After a brief hiatus from tour blogging I’m back.  The last few days have been busy and brought us some great stories, most of which are available for consumption through video on our facebook group.  But for those of you who have sold your soul to WhoreBook here’s the low tech version.

Saturday night we had a fantastic turn out at Corbett McGee’s Irish Pub in Anderson.  The pub was great for hosting us and it made for a fun show for all of our friends.  Our good friend Daniel Machado was good enough to drive up from Columbia and open for us.  He played some great tunes off his upcoming album, which you should definitely be looking for in the near future.

The real story began when Daniel got back out to his car after the show.  He had one tire that was, in his words, “devastatingly flat”.  In the process of putting the spare on his tire iron split and, when he was forced to use wrenches to take the nuts off, he encountered one that was diabolically tight.  While attempting to remove the last nut we (the group of macho dudes who had inserted ourselves into the situation) managed to strip the outside.  Finally, Daniel decided to call it quits for the night and come bunk with the rest of the band until we could get back out there with bigger tools on Sunday.

We returned on Sunday with some tried and true tools, courtesy of one of our awesome band parents - Jeff Martin.  The tools included vice grips, a hammer, a sledge hammer, and a smattering of wrenches.  Instead of making more progress on loosening the bolt we (Daniel working while Stevo, Jamie, and I watched) only succeeded in striping the outside of the bolt further.  The highlight of the McGee parking lot experience was the sledgehammer putt-putt that was birthed from our boredom and a found golf ball.  Eventually, we called in the cavalry and towed the old Mustang to Wal-Mart for the help of professionals.

While in Wal-Mart we passed the time until the car was ready by consuming unholy amounts of Icee in Subway.  One great quote from that time was Daniel’s take on the porn industry: “I have mixed feelings about porn.  On the one hand it’s completely disgusting and perverse but on the other hand they look like they’re having a good time and making good money.”  Wally world’s prognosis on the car, once they got to it, was that we would have to go elsewhere to get the bolt removed.  Even the professionals couldn’t get it off.  It didn’t help though that they had “saved” his car until last, which meant that every other place in town was closed by the time we had the chance to take it elsewhere.

So Daniel decided to take matters into his own hands and bought a blow torch, crowbar, and chisel.  We spent the next two cold hours applying the blue flame to the nut and attacking it with a screwdriver, chisel, crowbar, and hammer.  We had given up on ever actually unscrewing the nut and only hoped to break it off or whittle it down to nothing.  All of our work was for naught, however, when we were done we had a dull chisel, marred crowbar, and a little less of a nut.  The indestructible lugnut lived on.  We decided to go ahead and have the object of our wrath towed again to Firestone where we hoped it could be taken care of early the next morning.  With all the speed of a one legged squirrel, the tow truck arrived and a good three hours later the car was in its next resting place.

On Sunday, after almost 48 hours of full out war, the Firestone employees had used their mechanical wizardry to remove the amazing indestructo-nut.  Apparently, it was on so securely that the rim had been destroyed in the removal process as well.  We weren’t really surprised.

While the weekend was long and frustrating at times, it ended up being totally awesome.  The show was great and we loved getting a chance to play for our friends and fans.  Daniel did an awesome job with his solo performing and, best of all, new friends were made during the trying time spent angrily attacking the nut.  Daniel aptly referred to our time as the “Fellowship of the Lugnut”.  For a more pop-culture approach to the story check out our video recaps on facebook.

We decided to cancel the Asheville gig due to the huge …. amounts of snow that were covering the mountains of North Carolina (and likely still are).  So we came up to Clemson early for Nate to start school today.  We’ve been working on some non-music band related things today, like video and web stuff, and came across a band that hijacked our radio single, “Roller Coaster”.  If you watch the youtube video of their version of the song the parallels become ridiculously obvious … a lawsuit will be forthcoming shortly.  Watch the video for yourself.

On to Anderson this evening to catch up with good friends.  See you guys on Saturday at Corbett’s!

Last night we managed to pull off our appearance as Radiohead.  No less than two people said that we “sounded better than Radiohead” - a comment which doesn’t hold up to scrutiny but boosts my easily influenced self esteem.  The highlight of our set was our closer, “Paranoid Android”, which we rocked out.  There is a video on youtube right now of our opening number and rumors of a video for the closing number but we’ll see.  We’re hoping to add a few, if not most, of the songs into our cover rotation.  Plus, we actually earned some dolores for our performance which was a welcome and awesome end to the evening.

This afternoon I played solo at Five Points Pub in downtown Columbia.  Jamie and Stevo came to support since Nate couldn’t make the age limit to get in.  It was a half cover / half original set that included “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley and “Army” by Ben Folds.  Hearing my voice clearly in the monitors is a true joy that, unfortunately, I don’t get much playing with a rock band.  It turns out that I can actually carry a tune : )

We’re 95% done with a new song that is a little bit of a departure for us in terms of form.  It’s also heavily influenced by our metalhead members - but in a good way.  We’re pretty excited about it and looking forward to debuting it sometime soon.  We have another song almost “in the can”, as they say, and a few more in the development stages.  The albums seems to be coming together.

See you at a local venue soon : )

Technically it’s only been day one for a few minutes, but I’ve been wanting to write a tour diary my whole life so I’m a little eager.  Today was the first day of many miles and hours spent in the ol’ faithful malibu - almost 500 miles and over 7 and 1/2 hours, in the rain no less.  Tonight we’re going to be rocking out a Radiohead cover set at New Brookland Tavern’s New Years Eve show.  We’re all really excited and nervous about it.  We have all be practicing on our own and in various configurations but never as a whole band until today - hence the nervousness.

I personally am coming of somewhat of an emotional roller coaster over the holidays.  Lots of family, several states, and many nights away from home have somehow unsettled me and heightened my typically low-level anxiety.  Tonight was a great alleviator though as we ran through the set before Stevo arrived from NC and spent the rest of the evening playing God’s glorious invention: the Xbox 360.  Call of Duty 4 is just one amazingly beautiful game and the single player campaign is intense, engrossing, and tons-o-fun.  Rock Band, on the other hand, is earning my ire.  As a musician, when I play a rhythm game I expect to be rewarded and not chastised when I play my instrument correctly.  Guitar Hero doesn’t seem to have any problem responding to my playing so why should Rock Band be any different?  It shouldn’t.  It is.  It makes me feel like that egotistical guy that comes over to your house, plays the game for 30 seconds, and then decides that it’s the games fault that he’s not winning … except this time it really is the game’s fault.  But that’s a whole other topic : )

It’s been fantastic to hang out with the guys as well.  I forget how much fun we have together sometimes.  Often there’s only time for business during our visits.  Tomorrow as we start rehearsal in earnest the “good times” might get a little heated but tonight was a nice chance to kick off the tour with non-gigging related R&R.  Can’t wait to rock 4 states in two weeks and to see you at a show.

I am an extraordinarily blessed guy. I haven’t been here long at all but already I’ve learned a wealth of information and gotten to see some amazing stuff. Like today, for instance, I got to sit in on a session at a professional studio called The Sound Kitchen. You should check the link for their roster of clients. Yes, there were platinum albums hanging on the walls in the hallway. Yes, there was a sheik chill room / kitchen. Yes, it was amazing. And yes, I got pictures for you to marvel at the cool opportunities God is giving me.

One of our teachers “canceled” our once-a-week class because he had an opportunity to record a big band at the Sound Kitchen. He turned it into a kind of field trip for us.

We started off the trip with a stop a Wendy’s and, since I’m a ham, I couldn’t resist.

The high-class entrance to the studio.

The aforementioned lounge area.

The magical control room in the “Big Boy” studio.

The required console (custom API Legacy Plus, 80 inputs) shot.

Logo proof of the custom design on the end of the console and stereotypical lava lamp.

More console porn.

Me badly faking mixing on the board : ) I had to be careful not to actually touch something during the recording process or tick off my teacher who was kinda busy doing real work while I was taking pictures.

The beautiful Pro Tools HD and G5 heart of the beast.

The Pro Tools monitor that says, if you can make it out, “Pro Tools HD 7.3.1″ in the top left corner. Those tiny letter and numbers cost so very much money.

Our crack team of graduate students adeptly and enthusiastically observing the session.

A broad shot of the, as they say in the biz, “tracking space”.

Some very cool diffusers/absorbers that did a mind boggling good job of isolating the piano while an entire big band played.

And the tracking space from the other side.

Did I mention how blessed I am? : )

Warning: I’m long winded. And in spite of all my whining I did have fun.

After studiously examining my course on Google Maps Wednesday night, my actual traveling began at the un-holy hour of 8am Thursday. Currently, the only bad thing about living on Central time is that all of our shows are in an earlier time zone. This means that it takes me an hour longer than everyone else to get where I’m going (think about that one for a little while). Bump #1 in my road started during my commute through Atlanta. I passed a sign for I-20 to Augusta/Birmingham and thought to myself, “Hmmm. I sure thought the interstate into Columbia was I-20. But that can’t be right because the interstate that goes into Columbia starts in Macon.” Anyone who knows the roads of the southeast knows that those thoughts, especially after STUDYING A MAP, makes me a full-blooded moron. During the phone call to “double check” what I was still convinced was the correct route through Macon, there was a lot of cursing followed by inadvisable breaking of the speed limit. This means that upon my arrival my 6 and a half hour trip (according to Google) had come to 8.5 hours (+1 hr. for time zone and +1 hr. for idiocy).

Route that I should have taken

Route that I actually took

It may not look like an hour detour but trust me, it was.

Since we (Stevo and myself) were late we had to boogie to downtown Columbia where we were late for our radio appearance on WUSC.

Eric, our friendly student DJ, was very welcoming and wasted no time in sitting us down in their studio. We admitted to Eric that we were total radio noobs but, that in mind, I was still a little surprised at what happened.

The following is paraphrased…
ERIC: (In reference to the SM58 in the bottom right corner of the pic) You wanna check that mic for your guitar?
ME: Sure.
I play a little guitar and Stevo plays the drum he brought. Eric checks our levels and adjusts some knobs and faders. I wait for the request to check the vocal mic in front of me (looks like it has a smiley face on it in the pic). Eric pushes a button.
ERIC: Alright, we’re here in the studio with Collin Derrick’s Band …

And that was our first experience on the air. Eric knew what he was doing though because the people who were listening said that it sounded really good. The vocals “took a back seat” to the rest of the music but the melody and song came through well. We really appreciated the help from the station though in getting some great exposure.

Bump #2 came later that evening. As with any performance, you invariably end up with some technical problems. You can minimize these by being super prepared but you can’t prevent them. There’s a story there which you should ask me about some time but, suffice it to say, we didn’t sound our best and it was frustrating.

That night I drove back to Anderson and stayed at Casa de Ramey. And yes, their couches are everything the claim them to be. Friday was a great time of catching up with old friends. Such a great time, in fact, that it psuedo-caused Bump #3: traffic/rain. The congestion around Atlanta was a nightmare. We’ve all experienced it before but I still hate it just as much as I ever did. The rain was also terrible. Anything that causes your fellow drivers to slow to approximately half the speed limit can be considered a torrential downpour.

All things considered, I did enjoy my trip. I was on the radio for the first time, got to play a rock show with some of my best friends, and spend some time with people I miss. It was good. Can’t wait to do it again next weekend. Speaking of, come see us play at Ground Zero in Spartanburg, SC next Saturday (September 1). It will be equally awesome, I promise.