Church: The Adventures of Little Hot Dog (California) -- Local Cut

Church: The Adventures of Little Hot Dog (California)

October 19th, 2009 [3:45PM] Posted by: church | 2 COMMENTS

This is, sadly, the final tour diary from our buds Church. Thanks again for contributing guys, and next time you head out on tour we’ll be waiting. -Ed.

Friday, October 9th: Santa Cruz

Food!

We watched some barking food underneath the dock. That’s Little Hot Dog in the blue sweater. So little and hot-dog like.

Then we played a show at THE CHURCH. Church at the Church! A super great show. Above you will see the bioluminescent jelly attacking new buddies Tempo No Tempo.

Saturday, October 10: Berkeley/San Francisco

A big shoutout to John at San Francisco State University radio. Thanks for an actually fun and interesting interview. We called in by speakerphone because we were running late, and things got nutty.

Next stop was Berkeley, at the Kingman Co-op. Berkeley is the mystical land of co-ops. Everyone lives in a co-op there. They are very inexpensive. Some resident told me that Berkeley has the highest number of co-ops per capita in the whole United States. UC Berkeley only has influence on a few of them, the rest are free to do what they wish.

Even after having the cops called on us (sorry!), we were served a giant heap of delicious curry and a plateful of vegan cookies. So much love.

Little Hot Dog took some really great photos.

A noble beast.

Next, San Francisco. Whilst strolling the boulevards, we took some stills of the natural wildlife…

Notice the creepy photographer in the mirror. (Not me!)

Another Lil’ HD shot.

Our show in San Francisco was FANTASTIC. We played with one of our favorite bands: MAUS HAUS. See this band! Maus Haus packs six people onto a tiny stage, loads them up with keyboards, and the result is some of the most danceable music in recent memory. Plus, they record with Moog Modular gear (the ones from the ’60s that are the size of an entire wall.) Me very jealous.

Thanks Demitri and Elena for letting us stay in your very, very nice house in San Francisco! See you soon? (hint hint!)

Sunday, October 11th: Day off

I have a theory that if you lived in a big city like San Francisco, you could figure out a way to eat for free every day. I suppose it doesn’t hurt that we’re all feeling a little bit optimistic after sneaking into an Oracle convention, loading up our plates from the buffet line, chugging numerous plastic cups of wine and running out the door. Supposedly people were there to learn about software, but who could concentrate on anything with mountains of tater tots nearby?

We checked out Studio Paradiso, a very attractive recording studio where Deerhoof recorded some acoustic material. We’re looking for a studio for our next project… S.F. road trip?

The rest of the day was filled with the usual: guitar battles and Jungle Joose. Can anyone hook us up with a sponsorship?

Monday, October 12th: Santa Rosa

Brandon and Richard’s hometown, and all the gang was here. The place to play these days is the North Bay Art and Music Collective. Essentially, it’s an old abandoned school turned showspace. Really beautiful brick on the inside. Our friends Moggs opened the show with their patented thick slabs of guitar drone.

Tuesday October 13th: UC Davis/Sacramento

We were supposed to play outside in some giant amphitheatre on the UC Davis campus, but fierce rain forced us inside. Things got a bit awkward because for some reason the only room they had available was a study lounge. Here we roll in with our big gear, and we saw peoples’ eyes widen in fear. We somehow played a quieter set than our previous quiet record set in Boulder, and I guess we can now safely consider ourselves smooth jazz.

A very slow and painful death to Luigi’s Fungarden in Sacramento for CANCELING our show. We were supposed to play with Portland buddy Neal Morgan, and even though he had a writeup in the Sacramento Weekly ABOUT THE SHOW, the owner of Luigi’s decided that she didn’t want to spend $70 paying the sound guy for the night. Just like that, no show. Who does that??

In all, it was fun hanging out with Neal and bandmate Damaris. We managed to sneak in Carlo Rossi and made Calimochos all night (red wine + coke). I don’t remember much after that.

Wednesday, October 14th: Redding

Yep, we played Redding.

Thursday, October 15th: Eureka

Yep, we played Eureka.

The only thing worth mentioning about this show was Jettison Forever (bandname changed to protect anonymity). Even though one of the three of them was nice (the other two NOT nice), we still need to mention that they took over FORTY MINUTES doing a soundcheck and placed SEVEN mics on the drums so that they could create their “inner ear monitoring system,” whatever that means. If that weren’t bad enough, they played for an hour and twenty minutes, the whole while making the grossest Creed imitation faces anyone of us had ever seen. That’s two hours of our life that we will never get back.

Friday, October 16th: Arcata

Things started looking up when we were joined by our friends Datura Blues for a night of epic jamming in Arcata. When you play Arcata, you better jam like your life depends on it. The ENTIRE town reeks of weed, for God’s sake. Bust out the whammy pedal if you know what is good for you.

Intense garage practice before the show. Notice Shannon’s glowing violin wand.

At the Jambalaya Theatre! Epic jamz!

Saturday, October 17th: Eugene

Following on the heels of the newly birthed PYRAMID, we change our name to Starfucker. Good idea? Only time will tell…

Sunday, October 18th: Home!

Our brief reign as “Starfucker” is sadly over. Starfucker (UK) slapped us with a lawsuit and we instead decided to battle “The Church” (Australia) via 4 on 4 cage wrestling tournament. We won! They were much older and slower than we were.

Come welcome us home October 30th at the Doug Fir, with special guests Jared Mees & the Grown Children, Run on Sentence, and Ocean Age!

Thanks for reading!

Luvx,
Church,

Link:
ChurchSpace

Photos courtesy of Church

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