Part one: Nebraska? I hardly know 'ya.
My old friend Maureen Murphy had written me a sweet Friendster message full of the nice how-are-yous, etc. and inquired when I would possibly be through Omaha, Nebraska again. I looked at our tour schedule, which somehow I still hadn't memorized, and saw that we had an open day that would make for a perfect Omaha show. I wrote her back and told her we wanted to see her and play a last-minute show if she'd have us... three or four days from when I wrote her. She wrote back again that day, then called me and we decided that we'd work something out. When we arrived to Omaha we couldn't get a hold of Maureen and we were a bit scared. After hanging out for an hour or so she called us and met us downtown where we were eating crappy food outside of the crappy pizza place and crappy sandwich shops. She told us there was a good possibility of playing at a house, so we rolled over there and hung out with the residents. Two of the kids that live at the house had once lived in Rip City, a Portland house I'd lived in for a year or so at the beginning of this century. Chris Stoll is one of the most awesome, centered, calm, sweet and smart people I've met, I think. He is a very big fan of video game culture, video games themselves and general open discussion and dialog on a lot of subjects. I love talking to Chris a lot. Anyway, the show couldn't happen at the house so one of the other roommates called down to Ted & Wally's (an ice cream shop he's employed at) and got us a show after they stopped selling ice cream. Maureen got on her cell phone on one ear and the house's land-line on the other, and called everyone she could think of. A couple hours later we played to room full of very sweet Omaha dudes. Thanks to everyone for making that such a good feeling last minute adventure. Grant, Chris, Maureen, everybody!
Part two: We are, in fact, in Kansas.
After eating a late breakfast with Chris Stoll in Omaha we rolled out to Lawrence, Kansas. I'd never been there before and I was excited to see what this place was all about. I'd heard that a lot of indie dudes tour through there and that it was a college town, but that's about it. That's all I really learned after being there as well... except... The night that we were in Lawrence there was a tornado warning. I saw the most intense lightning and heard the most frightening thunder I'd ever seen or heard, respectively. Oh my god. Seriously. I was pretty freaked out. We played at a small house (so nice and soft) and they had the radio on with the weather report before we played.. it didn't sound good. Twenty minutes away there was a report of a tornado touching the ground and an immediate emergency warning for Lawrence and all of the surrounding towns. The woman on the radio even sounded a little scared.. "If you're in Lawrence you need to find shelter NOW." We turned the radio off and played music for the 10 people in the house. I played a really soft drone-y set and Adrian played out on the porch with the thunder, lightning and flash flood rains. In the morning we discovered our rear passenger-side tire to be low and attributed it to the intense storm. "If you live in Lawrence make sure you find shelter and protect your rear passenger-side tires."
Part three: One mile high in bronco country.
Two words: Chris Adolf.
Wait, do those qualified as words?
Anyway, Chris! Love Letter Band. Holy. New stuff sounds so good. Secret names. Secret bands. He played on the sidewalk outside and brought the nicest feeling to the show. Then we just flat-out lost him. There was confusion with the diner and cell phone numbers and I've yet to speak to him since. What? Chris? Where are you? Your brother and his girlfriend took such amazingly good care of us. Jesus, dude. What beautiful and wonderful people.
Here's an interview from the night in Denver.
man, love letter band
i love them
how do i get ahold of any new releases?
haven't heard or seen anything since 'even pretty girls...'
thanks kindly!
i can say with all honesty that i would not be where i'm at with my life if it weren't for chris adolf. dude totally changed my life a few years ago in colorado. pop up house shows in grand junction are still some of my favorite memories ever. now he needs to come to washington. so excited for new love letter band/bad weather california stuff! apparently there's supposed to be a full length sometime next year on happy happy birthday to me records, and not too long ago there was the split e.p. with boy name thor on best friends records.
yep.
I see Thanksgiving listed to play Meow Meow August 31. Are you really back by then?