ninth moon black spring 08 tour with the blackwaves by shawn

from march 25th - april 7 2008, i toured with Ninth Moon Black and the Blackwaves we went from eugene to as far south as LA, and back, playing a few shows. this is a random selection of photos that i have from beginning at top, ending at bottom.


band practice before leaving. Jesse hadn't even been with the band that long before the trip, but he picked up all the songs and added in great to the band filling in any holes.


more band practice while erin plays some killer slide guitar blues. he's pretty handy with that shit


we had basically one day to hang out with our german friends in eugene before leaving on the trip. They wanted to start right in on "AMERICA SHOPPING FEST 08" so kacey and andrew took them around various retail offerings in eugene and i hung out for a little bit.


chilling in the euge. Frank thought something about the public bathroom there was really funny, but he told the guys in german so i don't know what it was.


vanasaurus morning of departure.


oregon border, southbound


just kacey and i in my car for the first stretch. the funny thing was, there wasnt room for two bands in one van (with any practicality), so it was good that i took my car, but the problem was that erin and I are the only licensed drivers between the two vehicles, so he and i did 100% of the driving. niiice.


resting, approaching chico. you could set your watch to caleb's look.


arrive at monstro's pizza in chico. i think it was the middle of the week, so the turnout of skaterat and mallcore children was actually pretty good, and we played our sets with two other local bands or so. all ages shows are definitely to be desired, but depending on the type of kids that show up, i find that commonly the under-21 scene often has our music go over their heads.


classic frank look.


they were nice enough to make a sign for us.


they are looking in the newspaper there at a 1 page spread about blackwaves. no mention of ninth moon black. thanks chico. we looked the next day for copies to take with us, but couldnt find them anymore.


they tried to be clever and quaint with sawdust on the floors in the pizza joint, but it was just fucking annoying with all of our gear and sweatshirts and probably riddled with bacteria and disease.


chris


frank, steve


these kids opened up their house to us in chico, awesome. we played a few matches of late night GUITAR HERO, though for all 10 of us it was the first or second time we had ever tried playing it so we incredibly sucked, which was what made it good. some girl really had it coming there, because she wanted to talk about religion with me. she was as into talking about it as me, i always like talking about it, so we were for a while, but that is like one of the biggest party-fouls and i was bumming everyone out so i tried to end it.


in the morning, it was hot sunshine, fresh oranges from backyard orange tree, laying on a blanket in the sun, and plenty of supermarket food.


drive to santa cruz. chris hopped in my car for a change. we drove just about straight, this was the one stop.


i didnt just want chips and cliff bars all tour, and im vegan, and dont really eat fast food, so i wanted something a little bit good and real that i could keep having... so i bought olive oil and fresh baked non-shit bread whenever i got the chance. the end of the tour would see exactly half the bottle of olive oil consumed by me. mmm, its so good.


arrive in santa cruz,evening. I had never been there, so i checked out the dumb boardwalk and stupid beach and pier. it was much colder than chico, paradoxically.


chris is contemplating





erin got the place to sleep with an old friend who i gather does real estate so often lives in different houses or something? i dont know, they lived up out of santa cruz in the woods. peaceful and cool, but i remembered that my best friends lived only 45 minutes south near monterey, so after eating i drove down to Scott and Emily's house to hang out





frank, steve, tommec. the first myspace of the trip. need to refuel


Scott and Emily's art studio in monterey. they kick ass.


CDS ARRIVED! we had them shipped strategically to be intercepted on tour, though we missed them for our first two shows. i wasnt expecting to see sleeves.... a digipack or a jewel case. but no one was really hardcore closely invested in the actual assembly and production of it with the label, so all in all it looks great and came out fine. you should all buy it.


i dont know who did it or how, i think erin was just calling people and asking around, and we somehow landed a show for that night at the hippest little coffee shop in town, pergelosi. they were so kind for letting us do that. we got the show by like 230pm or something, so it was time to make fliers!


I spearheaded the effort because of my experience with copy machines and lightning quick media multitasking skills. here is what you have to create a flier, including found green crayon at kinkos.


threw it together, coped it onto stolen colored papers, cut them, left quickly


the flier


at this point, we knew something had to be done about the van. the exhaust pipe had become disconnected from the back of the van, ripping even more at its welded joint with the muffler which was already corroded and holed away pretty well. went out to home depot with just erin to find anything that might remotely help us hold together the tattered pieces of our lives.


blackwaves, ACTIVATE!!!!


Riddle: how many hipsters does it take to attend and run a coffee shop show?


steve often made this face that i loved, this is only the tail end of the expression... he and all the blackwaves mostly were absolutely flattened by allergies and cold bugs from the recirculated air of the 27 hour plane ride over, and sneezed and sniffled a lot. during some riffs, steve would just wince like he was killing himself with the music, but liked it that way.


tommec


kind kids at coffee shop which later hooked up sleeping arrangements. oh yeah, so after we play the show and go park the van to load up across the street, and the fucker wont start. it starts pouring rain to make it more fun. we try jumpstarting it, no response. doesnt turn over. we are looking into the hood, taking off the doghouse inside the cab, looking underneath... doesnt start, what the fuck. we take turns laying on the rain soaked ground under the van banging on the starter or trying to jump start the solenoid on the starter... nothing. with determination, we say that we will buy and install a starter the next morning early and be back on the road. the kids who helped put on the show running the coffee shop invite us all in out of the rain even though they are closed, while they all start smoking inside in the front room with the doors and windows closed and drinking hella beers. beers all around. no one could really figure out definitive sleeping plans for us, so we sat around with beers and cigs in the coffee shop til 230. then these kids pulled through in helping us, and we found sleeping places for all 10 of us between two houses and the van.


i sleeping bagged down in santa cruz homeboy's apartment circa 3am, but it seemed the porch drinking/smoking/merrymaking/leaving the front door open 6 feet from the sleeping bag was just beginning, so after 10 minutes i silently relocated to the backseat of my car to sleep, all wet and warm from crawling under the van on the rain street. i wake up early and wake up erin so that we go buy a starter.erin lays down 150 bucks on that shit, but have to do what you have to do to stay on the road. we get there, about to plan out our install, when someone tries the ignition and it just starts up. unbelievable. erin returns the starter and i begin the impromptu soda-can-putty-hose clamp muffler repair with jesse.


step 1, get aluminum beverage can, razor off the ends and cut strips in it to make it a curved flange piece.








step 2, wedge your can flange in the gaping muffler hole and spread the tabs of the can out


Step 3, mix the cancerous instant steel putty compound with bare hands, and seal entire affected area over the can


step 4, hose clamp it down over the whole project very tight so the installation doesnt just blow off


some taillight adjustments as well


so we drove to the local whitetrash bar of woodland california, THE STAG. 10 minutes into the drive up the mountainside out of santa cruz, they thought the van was on fire and everyone bailed out, to find out that EVERYTHING we had assembled into the muffler hole had burned completely away. the SODA CAN itself looked like a charred piece of paper, all traces of the steel putty were gone, and the hoseclamp was nearly melted. How hot do fucking mufflers get? jesus. So, it looked like a good time to start the beer rounds at about 4 in the afternoon.


erin and i make another repair trip, to woodland true value. we dig through all of the compounds trying to find something that can stand up to heat, and settle on muffler patching compound kit shit.


when we arrive back at the van, jesse has also bough essentially the same stuff in a different package, so we have plenty of goo.


Step 1: place entire hardening patching cloth/screen material wedged up into muffler hole


Step 2: use nearly a whole container of muffler patching compound to fill in ridiculously gaping holes, over 1/4 inch in places. Step 3: continue adding compound until the mud is so thick all the way around that you hope it will stay. remember to do it while parked on the main street of town, trying to tuck your feet in as you hear trucks drive by.


replacing guitar strings on a public bench is a risky move in woodland, and is bound to bring many rounds laughing and shouting of "FAGGOTS" from cars. we also got "FUCKING FREAKS" and "GO BACK TO ... [incomprehensible]"


clearly, faggots stringing their guitars.


steve and tommec comment on how americans love to waste.


fuck the stag. i dont care if they read this. your bar is trashy and has dead animals hanging on the wall accompanied by wood paneling and backlit stock photos of hunting activities. that plus woodland is trash.


the stag. no, really


before the NMB set we gave a brief performance of the jesse and shawn show














im thinking "YES! I GREW MY HAIR OUT FOR 8 MONTHS FOR THIS MOMENT"


morning, picnic on the blacktop at a really decent woodland supermarket. much bread and olive oil for me. let's drive to san francisco.








so it's cool that we get to san francisco with a place to stay arranged by kacey, but its still very much "in town" off of mission st., and as if parking my car wasn't hard enough, you can forget about a 28 foot long van and trailer.


erin gives a couple of really valiant attempts at parallel parking the blue monster, after which somehow deciding that maybe he can back up the curb and all the way down the sidewalk to pull into the space.i didn't speak against it at first, but the second he put it in reverse i realized that in effect that would be exactly the same as trying to front pull-in from the street side, which is a bad move for any parallel parking situation much less with a trailer. but with the determination in his eye i let it happen anyway


three or four attempts





maybe if we could just lift it the remaining 18 inche to get into its parking space....


no. not happening.





again


shaving it close


whatever, we left one wheel of the trailer on the grass and the whole rig was pretty much parked. kaceys old roommate friend chris takes us out for night on san francisco, spring 08 edition.


i had been soliciting a trip to the best vegan cafe on the planet that i know of, herbivore cafe, for dinner to every since the car ride down. I continued at it at the house, and while on the bus, though it didnt seem to raise any affirmative reactions from anyone. I was very set on eating dinner there on this trip, so after we got to the subway train i parted with the group to get dinner there because it would be a couple hours til they would be ready.


i didnt get my camera in time to catch steve pole dancing, but then he flashed me some ausche


subway





HERBIVORE CAFE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. they would all know me by name if i lived within distance of it. i got 25 dollar vegan dinner for myself plus cake to take with me.


i walked around by myself a little in town before figuring out which bus to catch back to the place. i was riding it back and as we made an abrupt stop for a bus stop, some passenger car slammed into the back of the bus. it was a double long bus and i was in the front half, so i barely felt it, but heard it. severeal people in the very back were thrown from their seats and this was someones takeout they were holding on to. the bus driver and half the passengers get out to look at the back of the bus, and some cops whiz by, and the car was nowhere to be seen. he lined the electrodes back on the lines and called everyone back in and we continued.


fresh morning, ready for AMERICA SHOPPING FEST 08 SF EDITION. erin and jesse opted out


tommec


cant blame em, we did a shit ton of walking, for basically 10 hours. my fast walking pace was definitely cramping the style of frank who likes to stroll along more casually.


steve had to buy some skate stuff that was only available at DELUXE for his friends back home.


nomination for one of the best photos of the tour


who will take me to the iphone?


we all took a little bit of time to go do our own separate thing for a couple of hours, so i hopped in a couple clothes stores to buy this hat, then sat on the street enjoying the sun on my eyelids for a while. and shot this self-props haight street pic


sundown, chris gets off work and tourguides us a little to the waterfront and palace of fine arts. a place i always wanted to check out, but it was night time and the whole thing was under crazy construction, so, i want to make it back there some time.


i was so tired from the walking all day that i fell asleep on the couch while everyone went to the grocery store to buy food to cook a dinner for once with tynan's help. i woke up when everyone got back and didnt care about eating, just wanted to sleep, but when i saw no one helping tynan with the bagged groceries i felt a little like he was pressured into cooking so i made myself help a little.


i just did some basic unbagging, washing and chopping, then tynan went into professional chef action and made up some indian vegetable curry with vegan considerations. the man.


then apparently we drove to fresno and pulled directly off the highway and to the tattoo shop that erin's friends have. I hadn't overheard rumors of a matching tour tatttoo until that morning, so perhaps i could have had more time to plan. i was basically the only one that didnt get one, i am extremely picky with tattoo art and the design going around wasn't my flavor. but it was cool and almost everyone got one.


jesse


erin


this was the only shot i took at the fresno show and the rest of the night because after one shot my camera said it was full. the highlight of the venue was that the stage was coated in like 2 inch bright blue shag carpet.


youre the man, man. thanks for opening your place to us.


deep thoughts


long drive to burbank. fucking sucks. i got some 8 dollar pizza slice and checked out a random ass used book store that was out of place. frank and steve were in shopping heaven.


continued on into the belly of the beast. the majority of us didnt have aspirations beyond lounging about for many hours til the LA show, I wanted to go to the beach, and a couple of the germans wanted to see stuff. couldnt locate kacey and chris, so i went with frank tommec and steve to mulholland drive to the outlook. been to LA a million times and lived there but i never went up there. nice view, but the place is fucking hell. I hate LA.


steve


frank


tommec


unknown theater


want some good fucking food? CALL THIS PLACE, DAMN


elemenopy opening for us to 5 people in LA.


erin bringing the rock


ambience


"what, you don't play through 2 amps and 18x12's in america?


cancelled 1 show and drove back to eugene after staying the night near nevada city. eugene show at the oak street speakeasy was great. pretty late. with the vanishing kids.























PS, the blackwaves fucking rule and are the coolest guys and it was so fun to hang out with them. PS, buy our cd. and their cd. THE END