Here's most of Cameron's diary entries during our first tour in May of 2002. It's edited, which means you won't find out any deep dark secrets, but hopefully it's entertaining nonetheless. The pictures are all stills from the video and some of them look sort of weird, just a bit of warning. Hope you enjoy.
5/8/02
Tour Diary. The 6th (Monday) was the official beginning of the tour. Seattle. Played at the Industrial Cafe in Georgetown. Weren't too many people there but I didn't really expect
there to be. We made $20, which was actually more than I was expecting. Courtney came up, which was awesome. Randy apparently lost his cell phone that day and then forgot we
were coming until late, so I didn't get ahold of him until after we played, maybe around midnight. Brian McDonald was there and hung out with us afterward (we went to a bar to meet
Courtney's friend Julian), but he didn't seem too into the idea of us sleeping at his place, I think because of his roommate.
Courtney and I got back to Portland at around 2:30 or 3 I think. Dave had been waiting for a while and Ryan was still asleep. Went and
picked up Dave and got out of P-town around 4. Dave bought 10 pounds of trail mix. He gave 3 to DW and took the rest for us, so we were gorging ourselves on trail mix all day
yesterday. I learned that that's not a good idea. Camped at a place called Wolf's Creek Park. It was really nice on one hand but fucking cold. We built a fire but by 3 or 4 in the
morning it was long gone and I was freezing my arsicle off in my beeping slag. I had these fucked up dreams. The first one was that I got cancer and spent most of it telling my friends
by handing them this elaborate packet of documents. Then the cancer went away but I got it again in a different place and had to go through the whole process of telling everybody
again. The second one was this weird shitty sitcom where I was a wimpy, nerdy dentist with a broken arm and was newly married and had just bought a house with a moat around it.
My father in law was this eccentric tough guy who came over and tried to make me go swimming in the moat with him to look for two guys who had tried to break into our house. It struck
me after I woke up that living in a house with a moat is almost as funny as wearing a cape.
Anyway, we woke up at 5:30 because it was so fucking cold and got to Chico at about 11:15. Sitting at Derrick's now, waiting to go to Moxies at 6.
There's a stack of Maxims and Playboys on the coffeetable, one of which has the line, “Get Hard in Six Seconds” on the cover. The “chair”
in front of the computer is actually a keg with a board on top of it. Ah, college life.
Both restaurants we went to so far gave me meat in my food. First this shitty noodle place on capital hill in Seattle made our food with meat on accident and then
just picked out the meat before giving it to us, but they didn't get all of it. I sent it back and got a new one but we still had to pay for everything and they weren't even all that apologetic
about it. Fuck that place.
Today we went to a good sandwich/pizza place in Chico but there was a piece of turkey stuck to the bottom of my sandwich. Presumably
from the cutting board. Oh well. Pokez in 5 days, 4 if we can get there early enough on the 12th. Woo!
5/9/02
Chico yesterday was pretty good. More people than I expected and everyone was really nice. I stopped our set early because my singing sounded really crazy on stage and I couldn't tell
what was going on so I was sure I wasn't in key, but people said it sounded fine. I have a habit of ending shows early because I feel like nobody's into it, I guess it's an insecurity thing.
Tonight was Santa Rosa. I got in a terrible mood right when we got here, but it eventually wore off. Half of the audience was related to me, the other half were friends. Kinda weird playing
to people who you know are there just because they know you, not necessarily because they like your band. But we actually made decent $ from shirts and from the door, even though the
owner of Jesse Jeans, where we played, is kind of an ass. He took 50% of the door and wouldn't give us any drinks or guests. Not even a discount on stuff. What a jerk. But Towner was
super nice and gave us all the $.
At my parents' house now. Tomorrow is SF, which is exciting. Should be fun, hopefully there will be some people there and some of them
will be into us. My battery went out on my pedal tonight so we couldn't play any of the distorted songs. Basketball tomorrow morning! I need exercise real bad.
5/11/02
SF was last night, sitting at Cory's now. Last night was pretty fun. Got kinda bummed right after we played for some reason, I think maybe because it didn't look like anyone took any
of the cd's and only a couple people signed the email list. But at least a few people seemed to like it. A guy told me that the Talk Talk song we covered was his favorite Talk Talk
song, which I thought was pretty funny and cool. Jay, the guy who set up the show, was super nice. We got seventy-something dollars from the door.
I think we're going to go to the Berkeley Amoeba soon. Hopefully they'll have some latyrx or maybe a Mark Hollis solo cd, of which the Talk Talk guy reminded me last night. Probably
gonna wait until we get back to get the Blackalicious since Dave has it with him and my car stereo sucks so we can't hear it anyway.
5/14/02
Just woke up in San Luis Obispo. Best show of the tour last night. There were plenty of kids there and they were actually into it. I had forgotten what it felt like to have a good show. To have
people really excited about it and come up to you afterward and compliment you and thank you for playing. I was hoping SF would be like that but no.
Met Bobby, the guy who set up the show, and his girlfriend Francesca finally after months of seeing them post to the Pinback list. Cool
people. We're staying at Francesca's.
SLO is a college town, which would lead one to believe that there would be lots of good bars here but we found out otherwise after the show
last night. There's one okay but expensive bar and evidentally all the other ones are frat/jock places. Bummer.
Irvine radio show today, then we go to SD! I'm excited about San Diego, it'll be my first time back since I moved and my first time seeing Erin
since we broke up almost two years ago. Wow. And, of course, my first time at Pokez for quite a while.
Oh, Amoeba did have that Mark Hollis cd, even used! No luck with Latyrx but they had an Atoms Family cd, which was quite exciting.
5/14/02
San Diego. Got here a couple days ago. Played at Gelato last night. It was weird, all my friends sitting and watching us play with blank looks on their faces. I really didn't enjoy it but,
to my surprise, everyone said it was great, even Rob. So I guess it wasn't as bad as I thought. I think I need to learn that, no matter how bad I think the show is going, it's almost always
much better in the eyes of the audience. Maybe that's not accurate. I need to learn that it usually sounds a lot better to the audience than I think it does. Almost every show we've played,
I've stopped early because I feel like the audience isn't into it and just wants us to stop or like my singing is really bad or something, and then I have people come up and tell me that
I have a really good voice or that they wish we would have played longer. Why so insecure am I? Yoda.
5/15/02
Just got back to Brent's from Rob's. I was getting really annoyed with everybody and am actually getting annoyed with Dave right now because he's playing guitar. I finally have realized
that I need alone time, which is pretty scarce on tour. People weren't being extremely annoying, I was/am just feeling grumpy, I think because I haven't been alone at all in the last week
and a half. I've gotten that way before but for some reason have never put two and two together and realized that it's probably from constantly being around people.
We leave tomorrow. I feel like I need to go to sleep so I can wake up at a decent hour but we can't leave until 3 anyway because Erin's coming
here after work to get directions and follow us. Actually, maybe Dave and Ryan could take the truck and I could ride up with Erin, that way I could hang out with Erin some more and nobody
would have to ride in the back.
Feel kind of like shit. Hopefully nothing some sleep and a clarifying email from Courtney can't fix. Just grumpy. Grumpy about having to go
back to work, about having to wait for Erin tomorrow, about having to drive for two days before we're home and I can see Courtney, about everything. Grumpy.
5/18/02
Home. I'm feeling freaked out a little bit. Not sure why. Perhaps because this is the first time I've been alone in a while, maybe because tomorrow I'll wake up with no one around. Probably
not that. I think mostly because I have to go to work tomorrow and I'm afraid that I've forgotten how to do my job. I'm a stresser when it comes to work, don't know why.
Anyway, good tour. Not nearly as shitty as a first tour could've been. Met some cool people, played some good shows, got around 50 new
email list members, and had lots of fun. Gotta start working on setting up a Sept/Oct one within the next few days. It should get easier each time. Looking forward to the next one, it should
be much better than this one, as far as $ and turn out goes.
Good (Courtney, bed, friends, house, Portland) and not so good (work, real life) to be home.
Two Guys
Recorded
Out Now
Animal Trainers
Beach House Hangover
Another Chance to Fuck Up (live)
