Greenville 8/5/10

We woke up and headed straight to a speaker repair shop. I had heard crackling from one of my speakers during the show in Raliegh and wanted to get it fixed asap. Rumors we’re that Custom Acoustics was the best place in town, and I would have to agree. They immediately busted out the soldering iron and fixed everything. No bullshit quotes, or waiting. Fixed, $20, some niceties and out. I like that in a repair store. We then made our way to downtown Raliegh to eat at “The Oxford.”

This is a classy joint, kinda bro’y, and everyone who works there is attractive. We had amazing Hummus and spent hours on their internet.

We definitely we’re the smelliest people there and probably the only ones with no shoes on and our life supplies everywhere. As evan went back to the van to play guitar he overheard an amazing payphone quote. A disgruntled woman yelled into the phone “well if you’re not gonna pay my bills, then Im just gonna go fuck someone else” She slammed the phone down and walked away. After letting our waiter know that he was our favorite all tour, we began our journey to Greenville.

Greenville is definitely in the middle of nowhere. Western North Carolina and Eastern North Carolina seem to be their own variety of creatures. Most of the larger cities in North Carolina (which seem to be a lot) reside in Western North Carolina, where as most of the middle of nowhere resides in Eastern. Except for Greenville. We had heard good things about The Spazz Hous and lots of our friends had played there, but as we pulled up it seemed more and more questionable. The back door was open, but it looked terrifying inside and we decided to just hang around out back.

We talked to Dennis the show manager on the phone and he let us know that he’d be a little bit before arriving. We decided to explore. We came across “Gamer Haven” and it was without a doubt the best bathroom to use. We were all soon deep in conversation with the half dozen or so patrons of Gamer Haven. They were setting up a really serious board, with mock mountains and futuristic looking figurines. Someone had out a tape measurer. They were seriously dorking out, so hard. As they explained the intricate details of Warhammer 40,000 I had to admire it. So dorky, with no shame, they were actually quite cool. They had crossed so far over the dork barrier that they had come full circle to cool once again.

Sam talked to them for like an hour and observed their game, while Evan and i visited the Democratic Pitt County headquarters and got Krispy Kreme.

When we got back to the house Dennis was waiting and we got to peek inside. It was a scary sight, the room was smaller than where we practice and smelled a whole lot like urine. As we asked Dennis about show attendance, his answer wasn’t very reassuring. “Sometimes people come, sometimes they don’t, it doesn’t help if it rains” It started to drizzle soon thereafter. No Eyes (who were joining us for this date as well) brought their stuff in and began to set up, we empathized with their current situation, but a couple people actually started to show up, rain and all. Then a couple more came, and soon 30 people or so were in and around the Spazz Hous.

No Eyes started their set and got the crowd moving. Sam and i got a chance to watch the whole set closely. No Eyes blends a mix of 90s alt rock and psychedelic jams. I especially liked the bass/vocal combo. The crowd responded well.

Evan and I got really clutch and pulled the van up as close as possible to the porch. In the remaining gap between the roof and van we used our tarp to make a protective canopy and got ready to move our stuff in quickly.We always tell people ahead of time, but it never fails that multiple people walk up and say “you guys have a lot of stuff.” I laugh, and then say “tell me about it.” I play this the same way everytime, it’s scripted. We took up half the room by the time we were all set up, the crowd seemed really excited too see us. A group of people we meet outside had driven from Nashville Smoky Mountain or something like that. Which on a side note is neither Nashville, Smoky or Mountainous. As soon as we started, our new friend Chris definitely helped the Spazz Hous live up to its name. He was our most active audience member yet, and could probably tour with us as an improvisation dance artist. The crowd responded super well, and we had an awesome sweaty mess of a time. After we rushed off the stage we met all sorts of characters. A group of two guys, rocking tie die shirts and no shirt respectively had probably the best emails Ive ever heard. smokemarijuana@aol.com and eatmorepills@aol.com. Now, Im not sure if those are real, but if anyone were to actually have those emails it would be these guys. It makes it way better that their emails were @aol.com

The stems were up next, they are another two piece from Greenville. Kinda spazz rock, kinda post rock, and kinda prog metal. The guitarist and the drummer would catch onto interesting ideas and show promise for the future. Nice dudes.

We got all packed up and Sam had a freestyle session with two guys and smokemarijuana@aol.com. It was good.

We decided to leave Greenville immediately and begin our journey to Baltimore. Before hitting the road we decided that we had to stop at “Sheetz” which was a very unique variety of Gas station/convenience store. Kinda from the future, they had touch screens which you can order fresh food on. We were suckered into buying a bunch of food immediately. After touching “onions/lettuce” they hit you with brightly colored screens that say “Want Mac n’ Cheese with that!” and although I didn’t it made me think that i did. This is probably the future of gas stations. i bought a “Sheetz Coffee Mug” and we laughed at everything that said shmartz and shamwhiches.

I drank a five hour energy and tried to power through to Maryland. Everyone fell asleep and I stopped at a rest stop soon after.