Something Like Hangin' Around

I was lucky to play with my buds in the band MERIDENE in Sheboygan. Here they are hangin' out with their you know what'in's out.

I stayed at my friend Anna's house in Madison, WI. She has a real fancy and cute apartment. It is, however, located right next to a train track and at around 5 in the morning one of the trains drove right into the living room where I was sleeping. Jeeepers!

Here is a power plant by Anna's house. This is my attempt at a Colin Kopp picture.

Driving into chicago always makes me nervous. Ish. But it's a great town.
Especially when Sam lives there!

Burning The Blog At Both Ends

Whew. Two nights in a row sleeping in the van at wal mart is beginning to keep me real sleepy. Don't get me wrong, the bunk is extremely comfortable. It's just all the lights and weird noise that one will find at a Wal Mart at 3 in the morning.

I'm currently in Bloomington, IL. I'm about to busk (what's busking you ask? Well I just asked that question recently myself. It's what you usually get really annoyed by when you're at the farmers market or in a popular hip area and some asshole with a guitar is belting his or her guts out for your spare change) at the Bloomington Farmer's Market. Hey, a guy's gotta pay for an oil change.

I am now doing a Tour Diary with Minneapolis' city pages music blog. I've found that I don't quite have the time to do a full summary of shows on both blogs. So, as usual, this blog will mainly focus on fart jokes and popular youtube videos. Check out the city pages tour diary here . Scroll down til you find it. They'll be posting weekly volumes.

yeeep. tootles.

Eau Claire, WI

My good friend Clayton booked a show at his parent's cafe in Eau Claire. It was a great night. There were about 100 people there and all the bands played really well. My folks, my sister and her hubby, izzy, my grandma, and lots of my friends were there. Twas lovely!

Whale House

Emot

After the show Kyle, Taylor, Isabel (geez, I know so many people named Isabel.) went to a dude brah bar called the Brat and danced our socks off.
Kyle, his brother Dan and I went cliff jumping and rope swinging the next day. Booyah!

Izzy's Birthday Party!!!!!

Holy smokes! Ms. Isabel had such a killer birthday party. My sister and Dan drove down to eau claire from hayward, along with a bunch of Dan's family to celebrate her birthday. My folks were there too. We met at Chaos water park in Eau Claire. It's such a behemoth of an indoor water park. I almost felt patriotic going there.

Here's Izzy braving the Urine pool. I mean wading pool. I mean, she probably peed in there.

The philosopher.

The Cupcake eater.

Isabel and Isabel 2.0

Go Twins! Go High Fructose Corn Syrup!

It was nice to see that munchkin before I left for tour.

Winona, MN

I've always loved going to Winona. It's a great town with great folks. This is Ed's No Name Bar.
Here's Ed and Becca. They run the bar. I was lucky to have breakfast with them the day after my show. They're such nice, thoughtful people.
I've brought my bike with me and had a chance to bike to the Winona farmer's market and buy bread from a woman with a great beard.

Rochester, MN

DAG! I forgot to take pictures last night. I played at my Dad's church. He and my Mom put so much work into publicizing the show. A bunch of their friends came and some other folks who had heard about the show came as well. It was a great night. The nice thing about playing these first few shows so close to my folks home is that I get to spend a lot of time hangin' with them. Julia came down and hung out too!

Northfield, MN

My friend Michael plays in a band called Dewi Sant and he lives in Northfield, MN. He booked a couple of shows in town. These shows were the bands last of their tour and the first of mine. The first one was at a youth center called, THE KEY. I may have some sort of disease from using their bathroom. So gross. But the deck outside was beeeeeauuuutiful.

Dewi Sant

After the show at THE KEY we packed up and went over to a pub in town called, THE CONTENTED COW. The folks there are so nice. The Lonely Hearts played. They are from Iowa City and Fort Collins, Colorado. Great band. Great dudes.

The show at the cow was really special. Dewi Sant sounded incredible. Free booze. Free popcorn. What else could a man ask for? Not much. Except for a picture with Michael.

I woke up on this incredible couch at my cousin alison's house.

Then her son Gus and I made breakfast.

Northfield rules.

Leaving/Building

Well, I've left for a two and a half month tour throughout the mid-west, east coast, and south east parts of these United States. It's only the third date in right now, and it's feeling great. Here are some pictures of the last couple of days.

Here I am with my "Peter" mug from Lana, tomatoes from the garden and all my musical shredding gear.

So much crap!!!!!
Instrument transfer from my van to the van my folks bought. They bought it because my van isn't road ready enough. So I'm taking this van they bought. It runs great. I can't believe how nice my folks are.
My dad and I spent a good 2 hours discussing bunk building possibilities. It came down to both of us having an idea that we each thought would work best. It was a cold, brutal debate but I came out on top. Quite literally. Wait til ya see the bunk.

I'll sleep on the top! My dad wanted a little cave for me to sleep in.



Now, I am officially road ready. Watch out America.

A Family. A Tree. (to pee on)

I would like to take this internet opportunity to welcome mr. Milo to my family. His dog mother could not take care of him anymore so we at the homestead have taken him in.......maybe I should take him on tour....

Phonetic One

Check out his other songs. www.myspace.com/phoneticonemusic

Forever and Ever

My good friends Kellen and Marissa got married last night. They are the sort of folks that when someone says, "hey kellen and marissa got married", someone else says, "Duh, of course they did." That is to say...it's no surprise. And that is the best.

Kellen and I, but this time we are not drinking beer on the kitchen floor drunk dialing girls.

Augustine, Jacob and I. Jacob is a serious rug cutter. Oh man.



Dancing baby syndrome.
Andrew aka Phonetic One performing. Oh man, he has a song called, "Homesickness" that is so good you will lose your marbles in the greatest way.
We all knew that the night was going to end this way. There are so many things I don't remember. Oh boy.

Getting Things Done For America

For the last year I have been working for Habitat For Humanity through Americorps. It has been one of my favorite work experiences. I had great bosses and worked with some great people. Like Dale and Roger. They are really good at building stairs, which is a very tricky thing to do. Dale, the gentleman on the right is Stephen's (red fox grey fox drummer) grandpa.

This is Chad. He was my boss. He put up with my general "air headedness" and lack of construction knowledge. He taught me a ton about building and thanks to him I can do all the work on my house that I want to do.
This is ol' Tom. He's a southern man with so many golden nuggets of southern wisdom and euphemisms . He's so hilarious. And grumpy. And generally just an awesome person to work with.
This is Mr. Jeff, my Americorps supervisor. He's a great dude. And, as you can see, a true patriot. America.

I'm Going To Miss This

My buddy Seth and I find ourselves playing shows together a lot. And I find myself loving that. And I find myself missing it already.

And I find that Seth can really eat an omelette like nobody's business.

Beardsy Shmierdsy

The dudes over at Ambient Vision Inks ( www.ambientvisioninks.com ) have been working real hard on my new shirt. It's all done and getting shipped to my abode. Yahoo! They look awesome.