For God’s sake, is there a normal hitchhiker left in this country? So, we’re drivin’ down this busted up little highway on our way to Missoula, Montana when we see a nice enough lookin’ fella thumbing for a ride. We stop, and as he runs up to the car, he chest-bumps the side of our car, yells “WOO! TOTALLY TITS!” and gets in. Great. Another friggin’ bro-hitchhiker.

“How’s it goin’ dudes and dudettes? The name’s Todd, but you can call me The Todd.”

He’s apparently on his way upstream from the river we’ve been following so that he can continue his Whitewater Rafting trip, and gee-boy-howdy was he glad we’d picked him up. So glad, in fact, that he’s offering us presents.

“So check it out buuuddies, I’ve got like 10 different energy drinks in my backpack – you guys wanna destroy one with me?”

Now, I know that we’ve only been on tour, but by now our patience is wearing thin. Noah grabs the guys flip flops and Jack Johnson cassette and throws them out the window.

The guy just yells, “THE TODD DOES NOT ABIDE!” and barrels out the window after them.

Jesus.

Anyway, we eventually make it to Missoula and it’s a pretty great place. Problem is, we notice a transmission fluid leak. We park the car, and while Noah takes a look under the hood, the rest of us make jokes about “tranny fluid spurting out all over the pavement.” Gross.

So, like I said, Noah stays behind to work on the van while the rest of us head off to explore downtown Missoula. We’ve still got about 3 hours before the show, so Danielle goes off to check out the train tracks (where she’ll later escape near-arrest from the train-yard bull—no joke), and Rob and Phil go to check out the record store.

As they’re walking through the downtown area, there’s a couple significant things they see: 1) An old redneck walking into a bar with a shotgun slung over his shoulder. 2) The two mountains that surround the city have a large“L” and an “M” on the side of them, respectively, which apparently stands for “Logger Mountain” and “Missoula”…

…now, we had planned on playing two shows in the two days we’d be in Missoula (which we did), and not causing enough trouble that we’d get run out of town (which, well…). I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, but suffice it to say that we bought a couple of cans of white spray paint while there.

Don’t tell Missoula, please…

Related posts:

1. The Taxpayers: The Todd Does Not Abide (Missoula, MT) MISSOULA,
2. The Taxpayers: Everybody Hit the Deck! She’s Got a Gun! (Centralia & Tacoma, WA) CENTRALIA,
3. The Taxpayers: Hitchiker Travis and the Weiner Incident (Eugene, OR) EUGENE Ya

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For God’s sake, is there a normal hitchhiker left in this country? So, we’re drivin’ down this busted up little highway on our way to Missoula, Mont. when we see a nice enough lookin’ fella thumbing for a ride. We stop, and as he runs up to the car, he chest-bumps the side of our car, yells “WOO! TOTALLY TITS!” and gets in. Great. Another friggin’ bro-hitchhiker.

“How’s it goin’ dudes and dudettes? The name’s Todd, but you can call me The Todd.”

He’s apparently on his way upstream from the river we’ve been following so that he can continue his Whitewater Rafting trip, and gee-boy-howdy was he glad we’d picked him up. So glad, in fact, that he’s offering us presents.

“So check it out buuuddies, I’ve got like 10 different energy drinks in my backpack—you guys wanna destroy one with me?”

Now, I know that we’ve only been on tour, but by now our patience is wearing thin. Noah grabs the guys flip flops and Jack Johnson cassette and throws them out the window.

The guy just yells, “THE TODD DOES NOT ABIDE!” and barrels out the window after them.

Jesus.

Anyway, we eventually make it to Missoula and it’s a pretty great place. Problem is, we notice a transmission fluid leak. We park the car, and while Noah takes a look under the hood, the rest of us make jokes about “tranny fluid spurting out all over the pavement.” Gross.

So, like I said, Noah stays behind to work on the van while the rest of us head off to explore downtown Missoula. We’ve still got about 3 hours before the show, so Danielle goes off to check out the train tracks (where she’ll later escape near-arrest from the trainyard bull—no joke) and Rob and Phil go to check out the record store.

As they’re walking through the downtown area, there’s a couple significant things they see: 1) An old redneck walking into a bar with a shotgun slung over his shoulder. 2) The two mountains that surround the city have a large “L” and an “M” on the side of them, respectively, which apparently stands for “Logger Mountain” and “Missoula”…

…now, we had planned on playing two shows in the two days we’d be in Missoula (which we did), and not causing enough trouble that we’d get run out of town (which…well…). I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, but suffice it to say that we bought a couple of cans of white spray paint while there.

Don’t tell Missoula, please…

Links:
The TaxpayerSpace

Photos (and Missoula destruction) by the Taxpayers

Related posts:

1. The Taxpayers: Don’t Tell Missoula, Please (Missoula, MT) MISSOULA,
2. The Taxpayers: Hitchiker Travis and the Weiner Incident (Eugene, OR) EUGENE Ya
3. The Taxpayers: Everybody Hit the Deck! She’s Got a Gun! (Centralia & Tacoma, WA) CENTRALIA,

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Ya know the old story about “Hitchhiker Joe,” the one where you pick up the crusty old vagabond out of the goodness of your heart and he carves out your eyeballs and steals your wallet (and heart)? Well…the times, they have a-changed, and “Hitchhiker Joe” is now “Hitchhiker Travis,” and instead of slicin’ up your eyeballs and stealing your money, he continuously begs you to smoke pot with him and listen to his collection of Sublime tapes. Cuz, ya know, they’re the rare b-sides, man.

Somewhere along the I-5, we saw a nice enough lookin’ fella on the side of the highway with a big cardboard sign that said “Southbound,” so we pulled over to give him a lift. No joke, he runs up to the van, and just like the Tobey Maguire hitchhiker character in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, he’s got this big dumb smile on his face and just straight up blurts out, “Man, if I played music and could name an album anything I wanted, I’d name it Loving Life, cuz I’m LOVIN’ LIFE NOW THAT YA’LL PICKED ME UP!”

We decided to fuck with him. Instead of responding, we all just stared at him for a good 20 seconds, until Noah says, “I used to have a lot of problems, but…I’m okay now. You ever wonder what a person tastes like?” The kid just giggles nervously, and we speed off down the highway towards Eugene. We had a show in a few hours with Witch Hunt at some new Warehouse space.

When we finally get into town, we meet up with our buddy Mark who’s come down from Portland to hang out with us. Mark, who’s the type of guy that can look at a map for about two seconds and know every park and alleyway of the city, already knows the whole goddamn town. He takes us down to a secret spot by the river where we drink beers next to a series of life-sized dinosaur figurines that someone had arranged to look as though they were all fucking each other. I know, it’s a confusing image, but just imagine a T-Rex fucking a Velociraptor fucking a Pteradactyl fucking a Brontosaurus that’s blowing it’s load into a sandbox. The people of Eugene must have time on their hands…

8:30 pm and the show’s about to start. The warehouse space is fucking amazing. It’s this huge place with scary murals all over the walls, and the kids are already there, drinking heavily and preparing for the show. All the bands are of the intimidating crust-punk variety, so we know we’re gonna be a bit out of place with our goofball Minutemen-style antics, but all the bands seem super nice. By the time we go on, everyone’s pretty faded, including Mark, who’s poured beer all over himself, Phil, and the floor, and has asked some poor kid at the show (in a genuinely concerned voice) how he “got cum all over his socks.”

Halfway through our first song Rob gets completely naked. It’s later referred to by show-goers as “the Weiner Incident.” One of the guys who put on the show grabs his camera to document the evening—you can hear Rob fretting about his job teaching at an elementary school back in Portland now that his naked, hairy body will be on YouTube. We do covers of “Margaritaville” and “Stand by Me” to which all the crust punks sing along. It’s awesome.

By the end of the night, the bro-hippie-hitchhiker guy (who’s actually a really nice and cool fella) is still with us, and he starts looking tastier and tastier. Will anyone know if he winds up missing? What does a person taste like, after all?

“Hey Travis, listen…we need to talk. It’s been nice having you along for the ride so far, but…well…maybe we should continue this conversation in that alleyway over there.”

With full bellies and a full tank of gas, we left Eugene in a hurry. Next up, we’ve planned to camp out in a ghost-town somewhere in the desert of Eastern Oregon, followed by a show in Boise, Idaho. I’ve got this nagging feeling, though. It’s almost as though…we’re being followed.

Links:
The TaxpayerSpace

Photos and video courtesy of the Taxpayers

Related posts:

1. The Taxpayers: The Todd Does Not Abide (Missoula, MT) MISSOULA,
2. Catherine Feeny: Humboldt Highs, Eugene Lows (Chico, CA) Happy Mond
3. The Taxpayers: Don’t Tell Missoula, Please (Missoula, MT) MISSOULA,

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“Welcome to Centralia – Antique Festival June 1st through May 30th”

Less than one hour into the first day of tour and we’ve already decided to make a short detour. Why? Centralia, Washington. Most folks speed past it on the I-5 corridor without giving it a second thought, but after years of secret midnight escapades in this dying tourist town, we know the true nature of Centralia’s dirty underbelly: What goes on in the back rooms of the city’s multitudes of supposed “antique shops.”

Elaine, the 120-year-old owner of “Broadway Antiques” and lifelong Centralia resident sees us coming in the doorway.

“Well hello DARLINGS! It’s the Taxpayers! Well, well…I haven’t seen the likes of ya’ll since the last shipment you dropped off of…the stuff…ya’ll remember? We had some fun, huh?”

We remembered.

Noah Taxpayer has had an ongoing affair with Elaine for the last five years, more or less. About three years back, he had to murder her second husband and the two of them have been living off the inheritance ever since. The rest of us have a pretty successful drug-running business smuggling Goofballs (concentrated ozone and sugar – the folks of Centralia have a pretty serious hunger for this stuff) into the city.

Noah sighed.

“Elaine, you know why we’re here.”

For the sake of secrecy and out of concern for the privacy of Centralia’s residents I’ll have to cut the story short. But suffice it to say, we all bedded with the notorious Lizard Women of the town, made millions in a game of Russian Roullette, and then got chased out of city limits by old men with muskets. We were back on the road. Next stop: Tacoma, Washington. It was to be our first show of tour…

TACOMA, WASHINGTON

Tacoma. Have you ever tried to navigate this fucking city’s pot-hole ridden streets? It oughta be called TA-BLOW-MA! HA!

It’s about an hour before our show starts and we’re exploring some abandoned building on the river. Danielle’s found an old folding chair on the ground, the kind you find in Convention Centers and such, but this one’s been tastefully modified with spray paint. It says “EAT PUSSY” in big, poorly formed letters on the seat. We decide to keep it. Just in case.

As we pull up to the spot that the show’s supposed to be in, we realize that it’s gonna be in one of those big storage garages that businesses have to keep excess inventory in. How cool! This guy named Russ who sets up DIY shows apparently lives there and also puts on shows. As we walk in, the storage garage opens up into this rad, Christmas light laden space with a makeshift bar, multiple levels, a sweet little “stage” and a projector showing Kung Fu movies on the wall. Kung Fu movies…hmmm. An omen? Hopefully not.

The show went pretty great. A bunch of people were there drinking and dancing, there were kids running around and slapping people’s butts, the bands all rocked, and the punk rock flowed freely. In the middle of our set, the door opened, and two people walked in. They looked familiar…IT WAS DESTROY NATE ALLEN! Nate and Tessa, fellow friends and Portlanders! At the end of a song, we smiled and waved to them. They didn’t look quite as happy to see us though…instead of returning the smile, Tessa simply frowned and PULLED OUT A GUN!

“EVERYBODY HIT THE DECK! SHE’S GOT A GUN!”

She approached the stage slowly.

“This is for not coming to our tour kick-off show, you bastards.”

As she raised the gun, Phil grabbed the “EAT PUSSY” chair that was by his feet and swung it as hard as he could. The gun was knocked out of her hands!

Now defenseless, the two villains ran out of the show space in a hurry. Everyone cheered, and we immediately went into a cover of “Never Surrender” by Stan Bush. The tour was officially underway.

Links:
The TaxpayerSpace

Photos courtesy of the Taxpayers

Related posts:

1. The Taxpayers: The Todd Does Not Abide (Missoula, MT) MISSOULA,
2. The Taxpayers, Thursday, Jan. 22 Portland p
3. Weinland: HO-lee Shit!! Last Night We Played in a Tea Kettle! (Tacoma, WA) HO-lee, sh

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