cops vs sprinklers

so we slept somewhere at a rest stop in Oregon. about two hours into sleeping, some water shot over my head/pillow/sleeping bag. so yea, the sprinklers came on. i was too tired to get up, so i considered battling the water...
i got up and went to a place it didn't look like the water was gonna nail me. instead i had thick grass and twigs poking in my ear all night.
slept good.

the slc show was so fun. had a great time seeing family and friends again.

in seattle right now. we're playing a cool venue. isaac brock (modest mouse) is rumored to be coming to the show tonight. we shall see....

i'm out.

Omaha, somewhere in.....

here's the rundown.

we're in Linlcoln Nebraska right now stay with Joshuas family. (incredilbly nice people!)
played Omaha tonight, and was a great show.

played Minnesta last night. Trevor got arrested and put in jail for spraypainting a stencil of Kerouak and the line "read more books". the financial district of St. Paul didn't think that was too funny. luckily they let him out thismorning and he was able to catch a plane back home.
love ya trev!

played Milwaukee the night before that. cool show. Coreys crew, and Amber sounded really great that night.

Ann Arbor was the night before that. fun show.

i had left out that when we played the new york show, i got a tour of the city by my good friend Randy Roberts. it was 2 am and we went to time square and rode the subway and all. good times. i have pics, but i left my camera at his place. i ended up staying there for the night.
i woke up the next day to a phone message saying that i needed to hurry and meet the band at some university to do a morning radio show that i didn't think i was playing on. so i got to figure out the subway system by myself... along with a map, a couple random people, and TOURIST THAT KNOWS NOTHING written on my forehead.
so i get off the train at my stop, (miraculously) and i find out that i have to walk another 2 miles to get to the campus.... and i'm supposed to be there in 10 min. so i begin to run down the street in my cowboy boots, in the middle of the Bronx, dodging cabs, and basically realizing that i'm the most rediculous sight in NYC.
i finally get to the station, again asking a bunch of uninterested people for directions. and...........
josh has already started the interview and i'm not even doing it.
so, i wish that someone would have atleast got a picture.

on to kansas city. go chefs. :)

Joe, you were wrong again!

So i know its been awhile, and i'm gonna try and get it all in.

We went around New York, and i'm in love with the place. My favorite city is a place called Tonawanda. Couldn't belive how much it reminded me of Logan, 15 years ago. I'm gonna be taking my wife back there soon so she can fall in love with it too and we can move there.

Its right by Buffalo, and really close to Niagra Falls.

WE went to the falls. Slept in left field of a baseball field, and were woken up by the mowers, and luckily not the sprinklers.

We finished up the shows with Will Dailey in NYC. Boston was killer, and Will's crew was amazing. if you haven't checked out Will Dailey's music, please do asap. he's an amazing musician and an amazing person, along with Matt Joe and Dave. We're gonna miss those dudes.

Corey Chisel and his crew are now on with us. Amber Rubarth has been with us for a few weeks and we're really excited to hit the road towards home.

We played in Buffalo at a music festival with Blood Sweat and Tears. that was fun....

BUT i was asked to be a judge for a local american idol type thing, and i was nice. it was hard to be nice. i was nice. maybe too nice. it was scary because i couldn't be mean for fear their parents would find me and beat me.

Played Grand Rapids MI, great fun. Met up with Jensie and Tyrell. Good seeing them again. We stayed with some great GREAT people, the Nutkins, in Grand Rapids, and they really took care of us. We have really stayed with some amazing people on tour.

-little story that needs to be told. (and it wouldn't need to be if Joe had just owned up to his mistake.....)

So, Court used to run a lot in high school. i did too. when we were in the kitchen on the Nutkins, i was explaining that even though i might not look like it, i'm a decent athlete. Joe, in his wrongness, patted my stomach and laughed and said i wasn't. so we decided to put Joes ridiculous statement to a little test. Court and I would run a mile, and if I won, Joe would have to AGAIN admit that he was wrong and i was an athlete. If Court won, i'd buy him a pack of cigarettes, cus that's all that really motivates him.

Joe really should have known that smokers don't win distance races, but....

So we ran it, and of course i won. Court almost didn't make it to the finish line, and i felt bad cos the smoking has really taken its toll....but in all fairness, i could tell that he used to run. He said it almost motivated him to quit.

SO I come to Joe, ready for his apology again, and he STILL won't say it. THEREFORE, now we will list out the bets in which Joe has been simply wrong, and i've proven it. ( YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST ADMITTED IT JOE, AND IT WOULDN'T HAVE COME TO THIS!)

1. that i couldn't beat Josh in a game of basketball, to fifteen points, without Josh scoring one.

RESULT: NATE WINS THE BET!

2. joe says that i'm not in near good enough shape to swim that leg of the mississippi river.

RESULT: NATE WINS BET BY SWIMMING IT, IN JEANS!

3. joe says that nate isn't an athlete, and can't win a footrace against Court in a mile run.

RESULT: YEP, YOU GUESSED IT! NATE WINS AGAIN!

now joe, if you're reading this, know that all you have to do is admit you were wrong, and that i'm an athlete, and this will all go away. until then.......... : )

So now we're in Chicago.

Saw Chris Rock today outside of a hotel. Its funny because i saw a dude that looked like Chris, and he was wearing headphones and all, so to be funny, i yell out my window, "CHRIS!! CHRIS!!!" then the other dudes in the band look, and we're like. WOW that dude REALLY looks like Chris Rock. So we all start yelling CHRIS!!!!! CHRIS ROCK!!!! CHRIS!!!!

the dude ignores us, and has headphones on so its easy to ignore us.

So then we are like, wow, that dude REALLY looks EXACTLY like Chris.

Joes goes into the hotel, and says, "that dude has an entourage..." we're still like, No way, it can't be him.

We get to the club, and Courts friends tells us that Chris IS playing Chicago tonight, and that was his hotel.....

Crazy huh. We were harassing Chris Rock, thinking it wasn't him.

my beard is crazy.

peace.

joe, you were wrong about the race, BUT you were right about the ROCK, and i gotta give you props for that.

Philly! WHAT UP?!

i'm still working on getting some photos up, but, no luck yet.

typing this right outside of Philly.  We played Baltimore last night, and D.C. the night before that.  Both shows were pretty cool!  I love Baltimore anyway, and the crowd was WAY cool.  we're staying with some friends now, (owen and John) who were cool enough to let us stay at their place make us breakfast.  

so we went to mcdonalds a couple nights back at 1:00 in the morning and the lady at the window explained that they didn't do the dollar menu after midnight....  then we asked for a big mac and she explained that its company policy that they don't sell big macs after midnight.....

think about that.

peace out.

hanging in charlotte for the Fourth Of July

ALright! i'm gonna try and get back on this blog more regularly. Kissle is gonna let me use his computer so i can begin putting pictures up and everything.

lemme try to recap the past few weeks.

we stayed in florida with some of my great friends the Cliftons. Chris and i served together in Oakland. We had such a nice stay! the whole family was so kinda and made sure we were well fed, and had a washer and dryer. Great friends, and it was a nice break.

the show in miami got canceled so we took off to the beach on the gulf of mexico. really great day. we got a camp site to sleep at that night right on the water front. we went to a local diner for dinner and found out that they were having a karaoke night. so we had an amazing evening singing Sexyback, Cher, vanilla ice, MC hammer, Queen, Rick Astley, Coolio, Kansas, and Prince. Seriously, one of the most fun nights i've ever had. a bunch of the people eating were loving the sing along, and some even came to the show the next night in Tampa.

played the jacksonville then headed up to south carolina. the shows were cool, but the best part of south carolina was the beach! there was a storm in charlston so we went to the coast. the rain hadn't started yet, but the wind was blowing the clouds were so dark. the fine sand that sits on the top of the beach was being blown in the wind and looked like a fine moving mist around our ankles. 200 yards away was a lighthouse doing its thing. it was so incredible. then the rain started up before i had a chance to get a picture.

played ashville. cool city. fun little show. Will Dailey and his crew played great.

inbetween ashville and charlotte, we went up into the mountains and found this serious waterfall that was burried up in the hills. we had to hike into it, and then take a rope line down a rock face to get to the bottom of the fall. we swam for a bit, but then had to get back on the road.

we played charlotte last night, and the crowd was unbelievable! Will Dailey, the band we're on tour with, was ON! The past couple shows have had some awesome crowds, although small in numbers. Last night the crowd was great, AND there were a bunch of people there! It was electric!

We have a couple days of for the Fourth. i have some friends here in charlotte, and we're gonna go do some fireworks tonight. we're staying with some of the nicest friends, the kosters, at their beautiful place here in town. they have let us eat their food and swim in their pool and have given us such great company!

Happy fourth. I hope we can all remember the sacrifice of our forefathers. The heroes that founded this country laid everything on the line for the birth of our free nation. they were God-fearing men who were courageous and whom we owe everything we enjoy today. Through the years, many men and women have put their country above themselves, and have done unbelievable things to forward the freedom and greatness of the USA. Our country has never been perfect of without flaw, but the model of freedom we live under is inspired by God and is the greatest system and vehicle of freedom known to mankind.
the opportunities that we are provided here are like nowhere else. it seems it has become easy for us to complain about how terrible we think things are, but when we stop to look at everything we have, we'd be pretty ungreatful to think that we have it that bad here. we are so blessed and have so much!!!
since i've had all my things stolen, i've realized that even though it feels like i've lost so much, i also realize that i HAVE so much. A beautiful amazing wife whom i love dearly, loving family and friends, a good job, talents, and the opportunities to better myself and those around me.
finally, i hope that we can remember our troops today, and the freedom that they represent and fight for, (even for the freedom of those who smear them and won't ever appreciate their sacrifice.) they're heroes, and deserve our love and respect. we all pray that they can come hope safely soon.

when we look at the fireworks tonight, remember what they represent.
"...and the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night, THAT OUR FLAG WAS STILL THERE. Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE BRAVE."

God bless America.

quick check in

hey all,

so i haven't been able to really keep up on this because my access to a computer is limited. 

but heres the quick skinny.

played atlanta, knoxville, nashville.

swam across a section of the mississippi.

drove through some serious ghetto today to fix a flat that we got in atlanta.  fun but intense.

still don't have a computer.

did a tv performance, and a bunch of fun radio performances.

i have good pics but cant upload them yet.  will try later.

love

bummer

as many of you know my laptop got stolen out of our tour van this afternoon.  window got broke and all my lifes work was stolen.  so....

  it might be awhile before i get to blog regularly, so be patient.  i'm trying to figure all this out right now, but keep posted, and i'll check in with everyone when i can.  

i still have some great stories from memphis that i'll try to get up on the blog.

love you all.

nate

memphis: day 1

today was the first of two days in memphis.

we were supposed to have a radio spot earlier in the afternoon, so we left really early in the morning, only to get almost there and get a call that it was canceled. so....
we DID however, perform the live video session at Sun Studios. That, my friends, was an experience. We went on the tour earlier in the day, and i learned so much about the intense history of the place. Cash, Elvis, Jerry Lee Louis and tons of other classic artists all were either discovered by Sun, or made it big with Sun Records. After getting the gear all set up, it was overwhelming to look around the room and just see so many of our heroes that recorded their classic hits in the exact places we were set up to jam in. sometimes during a song, i'd open my eyes and see the pictures of elvis and johnny cash staring me right in the face, and it was almost distracting. really amazing experience. it hasn't even completely set in yet, i don't think.
when we got done recording, we started loading gear and across the street a huge group of 'thugs' started messing around, and the cops came and broke it up.
my arm is doing better.
gotta lot of pics for todays blog.

Goodbye Texas/ Houston

On our way to Memphis.
We played our last show of the Texas leg last night in Houston. It was a pretty cool show. We played really well, probably the best we played so far, although there weren't very many people there.
We've been playing some pretty legit venues. The Roots are playing the night after us, and Rancid played the night before.
It was crazy coming into Houston, seeing the huge skyline, and seeing the city of my birth for the first time, (that i can actually remember.) Its a beautiful city. I've been so used to telling people that i was born there, without any idea of what 'there' was. The city looked a lot different than the mental picture i've always had.
i found some weird bug bite on my arm thats bruised and pretty gnarly. i'm sure its some random thing that probably got me whilst asleep on the side of the road somewhere. i'm gonna keep and eye on it for a couple days, and see if my arm falls off or anything.
we're in Baton Rouge right now, in the parking lot of a motel. we crashed here last night. our manager bought a room for himself, but was too tired to make it all the way here last night, so a couple of the dudes slept in the room while court and i slept in the van.
we have a couple performances today. josh and i are doing a radio performance, and the band is being video taped for a Sun Studios performance. its where Elvis and Cash recorded albums and stuff. lotta history. should be cool.

austin

We played the famous Stubbs Bar-B-Q last night. Way cool venue. The crowd was way cool. one of the Joshua James fans bought us a hotel room to crash in that night and thats where i'm typing this from, on a real bed, after a real nights rest... it was amazing. Kissle was so happy that he danced like MC Hammer AND the chicks at the Cowboys party in Dallas!
The venue gave us all free food. i couldn't eat any meat but the chicken because of the deal i have with josh. the chicken was awesome! had some fried okra. it was awesome as well. great food. way cool city. there were like 5 other music venues within a couple blocks from stubbs, all playing bands at the same time. austin has a big music scene. the band Rilo Kiley is playing stubbs tonight. i looked at their tour, and they're following us around to a lot of the same venues, the day after us.

dallas

we are on our way to Austin today. Played Dallas last night and then hit the road.

The venue was cool. pretty city. We got into town early so we hit the local library and then chilled and watched tv in the club for a bit. we got a free meal at the place we played, and it was incredible.

we met up with Justin Townes Earle and Lex Land, who are going to be touring with us for a bit. They were both amazing last night.

After the show we found out that the Dallas Cowboys were having a dance party on the bottom floor of the same club we were playing in. So we went and got some video of all the nice cars and the skanks that were wandering around the place. it was pretty funny.

road rollin'

So.
I haven’t had any access to the internet for the past couple days, reason being, we’ve been sleeping in the middle of nowhere and driving all day.

I’m typing this up on the way to Dallas. I’m gonna try and remember the important details and catch up on a couple days worth of fun. We have a show tonight and the venue said that they’re gonna feed us fish tacos. We’re starved, so we’re really looking forward to it. I made


a deal with Josh that if I didn’t eat any red meat, and only ate fish or chicken 3 times a week, and wouldn’t drink any soda, he’d give me an extra $125 at the end of the tour. This is nice and all, but we’re playing a show in Austin at Stubbs BBQ, and they’re giving us free food. So I get to watch everyone else enjoying they’re amazing meat. Hopefully I can lose a bit of fat by the end of the tour and it’ll be worth it.

Court wanted a Slim Jim and I told him I’d buy it for him if he’d let me slap him in the face with it first. He was hungry and broke, so he agreed. Hope it was a good Slim Jim.

New Mexico was really…… (hard to describe) Dave Chappelle has a little piece about New Mexico. He said that he saw an Indian one time, but thought they were extinct, until he saw a gathering of 1500 indians. It was called Walmart in New Mexico. Dave was pretty accurate. We must have found that EXACT Walmart that Dave went to. We stayed the night off the side of the freeway next to a reservation. We had trucks driving by us for awhile, scoping out the situation. We ate our gourmet dinner of 1.5 tuna fish sandwichs and a carrot. We saw some rabbits, so we hunted them. Rabbit meat sounded good, but they were too rascally. We also realized that we camped right on a huge sulfur deposit, so of coarse we lit some in fire.
We also happened to park right next to some active railroad tracks…and that got old, fast. Literally, every 15-20min there’d be at least one, if not two trains driving by. No one really slept much that night. We got up and had our daily ration of one Poptart for breakfast and hit the road for Texas.

I started reading this great book by Ernest Hemmingway called Islands in the Stream. It’s a book I’ve been meaning to read for awhile. It was one of his last works. It was published posthumously, as well as another great book I’ve already read call The Dangerous Summer, about dueling bullfighters. Islands in the Stream was recommended to me by Sainsbury awhile ago. I’m glad to finally start getting into it.

Texas has been great. Humid as ever. REALLY humid. At first I was a little skeptical about the place. The only towns we’ve seen so far have been tiny little Podunk places. We stopped to get gas at this little station where the two ladies working were pretty classic. One was smoking right there by the counter and they were talking in these really heavy accents. It was almost a bit surreal. We drove around awhile trying to find a place to stay. We came to an RV park that had a bunch of old-timers sitting on lawnchairs by the lodge area. We chatted with them a bit, and then walked around the park to see the little swimming pool, and the fenced fields with horses, the mountain-less horizon with the clouds billowing in from the Gulf. It was the first time Texas felt genuinely sincere. The old folks there were just passing through on their way back home to east Texas. We told them that we were a traveling band, and they were excited for us, and excited to hear that we were a Country band. They were so nice and polite. I’m now a full believer in Southern Hospitality. When you can go somewhere and be this at home with complete strangers, it’s a pretty worthy note. Everyone that drove by us as we walked around the broken roads waved. Pretty endearing. Pretty hard to describe.
We found a cool little place to camp of the side of an old road. It was right next to an abandoned shack, (and some other trash people have dumped there in the past.) The owner of the land, an old farmer named Weston Johnson, came to see what was going on, and was really nice to us, and warned us about all the rattlesnakes. Kissle and Josh went out looking for the snakes, but didn’t find any.
We all stink pretty bad. None of us have had a shower or changed our clothes in a few days. We’re all smelling fairly ripe. Court continues to remind me of my stench, but if he only knew that we can SEE his odor radiating off his body… (I just showed Court this line, and he’s mad that I’m throwing him under the bus on this. Now we’re now having an interesting conversation on smell. You know that you smell bad when you can smell yourself. It’s like when you rip one, on the ride home from the Renshaws in Alpine, and YOU think it stinks, so you actually feel bad for the others in the car. It’s like that.) ( I just read Court that last bit in parenthesis, and now he’s not so mad that I threw him under the bus.)
There was a killer storm blowing in when we were going to bed, but it never really materialized into anything. The sky is so big here, that you can watch the whole lightning storm as its coming from miles away. Never even reached us, but it was amazing to watch it in the distance. It didn’t rain but it was so humid that we woke up wet anyway.
We got up this morning to a new friend. A random dog had wandered into our camp.
Kissle named him “brroommm brrrooommm” (you gotta say it like the sound of a car starting?)
Skinny dog. Looked hungry. I bet Brrooommm Brrroooommmm would have let me hit him in the face with a Slim Jim if I’d buy it for him to eat after.

day 2 in vegas

i'll be putting up photos tomorrow. we didn't take a ton of photos today, but the ones we took should be cool.

we didn't have a show tonight, so w3 spent the day hanging out with josh's sisters here in vegas. we went with his sister and her kids to the neighborhood pool. so....its a bunch of bearded dudes in jeans and cutoff shorts hangin out by this pool with a bunch of kids and their moms...... imagine that scene.

josh and i played some basketball. one on one. it was pretty intense.

we'll be leaving tomorrow to head to dallas.

day one

so, you'd think that the first day wouldn't be too eventful....right?
here is it.
1. ran out of gas on the side of the freeway outside of nephi.
2. almost hit a semi with our trailer.
3. played a show in the middle of a alphalpha field.
4. slept in the shed of ex-Victim Effect guitarist.

the trip was nice, but i'm still wondering how we ran out of gas before we even got to Nephi. we nearly ran out of gas when we were coming back from Denver a couple weeks ago, so i was thinking that Josh would have learned his lesson about making sure theres always plenty of gas in the tank. nope. so josh and kissle hitchhiked into nephi and got some gas and hitched back. if the FIRST DAY of the tour is this adventurous, i can only imagine what the rest of the trip will be like.

the show was pretty cool. the wind was blowing WAY hard. we were lucky and it calmed down for our set, but when Kalai started playing the wind was almost impossible to play through. the dust from the huge field we were playing in was terrible and was blowing in peoples eyes and making everyone miserable. But Kalai's a pro and played a killer set, even with the overwhelming wind storm. he showed us a rare peak at his hand that has a birth defect. he is an incredible guitar player, especially considering he has his hand issue. he wanted me to post the pic to prove that he's legit and doesn't just wear the bandage to use as a chick magnet.

enjoy the pics.

everybody need to calm DOWN!

reminder that:

i'm leaving next tuesday (10th of june)

for all of you sending me messages and calling and telling me verbally that you're mad that i'm not keeping up on the posts....

i haven't left yet, and when i do, i'll begin the daily blog.

please be patient.

please love your friends.

please brush your teeth and kiss your mother.

please don't mind my wife sneaking up on me right now to try and spy on what i'm doing and then saying "it smells like poo in here" because i've had some serious stomach issues today.

please don't buy everything you hear and read.  especially about politics.

please read my blog when it starts for real.

please leave encouraging comments after my posts so that

1. i know your reading

2. i know  you care

3. i know you have nothing better to do than read my stuff

4. i can feel your sweet vibe and mojo?  what?

please buy Rockin' Rob's cd because i feel bad that he spent money to record it and he keeps dropping the price cos no one will buy it.  i know he's nuts, but don't you kinda feel bad for him?

please don't get married unless you know you're in it for good.  (byu students, this means you)

please go to shows.

please write more tunes.

please don't mind my wife again asking me to stop this list.  

please bye for now.

getting ready to leave for the summer....

I'm not much for blogging. nice verbage huh? blogging. yea. i'm now a blogger.

i digress.

So as most of you know, i'm playing in the Joshua James band (www.joshuajames.tv) as of about 2 months now. We're leaving for 2 months in June, July, and Aug to do a tour of the United States. Josh and I played some shows on the east coast a couple weekends ago, opening for Glen Hansard (the Swell Season) , and the experience was amazing! I'm still trying to organize all the crazy things that happened in just a couple days. Its frustrating to not be able to recall all the fun for everyone i wanted to tell all about it. so.....
I was thinking, it'd be nice to keep track of all the fun things that are sure to take place on tour this summer. I also wanted a way to keep everyone else interested posted on the fun as well. Long story short, i've set up this blog so everyone can keep posted as the trip happens. i'll be checking in daily with stories and pictures of the trip.

i promise, the future logs won't be as boring as this first intro post.
i love you all.
the official tour begins on the 10th of June.
BE THERE FOR THE ACTION. (i learned that line from a monster truck event at the salt palace in salt lake city... maybe a jean claude van damme movie preview. i like it either way)