The Congress Northwest Tour 2010

After a nice 6 week return to Denver in which I:

• Played 26 times in June
  
• Slept in a Wal Mart parking lot 2x
  
• Continued to sleep in a park the next morning 2x
  
• Spent a week and a half in bliss, house sitting for a friend in Evergreen
  
• Lost 8 hours of my life at The Glendale Ballet with good friends Gizz and Stern
  
• DID THIS:

(for those of you not on the creepbook or friends with Mike Maurer, you may not be able to enjoy the goodness)

I reconvened with the fellas from The Congress as we are currently embarking on another lengthy tour. This time, we added a week, got rid of the humidity, added some mountains & elk & mooses & jackalopes:





















Apparently, jackalopes are the state animal of Wyoming -- at least, according to Dwight, The Congress's low end theory. You see, Dwight might just be one of Cody, Wyoming's most famous exports, demonstrated by the fact that his return home was documented in the well circulated Cody Enterprise:


In the interview, which featured Dwight -- and only Dwight, this quote was attributed to him:

"That's something you can't put a label on ... I suppose you could call it the spiritual result of a ridiculous serendipity."

Hmmm... Interesting. Let's find some other Dwight quotes... (these are published)

-- "I'd rather have a day job than play music for some audience full of drunken assholes."
-- "I was fed up with music. I was pissed off at people"
-- "The audience that comes out to listen to this type of music is actually a quality audience"
-- "They give a shit when they're there listening."

Okay, okay... I took some editorial liberties with the quotes but I think those respective statements sum up our friend Dwight "You'd never want me to be President of The United States, and this is why:" Thompson.

I would give you some unpublished quotes from Dwight but those are completely inappropriate and certifiably insane.

Regardless of the mental health of the best bass player I've had the pleasure of playing with for an extended amount of time, he's a real teddy bear who has a huge heart and a admirable standard for cleanliness and cigarettes.




After a great gig in Cody, we headed to Billings, MT for a show at The Yellowstone Brewery. It was an afternoon show on a Saturday -- that generally sets off some warning sirens for the band, as in, uh, there ain't gonna be shit for people there. PLUS, there was a $5 cover charge for a SATURDAY AFTERNOON SHOW. Damn, this is going to suck! Who in their right mind is going to come see a band that has never been to Billings, play inside, from 4-8 pm? Uh, about 70 people. The reason?

Scott Lane's own damn poster

Billings treated us well and we can't wait to get back. We had no place to stay after the Billings show but as we've come to find out, Montana is an incredible place full of amazing people who bend over backwards to welcome us into their lives. Primarily, Randy, our sound engineer for the brewery show who invited us to his home, provided us with beds, chex mix and eggs with chicken-apple sausage.

Day #3, Livingston, MT. Murray bar. Great pizza, nice bartenders, but we got shut down by complaints from the adjacent hotel and the police. Not our fault, really -- I think it was a little unexpected to have a Rock band on a Sunday night. We gladly finished out the evening "acoustified" and played a bunch of covers to a sparse but attentive crowd. At one point, Jonathan ran full speed down a hotel hallway to escape from the crazy port wine drinkers. That's about all I have.



Day #4&5, Bigfork, MT. Flathead Lake. THE RAVEN:

Margarita Monday's. "Shots shot shot shot sha Shots!"

Uh, yeah. Bigfork is one of the most spectacular places I've ever been. The Raven seemingly liked us and invited us back for a second night on Tuesday -- meaning we had an extra night of room & board at one of the most spectacular places I've ever been. We played in the lake, we drank beers looking at the lake, we tried to do business deals with ice-cream cones in our hands. We ate "meatloaf burgers" made with locally raised yak, and we sold like 20 some CD's over the course of two nights and we found out that one of our dancing folk lost her American Apparel head band and cried endlessly over the loss of her modern-retro fashion accessory. Shots shots shot shot shot sha Shots Shots...

Up next:

Keep Missoula Weird
Gwednesday's
Bauer Ranch

Tot Ziens