| 06.18.08 - I actuall updated stuff today, and I have an amazing sense of acomplishment now. |
| Today I spent the entirety (and it's not an exaggeration either I literally spent from 6am to about 7:45pm at an airport) of my day at an airport, I know that if you even remotely keep up with what I write here in the Spoken journal that it's not all that surprising that I did. But due to the wonders of technology I got to spend a vast majority of that down time online taking care of some long overdue updating. And now that I'm basically caught up it leaves me wondering why it's so hard to keep all this stuff updated. But other than that I don't really have a lot to write. We play 3 shows this weekend starting tomorrow, so I'm stoked about that. I'll write some more later and let you know how the shows go. Love you all Posted by JefSpoken |
| 04.19.08 - Airports |
| What is it about airports that makes the world seem sterile? Is it the dull shine on the almost always white or off white tile floor? Is the the constant hum of the bazillion flurescent light bulbs? Maybe it's all of the people buzzing around trying so desperately to get to wherever it is that they have to go, and working so hard to casually ignore all the other people doing the same.
Right now it's 3:09 in the AM, and as is usually the case I'm at an airport. It basically feels like the last 2 years of my life have been spent sitting, just sitting in a faux leather simi-paded chair waiting for a flight either to or from a tour. I'm extreamly tired, we just finished up 18 days straight and I'm looking forward to some time at home with my wife.
I'm kinda scared to fall asleep b/c I always fear that someones going to run off with my stuff while I'm streached out over the four empty seats in my row of chairs. So I have to sit here and fight the tired off for 3 more hrs before I can check into my flight. But I've got my laptop to ramble on the internet with and my trusty iPod with the new Thrice(GO BUY THIS RECORD) on it, so hopefully I'll make it.
WOW, a whole fleet of people just showed up in the American Airlines tickiting terminal, so it looks like I may be able to check in early and go sleep at the gate. That's a nice bonus, I hope to write more later but for now I'm like a Sullivan record. (a ghost, as in out of here)
JefSpoken Posted by Jef |
| 03.11.08 - Home |
| Right now we’re right in the middle of our break in touring, it’s always good to come home and get to have a somewhat normal life. But it’s always tough b/c your never really “off the clock”, when I get home there are always things that need to be taken care of. It feels like I just got home and now it’s already time to start preparing to head back out, this is the toughest part about being in a band that tours all of the time. You never really get settled, don’t get me wrong I absolutely love what I do with my life but it gets hard trying to balance the two lives.
Our next tour “The Masters of Disasters Tour” starts in a couple of weeks, so I’m looking forward to hitting the road again, I really hope to see you all there.
I’m still trying to figure out who to vote for in November, I encourage you to research the people involved and make the most informed decision that you can.
Later!,
JefSpoken
Posted by Jef |
| 02.12.08 - The longest night ever |
| Since I hardly ever post anything up here anymore, figured I would post this story here first and then put it on our Myspace blog, later.
jef
02.11.08 will live in my mind forever as the longest night of my life. Why, you ask yourself, well it started like this….
We wake up at around noonish because we have the day off for a change, and start our normal routine with showering, brushing teeth, the usual day to day type of things. Our drive is short today so we’re in no real hurry, then we’re like hey we’ve got the “the internet” why don’t we try and book ourselves a room for tonight and maybe save some green. So we proceed to do so and all goes well, until we realize that the priceline.com web site actually booked us a room for next week. That in it’s self isn’t that big of a deal except they have a no cancellation policy so we’re out some money to get the reservation switched so on our first goal of the day (save some money) we fail miserably. So we’re kinda bummed, but it’s like $25 so not a huge ordeal.
Then we start driving to a town in Indiana so Brandon can meet up with a couple of his friends that live close by. All is well, we’re driving with loads of time to spare hanging out in our trusty shuttle buss tearing down the Hwy. People are on their cell phones a couple of us fall asleep and all is right with the world, but we forgot about something. What did we forget…all the bags got put into the trailer, all of the laptops and personal items are in the shuttle with us, Aaron’s driving and gets a phone call and all seems ok. So your asking yourself, “but Jef, what did you forget to do today?” the answer to that question would be fuel. Yup the old salt’s in Spoken, the touring band of all touring bands, (not really, but it has a nice dramatic flair to it) been doing it for a lifetime now, SPOKEN, WE forgot to get gas! And the crap storm that follows, is the reason that we will never forget to do that again. It happens at Exit 16 on I-94 west bound, within what I would say was less than 500 yards from a Flying J service station, so we figure no big deal right? WRONG! Aaron feels responsible for the situation since he was driving, so he opts for jumping out and walking the distance to the gas station. He’s gone for maybe 20-30 minutes to walk up there, buy a fuel can, get fuel, and walk back. Proceeds to put the fuel into the tank, and tries to start the engine. Which under normal circumstances would work just fine, but yesterday it was a balmy 6 degrees outside so our trusty (and I use that word with a bit of sarcasm in it) shuttle cooled down very quickly, and since the shuttle already has issues with wanting to start in cold weather it decides to not start back up, and that in turn runs our battery down. So now we need a jump, no big deal right? Again, WRONG!! People in the north do not like to give band guys a jump start when it’s only 6 outside, so a few of us are standing outside of the shuttle trying to wave down anybody that could give us a jump (we even went so far as to make a cardboard sign out of a “Famous Amos” cookie box). That takes 2 ½ hours to do so, and then it’s not even one of our fellow motorist it’s the DOT guy that helps disabled vehicles. So by this time we’re kinda in poor spirits because we’ve been on the side of the interstate for almost 3hrs, we’re cold, and up to this point it looked like no one would be helping out. But since your tax dollars work to improve life this saint of a fellow stops (b/c it’s his job) and tries to give us a jump, that doesn’t work for now it’s 0 outside and our engine has been off for over 3 hours (if you leave a diesel engine off, in the cold without the proper fuel treatment in it the fuel can turn into a thick gel type substance, which it did in our case, Oh joy!). So he helps us for a while until he gets a more urgent call and leaves to again do his job. So we decide that we need a new plan, and head out walking again to the Flying J, our warm oasis in the desert of cold that is northern Indiana in February. It’s now 5:30pm. Get to the truck stop, talk to a fellow by the name of George and he helps us out a bit by having one of his workers take the service truck, a different battery, and 10 gallons of fuel to us on the interstate. Which was a wonderful plan, and sprits we’re high. We just knew for sure that it’s going to work, except that it takes us like 45min to get all of that together and it’s now below 0 and snowing very hard. So needless to say we work and freeze and work and freeze until we finally decide that it’s not going to happen, oh and by the way at one point our engine backfires and kinda catches fire for a little but so that was pretty much awesome. So I call a tow service, do you know how much money it takes to tow a shuttle buss and trailer less than 500 yards? Well from the place that I called its $525.50, so I told them that I would have to call them back (I never did). So we yank our dead cell of a battery out of the shuttle, throw it into the service truck (oh did I mention that we kinda got lost trying to back track on the interstate to get to the shuttle, well we did and that was pretty much awesome) and headed back to the Flying J to try and throw it on a battery charger for a couple of hours while we dethaw and grab some dinner. While we’re at “The J” as I’ll call it from now on in this story, our resident Asian tech head Oliver iPhones a tow service that will get us to “The J” for $140, which isn’t a bad price at all, especially when compared to the $525.50 that the other service wanted. So that’s the first positive thing that we’ve got going for us since the day started. We get there and put the battery on a charger, sit down, order food and enjoy the fact that we’re starting to get warm for the first time since about 2:30pm, it’s now 7:45pm. We eat, hang out, and wait b/c George is charging the battery and said it should take a couple of hours. 9:30pm we grab the battery and George doesn’t charge us, another positive. Put the battery in the shuttle…….nothing. Hope is dashed upon the rocks, obliterated, destroyed, and gone. So we iPhone to find out where the block heater that our engine has is (b/c even though we’ve owned it for a couple of years now, we still haven’t found it). We do so and plug it into an electrical outlet and wait (the block heater, helps the engine start when the weather is horribly cold out, which it was). And through several failed attempts, tons of coffee, lots of sitting, more waiting than I ever want to do again and finally someone who knew what they we’re doing stopped to help, the shuttle starts!!! It is now 6:15am the next day and none of us have slept. So if your going to the show tonight 02/12/08 and your boys in Spoken are a little out of it, you now know why.
And that’s why you always fill up the tank before you start driving.
JefSpoken
|
| 01.31.08 - snow |
| Joplin, MO:
Tonight we're at the Foundry again with the "Heart Support Tour" and it's the first time thus far that we've hit the flakey, frozen water droplets known as snow. I am not excited....I'm a worrier snow makes me nervous when we have to travel, I like it, it just makes me nervous. If your the brave type you should forge the elements and head out to the Foundry and catch the show, but if you decide to stay at home I don't blame you one bit.
Jef |
| 11.19.07 - The Southern Hospitality Tour: Day 15-The END. |
| Just incase you were wondering, we made it to our show in Pittsburgh, PA (actually it was Irwin, PA, but it’s close to Pitts). And things went swimmingly; literally it rained so hard I thought we we’re going to have to swim out of the town to get to our next show in Barnegat, NJ! Day 16 of the Southern Hospitality Tour brought us to the Garden State (watch that film) and one of the coolest perks that a promoter has ever done for their bands. When we all arrived to load in to the show, they had brought in Inflatables for us all to jump around on! We had the Velcro jump wall thing, and an inflatable king of the hill/boxing ring, so that was pretty much amazing! The show was fine, but the highlight of the day we’re the toys! Day 17 took us all the way to Cleveland, OH at the Beachland Ballroom. It’s a great venue and the people we’re amazing to us, and other than it being amazingly cold the show was great. Day 18 took us to Lansdale, PA at the Hideaway which was amazing, but last night we came to the final day on the Southern Hospitality tour in Manheim, PA. And as far as last day of tour shows go, this one may have been the most entertaining one for us ever! The show started off with Wavorly taking the stage to an excited crowd, and not much happened as far as tour pranks go a couple here and there, then High Flight Society went on and things got ramped up a notch. We (the rest of the bands on the tour) started singing to them in the monitors, bringing fake plants up on the stage so it looked like jungle pretty basic stuff. Then when the Wedding took the stage things got kinda nutty, I don’t remember all of the details but they hit the stage wearing some of the most ridiculous out fits imaginable, lots of water every where, gang vocals, circle pits just lots of rock n’ freaking roll! They left the stage in shambles and everyone entertained. So when it was our turn to go on we didn’t really know what else they could come up with to make things exciteing, so we thought we had it safe, and boy we’re we so very wrong. Our first couple of songs we’re fine, no body messing with us we thought it would be funny to wear our own merchandise and hock it from stage so we we’re doing that (sold them all too) then all of the sudden The Wedding brought our Merchandise stand and table up on stage and stated really selling stuff, then we started getting bombed with toilet paper, we got wrapped up like mummies while we we’re playing “Wind in My Sails” and people brought up extra drums and started playing along (kinda) Kevin from Disciple came up and sang duets with Matt, everybody singing gang vocals in the most random places, it was complete chaos. Then During promise Trevor bet Matt $50 that we couldn’t get the entire crowd to turn around backwards for a whole song (so Trevor owes Matt $50 now)lot’s of pits happened on that song, then when we started our last song “Bitter Taste” the entire room erupted in one massive pit, it was the most spectacular site ever. So Every one in Manheim, PA give yourselves a hand for making that show so amazing for us. Once Disciple went on we were all kind of “pranked out” but we did some funny stuff. Brandon, Oliver, Adam from the Wedding, and myself brought up a Table Soccer game on stage and played for a song, Brandon dressed up in Cut-off’s, an open button down shirt w/no undershirt so he was bear chested underneath, an orange vest, aviator sunglasses and a ear muffed winter hat and went up to sing back up vocals for a while, Then on Rise up practically everybody on tour grabbed a guitar and played it with them, which was pandemonium (I think I even saw the guys in the Wedding on roller skates) So all in all it was pretty much an amazing night, and one of the best last night of the tour shows ever. jPod Posted by Jeff |
| 11.14.07 - The Southern Hospitality Tour: Day 7-14 |
| Dude I never once thought that trying to write a journal entry for every day of a tour would be so difficult, what with the sometimes lack of the internet, and forgetting to write, and just not really have anything to write, let me tell you it’s pretty difficult. So let me try and remember the key points of the last week. On Nov.6th we played for the good people in Jacksonville, FL at The Murray Hill Theater, and I must say out of all the times throughout the years that we’ve played there this one was by far the best one ever. If your interested in seeing that HERE, you have to sign up and create a profile but it’s free to do so and once you do you can check out all the bands that have shows posted on the site. The next day we had an off day from the tour so we and the High Flight Society booked a show down in Bradenton, FL at The Front, it was a fun little show and a good time was had by all. The show for the 8th in Homestead, FL was canceled so we all hung out at the mall in Bradenton and caught a $1.00 move so it was basically awesome. The day after that was Lakeland, FL and the biggest venue by far of the tour, we’re talking like 3,000 capacity but there weren’t near that many in attendance. Then we we’re in Montgomery, AL which was awesome, tons of kids and lots of energy. The next two days we’re off days from The Southern Hospitality tour so us and The Wedding played a couple of filler shows in Greensboro and Raleigh, NC, good shows, not great but good none the less which is always better than having the day off. So that brings me to last night in Davidsonville, MD Our good friend Metal Scott booked the show and it was great, the two guitar players from Wavorly are filling in for Disciple right now and that was their first show doing so. Tonight we’re trying to get to Pittsburgh, PA tonight but we’re having a bit of Shuttle trouble, will we make it? Tune in tomorrow and find out (well if I can remember to post a new entry that is. jPod Posted by Jef |
| 11.06.07 - The Southern Hospitality Tour: Day 5&6 |
| Already starting to slack off on the whole entry every day thing, it’s starting to look grim here folks I don’t know if I can actually find things to talk about every day for the remainder of the tour.
Day 5 brought us to Lafayette, LA and Café Chi Alpha, the show was great as normal, tons of kids and what-not. The real excitement of the day didn’t start until after everybody was loaded up and ready to head out to the hotel to get some well deserved rest. See, when we get to the show the promoter of said show is to hand Cliff (Disciples FOH guy/tour manager all of the keys to the hotel which they did, and after the show Disciple gets on their bus and heads out while the rest of us chill out in the parking lot tossing a football around. But what they didn’t pass along to Us, The Wedding, and High Flight Society were the directions on how to actually get to the hotel. So we asked a couple of different people for directions and go two completely different stories (as it turns out there were two of the same chain hotels in town). But The Wedding has a GPS so we find some directions and head out, 45 min. later we still haven’t found the hotel and things went from; mildly amusing, to kind of annoying, to really annoying, to hilarious just because were driving all around town looking for our hotel. We eventually find the place, but not until we actually have to stop and get fuel due to all of the driving. Long story short, if you ever book a band and check them into the hotel please make sure that they have directions to the hotel you book their rooms in.
Our day off today was pretty killer, a little food, a movie and hanging out in a Super Target’s parking lot with The Wedding doing all sorts of silliness. We played opposite hand throw football, had races in our underwear, almost got hit by cars it was great! Tomorrow we hit Jacksonville, FL and Murray Hill Theater, hope to see you all there!
jPod
Posted by jPod |
| 11.04.07 - The Southern Hospitality Tour: Day 4 |
| Well so far, so good on the whole journal entry every day thing, I know this is only the second entry, but I’ve got to keep myself motivated some how right? Today we’re in Broken Arrow, OK then we’re off to Lafayette, LA and then we all get to enjoy a day off which we as a band hardly ever get on tour so that will be kinda nice actually. This is probably the most boring journal entry known to man, but I have never claimed to be a writer, I just play guitar in a band. One day soon I really hope to have the others in the band write up stuff to fill this thing with, Brandon’s quite a gifted writer and I think you all would enjoy more of what he has to say. Um….. the new Thirce record is amazing I highly recommend it! I’ll quite boring you all, I’m out of here! jef Posted by jPod |
| 11.03.07 - The Southern Hospitality Tour: Day 1-3 |
| What can be said about an outdoor show on the last day of October? I can sum the night up to you in four words; cold, wind, power issues. Out of all of the bands that played the show last night only us and the opening band, Radio Deadspace we’re able to string together a complete set with out having to stop due to the power basically melting down. But on a bright note the tour has several more dates (considering that this one was the first) and things will get better I promise you (hahahha). The second day of the tour brought us to our old stomping grounds in Fayetteville, AR and the Music Hall. It’s always great to see familiar faces, the thing that’s weird now days is that the faces that we know and love are bringing the faces of their children with them; it’s awesome, but kinda weird at the same time. On day the third we hit up the good people in Joplin, MO. This show was the biggest one so far and it was pretty spectacular, I would have to say that The Wedding probably stole the show last night and pretty much destroyed the place with their energy. I’m making a vow to write a new journal entry every day for the entirety of this tour so keep checking back in to see how I do. Thanks Jef Posted by Jef Spoken BABY!! |