we were out of there by 10:00. Just for shits, we pulled over and played an acoustic set at a gas station for some Ludo fans on our way out of town. They were smoking cigarettes near the pumps though, so fearing explosion, we kept the show brief and to the point. Drove back to Southboro, MA to our Red Roof Inn that we were calling home. We were going to visit purevolume in Boston the next day, and we had to get our winkie-sleepies. Goodnight, Moon!
Ludo was excited. We were going to be playing our first real show in NYC. It wasn't a showcase. It wasn't a pay-to-play. It was a show. And it was at the famed Knitting Factory. Drove from St. Louis to Edgewater, New Jersey on Thursday, crashing at the Comfort Inn that night. Friday was a diverse day. That morning, we took the bus into Manhattan, took the subway from Port Authority to Wall Street and had lunch with our friends-in-management, Dave and Drew. Then we had Mexican food with some of our buddies at Island. Chris Convy showed up and led us back to a friend's apartment where we filmed ourselves, our friends, and more of ourselves, all brushing our teeth in the bathroom. This went on until 4:00 in the morning. Grabbed some shut-eye, arose in the early afternoon, and brought the van and trailer into the city and parked it perilously outside the Knitting Factory. After load-in, we drove around for TWO HOURS trying to find parking. Ah, the joy of driving in Manhattan. Scarfed down some Subway sandwiches, set up merch and soundchecked. Shortly thereafter, the doors opened, the concert-goers came in, and Ludo warmed up in the green room. Met some of the guys in Nine Days. Very cool dudes. On our way to the stage the second band, Paging Grace, showed up rather tardily after apparently getting in a car accident on the way there. Sucked. We empathized, but not for too long, because we had a show to play. Got up and rocked a 40-minute set to a Ludo-heavy early-crowd of about 60 people. We dids Broken Bride, Drunken Lament, Love Me Dead, Go-Getter Greg, Hum Along, Lake Pontchartrain, Epic, and Good Will Hunting By Myself. It felt scintillicious. Got the hell off the stage, and then hung out for the rest of the night but the merch table, chatting, schmoozing, reminiscing, fraternizing with all the fine fans, friends, and family who had come out to see us. Unfortunately we missed all of Paging Grace's and Nine Days' sets. Sounded good from the merch room though. Anywho, we loaded out around 11:00pm, and immediately bid farewell to the Big Apple, making the arduous trek toward Boston. We had a hot video shoot the next morning, and we needed to get our beauty sleep. We found our final resting place (bed, not grave) about 40 minutes away from downtown Boston at a Red Roof Inn. We would stay there for like five days. So we made ourselves at home.
Woke up in the