8/3 Chico

YMD slept on the bus in SF again, while GFE slept in John's apartment. We were awakened a 7am (after going to bed only a few hours earlier) by a pounding on the bus. We were groggy and startled and it took us a while to find out where it was coming from. Finally, I realized that there was a cop pounding on the bus driver's window telling me we had to move the bus as we were parked illegally. Now, I don't know about you, but I wasn't that excited about finding my glasses, and driving a school bus in San Francisco for the very first time. I tried calling the GFE dudes, but they were all crashed out hard. So, I started the bus and began to drive. It was actually quite and exhilarating and besides the fact that it was nearly impossible to find parking I did.

We got packed up after a few more hours of sleep and headed for Chico...
Chico was much like we thought it would be; hot, small townish, and a little weird. Jesse from Cafe Coda showed up early and let us into the nice air conditioned room. The show ended up being pretty good for a Tuesday night. We'd like to give a big thanks to Dan, he is the man. There was some drama bullshit with one of the other bands that pissed us off and it not cool or kosher. Tour Karma...

We went to score some late night veggie oil. There were tons of freaks hanging out in that part of town. Mike and Brian saw some ladies get in a serious fight, including hair pulling from a moving car. We also ran into Kyle Nelson. Dude had flames tattooed on his face. Check the tour video if you want to see him waving at Steve.

All we could do was head to WalMart and crash in the parking lot with a little Johnny Walker Red. It was a long day and we badly needed a good night sleep...

8/2

Mike is still working on writing the blog for August 1st, so until then I will update you on San Francisco... Me, Mike, and Brian slept on the bus near a park in SF and Nate had to come move it at 8 am. It took us a while to find a place to park the bus and the best we could come up with was a two hour parking spot. The four of us went to a coffee shop, got some brew, and plugged into the internet. The rest of the crew was hanging out at John Reiss' house. We feel honored to have met John, he is a super cool guy and a great host.

We also had the pleasure of hooking back up with an old Seattle friend, Heinous Haines. We all went to the Haight/Ashbury district and grabbed some food and did some people watching. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing at John's house and having a good time. Heather invited us over to her place for dinner and we had our first home cooked meal of tour. It was delicious and good to not be eating greasy/fast food.

I think we ended up having 13 people cruise on the bus to the show. The Retox was located pretty near the Giants Stadium and there was not many people hanging around. The Retox is a bar that has a show space downstairs, it kind of felt like a basement show, but it has part of an airplane fuselage and some airplane seats. We had a number of old friends at the show, which was awesome!

Heinous was slinging merch for us and we played pretty well. Gifts tore it up, as they always do and Not to Reason Why was amazing! We can't wait to play with them again, I think they are our favorite new band, plus the nicest people around.

We ended the night on the bus yet again.

8/1

Sup ya'll! This is Mike holdin' it down in the Bay, bitches! I would like to personally welcome myself to this blog and your 21st century lives. This is a groundbreaking moment for you, as well as myself.

Anyway, here's the scoop:

August 1st = day off! So basically we have an estimated 6.5 hour drive to Sanfran on a bus that just won't quit. We spent the entire day harvesting vegetable oil with or without permission from small asian restaurants. Oh dear, did we get a shitload! ....hmmm. What else happened yesterday....I'm forgetting something...

ATTACK OF THE HIPPY HOBBIT!!!!

Seriously, dude looked like a fucking baked potato.

We were parked in Santa Barbara, filling the bus with oil when we were approached by a shirtless man-imal sporting a miner's flashlight on his head. It seemed as though it was another harmless, yet irritating and insignificant road bump: small talk over the bus, traveling, musical instruments (....some fictional)...and then things got weird...

We were given some applications for music confidentiality and given a much too detailed lesson over covering our artistic asses. Every few moments this burnt-out crazy would mutter some horror-movie-esque dialogue that seemed to foreshadow a grim end to the day, and our existence. Some examples: "I'm gonna go get my axe..", "You guys aren't goin' anywhere today.."

On a sidenote, the ogre donated a bag of weed and an envelope of salvia, in which he commented: "1000x, to keep the demons away."

After a second trip back into his hobbit hole apartment, it was time to leave. We entered the bus, and prepared to take off, when suddenly, Mr. Mole came scurrying out of his door pointing and yelling, eventually halting the bus.  The man ranted and accused us of stealing his "strat"....and then his "schecter diamond series" guitar.  And for some odd reason, he specifically accused myself of the evil deed (which would have been pretty sweet to do, anyhow).  After standing in front of the bus (which is now perpendicular to and blocking the street) and a yelling match, Nate from Gifts decides to attempt some sort of reasoning with the crazy fucker.  This, fortunately, allowed Judd, also from Gifts, to maneuver the bus around and follow through with the escape. 

And honestly, everything after this incident seems completely insignificant to speak of.

Fuck it.

- Michael 

7/31

After splitting up for the night I met back up with the GFE & YMD boys at Jeff’s House from BoS for some BBQ lunch, beers, and haircuts. Mike and I both got a haircut courtesy of Mr. Brian Woods. We had a good time catching up with the BoS boys and Brian from Signal Hill. On the way back to the bus before we left for Goleta I found a Boy Scout Handbook in the bushes and found out that both Jud and Nate were Eagle Scouts just like me. CJ says he is going to use the book to learn how to tie some knots… So far, no knots...

The drive to the Santa Barbara area was cold and full of traffic. The venue held up to its name and was truly hard to find. We got a late start and we all felt like crap after yet another burrito. The Victor Ship opened the show and rocked it hard. We played second and only played 4 songs because we were running short on time. Both GFE and BoS also only played 4 songs and they both rocked hard. GFE had some dancing (yeah, that kind) during their set and got a good response. BoS headlined and rocked us hard with their new song and it also happened to be Tad’s birthday!

The night ended with the eight of us trying to find a hotel room in Goleta. After driving to two motels and calling four others we learned that there were not any rooms available in the town. We decided to drive the bus to a Costco parking lot and cram on the bus for the night. I actually think we all got some decent sleep on the bus, even though it was pretty cozy. Oh and we also learned about Scott Stapp doing a hilarious song for the Florida Marlins. Check it out on youtube and you will laugh for hours. Another day of tour gone by L

Vegas

7/30

We woke up at 5:30 yesterday morning after going to bed at 3:00am to fly to Vegas. We arrived in Vegas at 11:00 hoping that Gifts From Enola would be picking us up shortly. Due to a variety of bus problems they weren't able to pick us up until 7:30pm. We ended up meeting some English ladies, Charolette and Suzie, who were also stuck in the airport for many more hours than us. We talked about beans and toast, apple pie, and tried to explain our music (never easy). Gifts finally showed up and we piled onto the bus and headed straight for the venue. Yayo Taco was located in a strip mall and didn't scream venue, but it turned out to be a great show and tons of kids showed up. It was good to see Gifts again and Caravels was amazing! There were even kids dancing at the show (never happens in Seattle). We went over to Corey's house and got to swim in his swimming pool until 4 am. Solid dudes and good show, but sooooo hot.

7/31

Slept in a little and tried to find some veggie oil, but no luck because we were running short on time. We are going to challenge Bill to eat 12 tacos next time we go to Del Taco, as he only eats tacos by the half dozens. The drive from Vegas to LA, was hell. So hot and we over heated twice. We arrive in LA at the Pehr Space a little after we were supposed to and embraced our Sheath brethren. The guy at Pehr even bought us some slices because the microwave kept tripping the breaker when Gifts was making cup o noodles. There were a ton of people at the show and a lot of good friends and family. The show was awesome except Nate breaking the E string on his bass (what a beast!) Thanks to everyone who came out to the show!

Here are a few pics from the past two days...

Vegas

So, Gifts From Enola's bus broke down last night and this morning and we are stuck at the Vegas airport waiting for their arrival. We are so pumped to be on the road with those guys! We finally debuted a new song "Monolith" on our myspace page; if you have a spare eight minutes please go over there and check it out! We have a bunch of tour dates on the west coast over the next several days; please tell your friends to come out to the shows and support some good touring bands.

p.s. airport food and drink is way too expensive. How did Tom Hanks do it?

Keep checking back.

@ Yayo Taco tonight with Gifts From Enola and Caravels!!!

-B

NEW Record, West Coast Tour, Lots of fun!

I have been working super hard on finishing up art work for the tour this week. Tomorrow I will make the screens for the new EP, International Waters. The CD will have four songs on it and 30 minutes of music. Our friend Scott, at anyswayze studios has also been working hard to put the finishing touches on the new recordings. We think that these songs are different than anything we have done before, but you can still tell it us. After tour, we will come back to record a few more songs and then drop this thing as a full length.

We have really missed making records and touring the last few years and we are all very excited to hit the road again, especially with our boys, Gifts From Enola!

We will have new shirts, new CDs (limited to 100) and a whole new set. Please, if you are in the area of any of our upcoming shows come out and say hello. See you all in a week!!!

I will be updating this blog throughout our tour so please follow!!!

xoxo,

Brandon/YMDITD

Out of Our Shell

Hello Folks,
Its been alomst 3 years since we have used this blog, but I think it might make a come back (we shall see). After over a year in hiding we will be playing a show at the Comet Tavern on April 21st with Bronze Fawn, Judgement Day, and Scriptures. We are really excited to be playing live again and eager to share a few of the tunes we managed to squeeze out over the last few months.

We will be getting around to updtaing all of our social networking sites soon, but in the mean time head over to last.fm and stream Bears in the Yukon, or for the first time ever, our half of the split with Gifts From Enola (Harmoic Motion - Volume 1). http://www.last.fm/music/you.may.die.in.the.desert

We miss you all very much and will be seeing you soon...

xoxo
-Brandon

Home

We made it home today after going Back to the Future. We left Japan at 17:00 on June 29th and we arrived in Seattle on June 29th at 9:30. We get to live the 29th twice.

I will put up another post later with lots of pics and commentary, but I just wanted to let people know we made it home safe.

Thank You so much to Scraps of Tape, Shun, Zankyo, Kono, and all the lovely people and bands we met in Japan.

xoxo
Brandon

Niigata

If you haven't found it yet Scraps of Tape are doing a much better job of updating their blog. Go look at it here:
http://sottourdiary.blogspot.com/

The last couple days have been quite an adventure.
On Sunday, the 24th, it was Brian's birthday and we played at club rock'n roll in Nagoya. It turned out that we had a lot of technichal difficulties and we were quite embarressed, but people said we still sounded good. Anyways, Kono got brian the funniest gifts and Marcus was a big hit.

Yesterday we had a very long drive back to Toyko and we lost our dear friend Shun. He, unfortunately had to go back to school and be with is family. He was a great tour manager and friend.

We finally got some REAL pizza last night and for the first time i felt full.

We are starting to feel the effects of being on tour and being apart from the ones we love. This is the only part about tour that is no fun. This expereice has been so amazing and I am really going to cherish the last two days with all of my new friends, Japanese and Swedish.

Hopefully I will write at least once more.

Please check the Scraps of Tape blog for a more day to day synopsis of tour.

xoxo
Brandon

Long Overdue

Here I am in Kobe and it is 4:20 in the morning. We have had a serious lack of internet, hence, the no posts since our first show. This tour has been so amazing so far. Scraps of Tape are the best group of guys in the world, plus they are my new favorite band.

I am going to do a quick run down of some shows...

The Zankyo Festival in Toyko was crazy. We played to about 800 people on a huge stage. We had our own dressing room, an interpreter, free shirts, and we did an autograph session. It was great fun, but we were nervous so the show could have been better. Te', Scraps of Tape, and Naan were all really good!

Whoopees in Kyoto was a good show. S o T were awesome and we had fun, but that was a really long day. That night we got to stay in a traditional Japanese style home, which was a very unique experience.

Okayama was another good show for us. We got a live DVD of this show that may appear some day in some form. That night we got to stay at Kono's familys house in Okayama. Kono (the label president and manager) was kind enough to let YMDITD to stay at his familys home where we were recieved with pen arms and showered with gifts. We got a traditional home cooked meal and some Japanese PJ's!

Fukuoka was probably the best show on th tour so far. It was a smaller venue, but everyone there was really into the music. We sold a lot of merch and Brian went crowd surfing. We had a crazy after party with a bunch of the bands and then went to Kareoke...

Osaka was an odd show. The venue seemed great, but the sound eneded up being really bad. The crowd was not very responsive and it wans't our best show. There was also a girl at the show from MTV Japan to check out us and Scraps of Tape. I guess we ended up selling a bunch of stuff, which was weird considering not many people were into the show. This night was my first time really going into the crowd during the performance. There was a huge stage and a barrier, but some show I got over it all and rocked out in the crowd trying to get a response.

Tonight at Helluve Lounge in Kobe was probably our best performance. The stage is lit from below and it is a nice small venue with good sound. Scraps really did an amazing job tonight too. Maybe the best show of tour?

I really can't say enough about how great Scraps of Tape are. Such an amazing band and such awesome guys. I wish we could tour with them all them time, even more I wish we lived on the same continent so that we could hang out as friends.

I'll try my best to keep updating.

I miss my family and friends, but I love Japan.

xoxo
Brandon

pics soon.

First Show, Tower Records, Shibuya

Yesterday we walked around Shibuya with Kono from Zankyo Records. We went to the Market in the morning to get some food and do some shopping. Then, we walked to downtown Shibuya where there we so many people we could barley walk. Kono took us to Tower Records, which is the biggest CD store in Japan (this thing is literally 6 floors). We got to see our CD in the shelves, which was surreal, but awesome. We also saw some friends CD's like Caspian, Jatun, Scraps of Tape etc.

After a lot of walking around in the hot streets of Shibuya we went to the venue to organize our merchandise and do a sound check. I think we arrived at about 2 pm and met with our new friend Takeshi. We spent nearly all day at Club Kinoto except for a few times when we went out to get money, food, and mike had to get some new mallets.

5 other bands played with us and they were all very well practiced and most of them were quite good. It is interesting in Japan because there seems to be many more girls/women in bands, so we got to meet many of them last night. We played 5th our of six bands and by the time we took the stage we were all very tired. We played OK, but had some technical and other mess ups. We were glad to play the show before the festival, becuase we needed the practice.

We met a lot of very nice people and a few fans (Akiko!).

We are trying to learn some Japanese, but it is very hard. I am struggling to fins vegetarian food and I have hit my head about 10 times on door ways and ceilings.

We play the Zankyo Festival tonight and then we leave for Kyoto tomorrow.

We are very happy to be here and miss everyone at home.

Hopefully more soon.

xoxo
Brandon & YMDITD

28 hours later...

We arrived in Japan yesterday after a lot of traveling. Brian and I flew together from Seattle to LAX to Tokyo and we met Mike who flew staright from Seattle. Kono, from Zankyo picked us up at Narita and we loaded all of our gear into the Zankyo Van. It was about an hour drive from Narita to Shibuya. We are staying at the Zankyo studio, which is a unique experience.
We were all hungry so we went out to dinner in Shibuya at a Japanese resturant. On the way there we saw a huge video screen that was advertising the Zankyo Festival, which we are playing on Sunday!
Walking around Tokyo everything seems fake, like you are at Universal Studios. There are so many people everywhere.
Driving on the opposite side of the road had also been quite thrilling; people are everywhere and nobody seems to be paying attention to traffic (we were all slightly scared for our lives).

People have been very generous and kind to us so far and we are excited to get on the road.

We will try to upload some pictures when we have the chance.

xoxo
Brandon
YMDITD

16th Confirmed

Our Show at Club Kinoto has been confirmed for June 16th. I am not sure what time it starts or how much it costs, but I am sure you can google search for it.

On another note, I am really mad at punkbutton.net. I order 500 buttons from them on April 30th so that we could have buttons for our visit to Japan. They claim 2-4 weeks for delivery. Well, it has been about 6 weeks and still no buttons and no reply. I ordered buttons from them before so i thought they were reliable, I guess not. So DO NOT BUY BUTTONS FROM PUNKBUTTONS.NET!!!!!!!

Oh my gosh we are leaving in two days!!!

xoxo

As The Sun Sets...

This is the first post of (hopefully) many that will document our journey through Japan from June 15-29.
This is the tour schedule so far:

Jun 17 2007 8:00P	O-East (Zankyo Festival)	Shibuya
Jun 18 2007 8:00P	Woopees	Kyoto
Jun 19 2007 8:00P	Crazy Mama2	Okayama
Jun 20 2007 8:00P	decatant delax	fukuoka
Jun 22 2007 8:00P	drop	Osaka
Jun 23 2007 8:00P	Helluva Lounge	Kobe
Jun 24 2007 8:00P	Rock 'n Roll-brian's b-day!	Nagoya
Jun 26 2007 8:00P	junk box mini	Niigata
Jun 27 2007 8:00P	Hook	Sendai
Jun 28 2007 8:00P	O-nest	Shibuya

There is also talk that we will be playing one more show on June 16th in Shubuya, but we are still waiting to confirm that.
xoxo
Brandon