In April  we took a little road-trip to play a couple shows.   This time Mike, our guitarist, was assigned the job of keeping a journal...

Saturday, March 31, 2001:  Denver, Colorado

The Jenni Jensens drove out from Salt Lake City to join us and the four bands rocked the Cat and had a great time!  Word has it that the Cat is closing down.  We were sad but got free chips and cool drink specials.  The next leg of the tour started a week later as we continued the Record Release mini-tour of the West.

Friday, April 6, 2001: Grand Junction, Colorado

After a week off, the Maybellines, Breezy Porticos and Kudzu Towers started the mini-tour heading out West towards the Jenni Jensens.  We all met up at Dave ‘Triple V’ Reeves house to head to our first destination, Grand Junction, Colorado.  We took along with us a sizeable group of people and 5 vehicles to ensure that even if we had a show where no one showed, we would still have a crowd to play to.  The total entourage included Al, Dave, Julie and me from the Maybellines; Dave, Kent, John and Steve from Kudzu Towers; Andy, Eric ‘Groovin’ Van Leuven and Jeff from the Breezy Porticos; along with Jen, James, Mike Crum, Brendan Love, Alison, Rebecca, Alex, Laura and Misun.

After agreeing to travel in convoy to Grand Junction, we weren’t even onto the Interstate before our convoy was fractured over confusion of I-70 versus I-76.  Weather was bad, as it usually is when the Maybellines have a show.  It rained and snowed most of the way to Grand Junction.  Every now and then one of the other cars of folks would appear out of the fog, but other than that we wondered if we were even going to make it.  We seem to have a certain knack for picking snowy and rainy days for shows.  Overcoming the odds, we all made it to Grand Junction for our show—even Dave from Kudzu Towers who had agreed to tow a trailer with equipment for all three bands (little did he know what he was getting into).

We had special motivation for getting to Grand Junction besides our show.  Sassy (formerly of Radio 1190 fame) helped us get rooms at a swanky hotel in Grand Junction with a hot tub, which we were able to hang out in —in good rock star fashion—before our show. The outdoor pool wasn’t open or heated, but some brave folks decided to try it anyway. 

Next, we headed to Main Street Bagels for our show.  Main Street Bagels is a cool bagel shop located in the middle of Grand Junction.  Besides having good food, they have a side room where they have shows.  We met Chris from the band Love Letter who had set up the show for us.  The Jenni Jensens (Kara, Carrie, Penny and Richard) drove all the way from Salt Lake City to play the show with us—completing the Record Release gang.

After having bagels, coffee, and other good food, we encountered our next obstacle: there seemed to be some local hysteria in town over a band named Zebrahead and folks were lined up outside the Mesa Theatre to go to their show.  But Chris from the Love Letter did an A-okay job of getting folks to come to our show and everything worked out fine.  Chris was the first one to play.  He played a sampling of the Love Letter catalogue—solo since the rest of the band wasn’t able to make the show, but hopefully they’ll make it to Denver so we can check out the whole band sometime. 

The Maybellines played next.  There was definitely a fun crowd there and even the people walking by on the street (the ones we could see through the window) seemed to be into the show.  Our set was followed by the Breezy Porticos, Jenni Jensens and Kudzu Towers, which made for a rockin’ good evening. After the show, we went back to our hotel rooms for a little post-show patting each other on the back time. Except Penny from the Jenni Jensens had to drive all the way back to Salt Lake City right after the show so she could work the next day.  And, unfortunately, the hot tub had already closed so we didn’t make it back there.

Saturday, April 7, 2001:  Salt Lake City

We woke up feeling ready to blast out of Colorado!  The folks that were in my car (Al, Dave, Jen and me) decided to get rolling early and we left Grand Junction in the early a.m.  We headed out through western Colorado and Utah through more snow and rain to get to Salt Lake City.  We made it okay and got to hang out in the city a bit which was nice since the last time we played in Salt Lake City, we didn’t see much of Salt Lake besides Burt’s Tiki Lounge. 

We went to this good vegan restaurant called Sage’s Cafe and visited Rock City and Salt City Records—where Penny was working.  We also managed to find Kilby Court where our show was and then hung out with Richard, Kara and Carrie from the Jenni Jensen at their house.  Later on, we went to Shang Hai—a vegetarian Vietnamese Restaurant that had more fake chicken on their menu than could be found in the entire state of Colorado.  Finally, we went to Kilby Court for our show.  

Kilby Court is something between a warehouse and an addition on the back of someone’s house.  We were supposed to play at Kilby Court last summer but the show got cancelled and we ended up playing Burt’s Tiki Lounge.  We had heard good things about Kilby and it lived up to its billing even though I got concerned when I saw a sign that said capacity 49 and I knew we had brought 24 people in our entourage alone. It all worked out though.  They had a little campfire going to keep folks warm outside and a cool video game outside the bathrooms and one of the neighbors even let us hang out in their house.  The neighbors were a little loopy but it was still a good time hanging out there between sets.  Kudzu Towers played first, followed by us.  Andy from the Breezy Porticos helped us out with ‘Lo-fi’—only the third time we’ve ever played it live.  The Breezy’s and Jenni Jensens followed to round out the evening.  All in all it was a rocking good time.  

We continued the super-fun night with a post-party at the Jenni Jensens’ house. After many rounds of hot fries and fake chicken jerky, we all fell asleep there sometime that night.

Sunday, April 8, 2001:  Salt Lake-Wyoming-Denver

When we woke up it was snowing in Salt Lake City.  We went to breakfast with Kara from the Jenni Jensens and then left Salt Lake City to head to Wyoming and then back to Denver.  It stopped snowing by the time we were in Western Wyoming.  We drove on and on through Wyoming, which looked bleak even in the springtime.  While trying to keep our wits about ourselves, we were aided by an electronic Yahtzee game that Kara gave us before we left Salt Lake.  After lots and lots of driving and a couple of snowy windy passes and a stop to purchase some fireworks, we made it back to Colorado tired but hoping to tour again sometime soon.