The Strutt – Kalamazoo, MI
Wednesday, July 15

When deciding to embark on a tour, we demand at least one thing be added that would make it better than the last. Whether it’s a smarter packing job in the van or a plan for promotion, there must be progress and attempt at growth in one department. When we finally left Grand Rapids for this latest stretch, I noticed there were several additions and improvements to Valentiger’s touring operations. We’ve finally given into to buying a GPS (though we still printed all the directions as backup), and “the lady,” who appears to be named Jill, is already talking our ear off, when only making a pit stop for Gatorade. We’ve also added record store performances into the slew of radio appearances to fill our days with the band completely. But what I’m most excited about is our newest idea of doing daily field recordings for post on the Internet. I’ve acquired a USB-powered interface that will allow us to hook condenser microphones into my laptop in any remote location. Once the audio track is mixed it will be edited into the video that will also be taken. And since we are touring to promote “Power Lines To Electric Times,” we hope to record each song on the album in sequence as the days pass. Ideally, we would like to make daily postings to YouTube and the website, but we may also save them for a later press release.

I guess the tour really began as we were sent off from Gardella’s last night, with Eric joining Rider and myself for two sets. We saw some familiar faces, played some awkward songs, tasted beers and it pretty much foreshadowed what would be the next two weeks. There were after-hours beers on the porch, but we made it a point to sleep in late afternoon, charging up for the sleepless days and nights of touring. It felt like we were rushing to get our things together, but there was more luggage than usual. We were lugging around extra recording equipment and random instruments for Eric to play in the daily videos. But in all actuality, the van departed about half an hour ahead of schedule and we were off to play The Stutt in Kalamazoo.

The day before we had recorded “Goodbyes in the Wind” at the 6th Street Park in Grand Rapids, since we were considering the Gardella’s kickoff as the beginning of tour. But today felt like our first “official” field recording and, fittingly, we filmed it on train tracks that were running through a field by the old Kraftbrau. We started with “Lament,” as our plan was to record the album backward. Rider played a stripped down drumset along with me, while Eric manned the camera work. We achieved satisfaction in one take and we were on our way. The shoots were taking just under an hour and we had actually built it into our schedule.

Now back at the Strutt, we decided to eat while trying to edit some of the audio and video from the shoot. Rider and Eric split an 8” pizza and I devoured a turkey panini. The Strutt was a very diverse place, serving food, coffee and beer. The coffee house portion of the building was slightly separated from the music venue and it provided a great splitting of the patrons. The one half was your standard coffee shop with softer, worn wooden floors and old couches, chairs, tables and lamps scattered everywhere. There’s the one guy who’s pretending to read a book, but is really watching everyone, the creepy sketcher and so forth. If you walked around the coffee counter, you’d find a narrow way that led into a room of about half the size with a small bar and a small, but well set-up stage. There was an early show going on before our bill and all the bands sounded pretty mellow and decent. It was very hot and muggy in the whole building, so we decided to hang around outside for a while. I ended up talking to an old lady who was sitting on her porch smoking a cigar:

Old Lady: “Hi.”
Shirey: “Hi, how are you?”
Old Lady: “Good. I…I like to sit out here and watch. Over there (pointing to the bar across the street), that’s like my TV. Where is your band from?”
Shirey: “We’re from Grand Rapids. This is our first stop and then we’re headed to Chicago tomorrow.”
Old Lady: “Oh, Chicago. The black guys like me down there. I don’t go anywhere without a bodyguard.”

After this encounter, it was time to load some equipment in the “backstage alley,” and there was bickering about the lineup, which probably should have been settled beforehand. It ended up with Michael Riley first (acoustic), then Grrropolis, us and finally Jes Kramer to close the night. We back-lined the stage as well as we could, but Grrropolis required an electronic drumset and we decided that everyone would play half-hour sets. And so we ordered beers and grabbed a seat to listen to Michael Riley, who crooned his way through a good number of songs with his acoustic guitar. However, when the set was over his younger brother found his way onto the stage to belt out a dragging blues number to impress a girl? Next, Grrropolis banged their way through a hearty set, talking about Levi’s 501 jeans among other things. It was now getting later and we may have lost a good portion of our crowd thus far, for it was a Wednesday night. But it was good to see them anyhow and we took the stage feeling a mellower vibe of sorts. We began with “Bosses in Their Offices” and went on through “Courses,” “Man on Fire,” and “Never Ready” before making a big finish with “The Girl That Everyone Forgot,” “Hard to Let Me Down” and “Leaving Town.” The crowd was very attentive, especially through the slower songs and we ended up selling a good number of discs. We had a ten-dollar/best offer price tag going on and it seemed to work for us. Michael from Grrropolis offered us four dollars and a breakfast burrito for a disc and we took it, ate it cold. We shared a few PBR’s with friends through Jes Kramer’s set and I ended up talking to a girl that used to bartend at the Corner Bar. She said she saw us there a long time ago when we were Happy Hour and had our CD. She explained about her “big box of discs” that she would acquire from bands that played the bar. It was split into a “good” and “bad” section and we were in the good half. I think I actually saw the sound guy give up during the last set, but we all made it out alive – even though I lost a cord I had since I was thirteen.

We were staying with Rider’s friend Katie, who lived not too far from the bar. She needed to stop and get beer on her bike, but the GPS took us faithfully to her address. We drank a High Life on her porch while we waited for her, but after that it was whiskey/waters and vodka. A curly-haired kid, who we had somehow deemed Prussia, was playing music from his desktop Mac that I suppose he carried around in the box. The random, “play a guitar for everyone at the party guy” was out and about, bringing the gathering up to code. Someone actually claimed that Venture Brothers was better than the Simpsons and he was debated thoroughly. Katie’s bike appeared to have a meter that had a mountain at one end and a person’s butt at the other. It was decided to judge the amount of shock you would need to absorb with your butt when mountain biking. When deciding on bedrooms, Eric and I were allotted the “room that the cat never goes into,” for we are both have the allergies. The windows on this house were very old and when Eric attempted to force one open, it shattered the glass. He sutured up his minimal wounds, apologized and kept on trucking, but when 4AM hit, we knew it was time to call it quits. Rider was holed away in a random bedroom upstairs, while Eric and I tried to sleep with the party still in effect. However, it was too loud and we instead decided to prank call the House of Raeford, per usual. The operator let us go for a few minutes and then hung up on us. But it was okay, for we were all sleeping in beds tonight and there were no early morning plans. We only needed to figure out how to record me playing “Daybed” while walking down the streets of Chicago.