Chromeo Day 11, To Vancouver, BC

We sacrificed a little sleep today in order to hit up Artjava, which has become a necessary part of any day in Montreal. It had to happen. Again, coffee and food were spectacular. The place is totally insane.

After that, we returned our rental van, got our gear ready for the flight and headed out to the airport. It always takes a little longer to check in with all the band gear, and by the time we got through everything, we had 20 minutes til boarding. So we stopped at the bar by our gate and had a smoked meat sandwich and pint and headed in to the plane. I find it's extremely important to A) have a meal before boarding in order to avoid having to ingest the horrifying airplane food, and B) have a pint. It's the perfect relaxant you need before starting a flight. I have a 100% success ratio with that plan, on flights ranging from 20 mins to 13.5 hours. You don't mess with perfection.

I spent the lion's share of the flight catching up on paperwork and getting ready for more, and catching up on things like this blog, which has been updated sparingly lately. So far, it's been smooth. Have an hour to go til arrival...

And since arriving, we took a quick walk around looking for food and found nothing but street meat quality crap and a neighbourhood we don't belong in. A little too trendy... We finally did find a bar where you didn't need to be in a lineup, on a guestlist, or meet a dress code requirement, so we had a quick drink before the hostile waitresses made us feel uncomfortable. I mean, do you really need to be on a guestlist to get in to an Irish Pub? Come on... And how come all the restaurants are shut down by 10:30pm? What's up with that? We need someone to show us some other neighbourhoods.

And so the night ends and we sleep. We actually don't have to get up and rush anywhere tomorrow. Incredible.

Chromeo Day 10, Toronto, ON

When I got behind the wheel of the van this morning I made an executive decision. We were stopping at Manic for coffee on the way out of Toronto. They had just opened when we got there, and the muffins were right out of the oven. It was awesome. That set the tone for what was actually a pretty decent drive.

We got in to Montreal on time, and we had all the time in the world to do our thing. The band wasn't going to soundcheck today, so that made our lives a bit easier. We took our time, got it as close as possible and went for dinner. We found a decent Vietnamese place on St. Denis and then went back to the hotel to take a shower and rest for a bit.

The show was classic tonight. Hometown is always something. There was some nervousness with all the family and friends around, but it was good and it went really well. Always nice to come home as the conquering heroes.

We finished everything up pretty quickly so we could relax for a bit and slowly made our way back to the hotel. We could get a little bit of rest tonight, but tomorrow we fly to Vancouver. Could be a bit long...

Chromeo Day 9, Toronto, ON

So today is relaxed. Got up, headed over to the amazing Manic coffee, then over to Aunties & Uncles (sound familiar?) and then back to Manic again (yes!) before heading over to Club Muzik to set up.

Club Muzik is not a music venue. It's where rich metrosexuals hang out and flaunt their money, and it's so not our scene. Apparently, to get a booth with a couch costs $1000 plus a 6 bottle (yes, bottle) minimum. Ridiculous. To top it off, things weren't really running that smoothly, so it was sort of miraculous that we were able to soundcheck at all. We had a few hours to kill til showtime, so we went back to the hotel after, got some dinner and went back to the hotel bar for a bit where I was able to practice my Russian language skills with the bartender, who was shocked and amazed, and somewhat impressed. It was with great sadness that we left to go back to the disaster of a venue...

The show was good, the kids loved it, but it took a lot of work. When a venue is this poor and badly run, it's really frustrating and really hard to power through. It had to happen though, and it did, and we got out as fast as possible.

By the time we were back at the hotel, it was 3am. We have a show in Montreal tomorrow. Load in is at 1pm. Montreal is 6hrs away. That means 3 hours of sleep and back on the road... Argh.

Chromeo Day 8, To Toronto, ON

After last night, we were in no rush at all today. We got up, took our time picking up our rental van, went for a spectacular breakfast and series of coffees at Artjava, where a couple of The Stills guys joined us (me and our foh guy) and we slowly made our way out of town, leaving around 4pm.

We got in to Toronto more or less on time, around 10:30pm, and we had some friends in town so we went out for a bit to decompress. Thankfully we can sleep in a little bit tomorrow. We need it, especially after the drive up from NYC...

Chromeo Day 7, To Montreal, QC

After one day without a show, it was time to get back at it. Today I woke up in Brooklyn and had to go in to Times Square to pick up an SUV, then drive out to Long Island to get our trailer and gear, then pick up our other sound guy at Penn Station, then get P at his hotel and drive up to Montreal. Seemed painless and sort of planned out, but in NYC, nothing ever works out like that. I left the apartment at 8:30am and only got back in to the city at 4pm. It was awful and painfully long. By the time we went and got P it was 5pm and we still had to stop by a business office and run a couple other errands. It was almost 7pm by the time we left NYC. No good at all.

When we finally got on the highway, we noticed that the trailer was wobbling in a really weird way. Every time we picked up some speed, it started swerving all over the road. It was totally unsafe so we had to stop and make a call to U-Haul to ask them to send someone out to look at it.

Two hours later, someone shows up. We killed time by listening to the presidential debate on the radio. McCain is a disaster, my friends. It will be an absolute tragedy if he gets elected. To the US people: do the right thing, my friends...

So anyways, this mechanic, who showed up with his wife, seems to know what's up. He took the wheel off and his first reaction was that we had a broken axle. This is not good. This leaves us in New Paltz, NY for the night. He looked at it a little more to see if there was anything he could do at the moment, and discovered that the axle was actually not broken at all. It turns out that the geniuses at U-Haul didn't assemble the tire spindles properly. There's supposed to be a cotter pin that hold the wheel on to the axle, and it was missing entirely. It's not the kind of thing that can fall out on the road. It's the kind of thing that's left out because of gross negligence and incompetence. Thankfully we had to common sense to stop early, but had we kept going, the wheel would have flown off in to traffic and probably caused a major accident. Can you imagine the lawsuit? The good news is that a cotter pin is readily available, so after waiting another hour for it to get delivered, we were back on the road.

And about one exit later, we had to pull over again. For some reason, as soon as we started moving, the trailer lights died. So we stopped and inspected, and fortunately it was just a blown fuse. We were two vehicles traveling in convoy, and the other guys just happened to have the right fuse, so we were back on the road in less than 20mins.

By this time it was 12:15am. I left my place at 8:30am and we still have 5hrs to go til we got to Montreal. Talk about a long day. Tomorrow we only have to drive to Toronto. Best day ever...

Chromeo Day 5, To NYC

The first order of business today was filing a police report so the guys could make an insurance claim. That was taken care of and we were setting off on our way, but we decided to take a few minutes and comb over the hotel parking lot, just in case something showed up... There was also a small baseball "stadium" behind the hotel, and I suggested at least checking to see if maybe someone had turned it in. There was a game yesterday too, and we had hoped that maybe a baseball-loving American had done the right thing and turned it in, but there was no luck yesterday.

Regardless, I pulled up to the entrance and our tour manager jumped out (it was just the 2 of us traveling today). He went in and asked where the main office was, the reply: "We don't really have an office, check concession stands." So he did, none of them had anything, but they told him to check the merch booth, but they were only supposed to open at 3pm and it was 10am and we had to get back to NYC asap, but he walked by anyways to see if there was anyone around that could help. Turns out they were open so he asked the woman there in anyone had turned in a bag. She asked for a description so she could notify anyone, so our TM just said a "black backpack with a laptop in it.", to which the woman replied, "Oh, maybe, is it this one?" And from under the counter she produced a black backpack that contained a Chromeo laptop and sampler, thus saving our collective asses. It was shocking. Almost as shocking as losing it. We stared at each other for a minute in shock and then started cheering. It was awesome. We called the guys right away, left messages (they weren't up yet), and happily headed away having beaten the Curse of Aberdeen. Unbelievable.

When the guys finally called back, they were thrilled and also somewhat shocked. We felt like heroes. We celebrated by having a mediocre Sunday breakfast at Crossroads in Wilmington, Delaware with a bunch of retired folks.

Once we finally got back to NYC, we had to juggle some trailers in a driveway and store some gear. I finally got out around 6:30pm and went home to enjoy a night without a sound system.

Chromeo Day 4, Washington, DC

We were only about an hour out of Washington when we got up this morning, had time to kill, so we went to....... Cracker Barrel!!! Home of America's fattest. Er, sorry, I meant to say best breakfast. But damn the people that go there are unhealthy! We spent some time discussing the probability of a client having a heart attack and dying at the breakfast table, and we decided it's probably happened at least twice already. Sick. But the food is so good... (by American roadside restaurant standards).

So after our triumphant start to the day, we head to the 9:30 Club, one of the top 3 venues in the US. It's always a great time and we had been looking forward to it. And then it happened. The curse of Aberdeen.

We were missing the Showbag. For those of you keeping track at home, the Showbag is everything in Chromeo-land. It has the laptop with all the show music, and a sampler with all the show sounds. We ripped the van apart looking for it but it just wasn't there, we called the hotel to see if we somehow left it in a room (though we were sure it made it to the van) or it was sitting in the lot, and they found nothing at all. We were freaking out. It really killed us to tell the guys it disappeared, and when we did, it sounded like we had just run over their favourite puppy...

As we tried to get over the initial shock, we still had to make the show happen so we started thinking ahead. Fortunately, I had a backup of the show files on my computer, we just had to get the right program to run them. The venue guys also found a music store with a similar sampler we could rent for the night. So, at least the show would happen (canceling a show is a *major* ordeal, and can cost thousands of dollars). The day was a little long; once the guys showed up, we had to set everything up on my computer and get the sampler loaded, but we were able to push back doors and start times and put it all together. Suffice to say the mood was rather stressful and sombre, and you can add that the show ended up selling out, so not knowing that everything would work as usual was more than a little worrisome.

So, with some serious apprehension, we started the show. It seemed ok, things were working, and things kept working. No major fallout, thankfully. It actually ended up going really well and the guys were pretty happy after, so that took a lot of the stress away. At least now we have 2 days without shows so we can get everything back up to par... And so, after the show, back to the cursed hotel in Aberdeen. At least it can't get worse...

Chromeo Day 3, Philadelphia, PA

It's really nice to wake up where we're playing. No stress at all about getting up without sleep and having to drive all day. It's kind of awesome. We had time to find good espresso, get some food at the Reading Market, and even check out a firefighter museum. Good times had by all. To top it off, the guys weren't going to make it on time for soundcheck, so we had a nice long dinner break that we spent at a great Asian place around the corner from Trocadero, where the bartender ended up giving us free drinks. She wanted us to be in the right frame of mind for work.

The show hadn't sold all that well in advance, so when 900 people showed up, we were all pretty shocked. Philadelphia is a pretty weird place for shows. You can draw 2000 people anywhere else, but in Philly you might only get 200, so it was pretty amazing. The only downside was that we had to drive after the show, out to lovely Aberdeen, MD. We're staying in a hotel we've used previously, and the last time we were there, someone slashed a tire. I think I forgot to mention that for this tour, we've somehow ended up with the exact same van we drove for 9,000 miles around North America earlier this year, and we were thrilled when we finally left it, thinking we'd never see it again. Feeling cursed by that to begin with, who knows what's in store for us now...

Chromeo Day 2, New York, NY

Back to NYC, Webster Hall. Great place, great gear, great crew. I was especially excited because I was hoping to find my old in-ear monitors that disappeared there a few months ago when I was in with Morcheeba. Unfortunately, no such luck, I had to let go and move on...

It was nice to be "home", because I knew where to go for everything during our downtime, but frustrating because we weren't staying in the city and had to drive after the show. During the break, we made it out to El Beit for killer coffee, but started running out of time on the way back to the club, so we had to abort dinner plans and had to settle for a tapas bar that ended up being revolting. I don't understand how A) chicken can taste and feel like microwaved fish, and B) how did we find bad food in NYC?!? We sort of made up for it by stopping by Vienero's, a fantastic Italian pastry/baked goods place "Since 1894".

But I digress. The show was great. A sold out crowd at a place as big as Webster is pretty nuts. I got to play security guard again tonight when people started jumping on stage at the end of the show. That was fun.

We wasted no time loading out at the end. We drive straight to Philadelphia tonight. It's a solid 2 and half hours, but at least we wake up in the same town as the show so we get a chance to have a real morning.

Chromeo Day 1, Boston, MA (10-01-08)

Ah, the Paradise Rock Club. I have not missed this club.

Well, it's not the worst, but it's not the ideal place to work in. It just happens to be large enough for shows. The crew there is pretty good, so it'll work out, just not a fun setup to work in...

The day started off painfully early in Long Beach, NY, where we had to pick up a trailer from our dear friends U-Haul (I loathe U-Haul for real). It took forever to get it sorted out, but at least it was because they were trying to get the lights to work properly, so not due to the usual U-Haul incompetence. Eventually we hit the road and started the drive up to Boston.

The drive was painless, soundcheck went well (especially since we were breaking in a new front of house engineer), had to run out and get a new keyboard at dinner time, but the food was good when we got back. We then loitered rather effectively til show time.

Sold out show is always fun, but what's not fun is when you have to drive for 2 hours after it's done. That sort of sucked. Especially when the running board broke off of our van and delayed us for 45mins. That was really fun. Thankfully the hotel was decent, but at 4am after a 20hr day, it really doesn't make a difference...

The Stills Day 5, Montreal, QC

So after arriving in Belleville at about 4am, completely drained, we got up at 9 to finish off the drive to Montreal. It was awesome. We went straight to the Cabaret for soundcheck, and powered through so we could go rest, but not before enjoying our new Sennheiser vocal mics that were graciously provided for us by the company.

The rest part of the equation didn't really come true, but I was introduced to the incredible Caffe Artjava, which is my new Montreal coffee joint. It's incredible. They get their beans from Gimme Coffee in Brooklyn, but I doubt many people other than us care or know what that means...

So. After coffee and dinner at Artjava, we go back to the venue and wait for things to happen. The show starts up, seems like it's going well, it's sold out and the kids are loving it. The whole time it was going on, I noticed a guy taking pictures of me while I was working. I though it was a little weird, but whatever. After the show was done, I turned around to head backstage, and dude was standing right there waiting to talk to me. Turns out it's the Sennheiser rep for Montreal. We ended up talking for a few minutes, really good guy, took some photos with the band's producer and got some swag that I wear proudly. Hopefully we'll be able to solidify a relationship with them over the next few weeks.

After all that, I had to get the gear back to the rehearsal space, which was easier said than done. Took a while to pack it all, and then once we got over, the main doors wouldn't open so it took almost an hour just to get in the building. Once it was all said and done, it was about 3am, so I just went back to where I was staying and crashed asap. Gotta get up for a train to Ottawa tomorrow. With all the touring, my paperwork has been falling behind, so I have to put in a day or two with the books and receipts before hitting the road again with Chromeo. Living the dream...

The Stills Day 4, Hamilton, ON

What's funny about Hamilton is that people actually live there. And we have 2 shows there this fall. Wild!

We got up in London, went searching for food and failed miserably. After checking out a couple places, we ended up an "American Food" restaurant, where all the customers were overweight and red-faced. This was promising... Took about 5 bites of my chicken wrap and was done with it. We walked around a bit more, found a better place and got a couple things to go and ate in the van on the way to Hammertown.

It was a university show tonight which means 2 things: 1) everything is harder than it has to be, and 2) argh.

So it was hard to find parking first of all, then hard to load in. Then the house tech tried to tell Dave how to set up his guitar amp (didn't go over well), tried to tell me how to set up the stage (went over worse) and then told me he'd hang out with the monitor guy to make sure he knew what he was doing. Incredible. I told the band guys to leave for a couple hours while I did everything myself, and then once I was able to check the PA, found out it was half blown and not working before it was even powered up, which didn't help matters as the room is one of the worst sounding places I've ever worked in. Killer. At least there was an espresso stand down the hall...

So I trudged through the best day ever, made things happen, dreams came true and just like that, the show was over. We packed up fast because there's a show in Montreal tomorrow and we have to start driving tonight. Off to Belleville we go...

The Stills Day 3, London, ON

Today we leave The Grange, thank God. Never again. Once we got up, we left pretty fast and just killed time at Manic and A&U til we had to go, and made a short stop at the Arts & Crafts office. I ran into a couple friends from Ottawa while we were eating, that was pretty wild. Funny where people show up...

So we drive out to London, the "lovely" city of my birth, and head over to Call The Office, the hole of a club that is a right of passage for everyone. The guys have played here about 10 times, so they're ready to pass on to something else. It is a little dingy, but they treat you really well there, so it ends up being a decent evening. The show was pretty packed too, so that definitely helped heighten the mood. We didn't want to go searching for stuff to do after we were done, so we hung around the club for a little bit, but just ended up hanging out in the hotel parking lot. Good times, rock n roll... Off to Hamilton tomorrow.

The Stills Day 2, Toronto, ON

Today is some sort of awards show for XM Radio. Sounds like fun. It's always a blast to put a band in a venue that can't accommodate bands and see what happens. The Tattoo Rock Parlour wasn't so bad, turns out, but not really great either...

So, following through with my plan from last night, we got out of the hotel fast and went to Manic for coffee and Aunties and Uncles for food. Solid. Great way to start a day. We did have to go a little early though as the guys have MuchMusic stuff to do in the afternoon before the show. We went over there right after breakfast and did a soundcheck, then once it was settled, I went over to set up for the awards show.

It was a bit disorganized, but mostly painless I suppose. A lot of waiting around. Broken Social Scene was also playing, and their sound guy is an old friend, so after both of us got sick of waiting for stuff to happen, we just went to a pub across the street for a bit and waited for things to start moving. Eventually it came together, and we just kind of hung around the dressing room again til show time. They had good food for us down there, so that was a definite plus.

The show itself was a little weird. Mostly industry types that I'm pretty sure would've rather been somewhere else. It was kind of lame, but whatever. These shows happen sometimes, just gotta play through it... We got out fast after we were done and there wasn't much going on after so we just crashed.

The Stills Day 1, To Toronto, (9-23-08)

So one of the things about a city like Toronto is that it's frequently busy with conventions, events, etc... We learned the hard way what happens when you wait to long to book hotel rooms. Our standby and favourite, the Delta Chelsea, was sold out and we couldn't find anything at all. Enter The Grange, the only hotel with rooms available, and now we know why.

With a Google rating of a solid 1 star (on 5), we were trying to keep our hopes up. It was after all in the Kensington nieghbourhood, which is pretty cool and we hang out there all the time anyways. So, knowing the neighbourhood, I confidently directed the cab driver to the hotel, thinking it could be ok, but I did have a little bit of fear in my stomach.

So we get close, turn down the street, there's a few nice houses, so I'm thinking it might not be so bad. And then we go around the corner and things changed. Drastically. Instant ghetto. Like garbage and clothes hanging off balconies, no grass in the yards, just dirt, beat up, rusted cars and corner kids trying to make a quick buck. The driver stopped, looked over at me (and I try to look decent when I travel) and said: "Do you really live here?" Slightly shocked, I paused for a second and pointed at the hotel across the street and said I was staying there. He half scoffed, half grunted, with a look of disgust on his face, and I hightailed it out of the cab and entered the "hotel", highly embarrassed.

So this place is an old apartment building, mostly studios, that have been transformed in to "hotel rooms". At least there was a stove for the long term people, but hopefully no one ever has to stay there longer than us. The beds were crap, just random springs sticking out, the bathroom was disgusting, the tv had 4 channels and internet access was provided by a cable hanging from the ceiling. Ghetto.

I got out of there fast, went for some spectacular coffee at Manic to brighten my spirits, and made plans for the night. I happened to have some friends in town, so that made things a bit better, and I spent most of the night at the Horseshoe winning free Jack Daniels promo crap and explaining to the reps why their drink sucks. But they just kept giving me more things that I would just give away 2 minutes later. Whatever... Once the guys got in town, we hung out there for a bit and then went our separate ways. I stayed out long enough to get exhausted so at least I would pass out when I went back to the "hotel", and made plans to get out of there early again in the morning.

The Stills, New York, NY, 9-20-08

Speaking of picking up where we left off, back at the Bowery Ballroom. We've played this place a bunch of times and every time it's sold out and sounds amazing. It's one of my 3 favourite clubs in the US, definitely one of the better systems.

Anyways. Load in was a little long cause we had to pick up our gear in Brooklyn as we left if at the venue the other night for safe keeping. After soundcheck we just hung around in the dressing room for a bit. It was a really low key sort of affair. There was a little bit of action for a bit as HBO was filming the guys telling some road stories. The bits will be used between TV shows later in the year.

Show time cometh, and it was good. Another fairly solid show, sold out again. 5 for 5 now, I think... We left our gear at the club again tonight (not safe to leave it in a trailer on the streets of NYC), and we headed out in to the night. Somehow we all lost each other, but a handful of our group ended up in the East Village for a couple drinks. The night wasn't too long though. We were sort of tired and the guys have to drive to Montreal early in the morning.

The Stills, Brooklyn, NY, 9-18-08

Like getting back on a bike... After a few months running around with Chromeo, Martha, et al., it's time to get back with The Stills. First show is tonight at the Music Hall in Williamsburg. I drove up to meet the guys, and it's like we never split. We've spent a little bit of time together... The new album is out now so things are starting to pick up a fair bit, so we'll be seeing a lot of each other again.

The show tonight was pretty solid, and it sounded great. Their management guys told them afterwards that it might have been the best they've ever played, and even the new songs were really tight. Almost like picking up where we left off.

Not much going on after the show tonight, so I just drove home and enjoyed not doing paperwork for once...