4/21/10:

Woke up the next morning on Noah’s sister’s couch with her dog Dexter laying on my feet but staring at me with big watery bug-eyes. Good dog. After we all woke up Andrew cooked up a delicious bacon and eggs breakfast and we did a little drive around Chicago. We scoped out the venue and picked up some ingredients to cook dinner at Mindy’s place. After making dinner we headed on over to the venue which was even cooler on the inside. It was in a basement and had a really cool vibe. Candles and sweet lights everywhere.  We had some good people turn out for the show, among them was a good friend from high school Emma, and the tallest rockstar in the Midwest, Chris Lambert.  Noah’s sister also brought out a grip of people. Wooot. Definitely a fun, quick, and high-energy show. They invited us back so I’m sure we’ll be in Chi-town again very soon.

4/22/10:

Day off in Chicago! Even though it was a day off, the day started off in super high-stress mode. Apparently we all thought it to be a reasonable idea to split up from Jeff at the end of the previous night (he was staying with a friend from high school), buuuuut Jeff’s phone was dead and our only means to contact him was through his friend Hilary’s phone. Long story short, Noah got lost trying to find where Jeff was that morning and Jeff was hanging around outside of a comic book store for nearly an hour. We were in a rush that morning because we were trying to make it over to Lincolnwood Elementary School in Evanston to give a little musical demonstration to the best group of kindergartners ever invented. (Noah’s sister is a teacher there and invited us to come show the kids what we do) Anyway, we were running very late and freaking Mindy out. Andrew came through in typical fashion, doing 85 on the highway with the trailer (40 mph over the recommended towing speed limit, mind you) and we made it, slightly late, but ready to rock. We were greeted by 40ish 5-year olds. We put together a very basic setup and played a few tunes (“Empty Hands” with the word “jerk” removed, an instrumental version of “Boom Boom”, “Ba Ba Blacksheep”, and “The Tyrannosaurus Rex Song” – Jeff: “alright, now we’re going to play the Tyrannosaurus Rex Song!” Me: “which song is that?” Jeff: “the song we’re about to make up right now!”), and fielded numerous questions, many of which were actually statements about who everyone knew that had ever played an instrument, or the loudest sounds they had ever heard (siblings yelling were pretty common). Jeff was informed that he “talks weird”, which is true of course. Finally, the kids just had to tell us all of the dinosaur facts they knew! We were also given a VIP tour by a boy named Victor of the dinosaur drawings that the class had just done. Fun and educational! Anyway, we have some great video of this which must be seen. We were told that it was kind of a music day for the kindergarten class that day and they had a bluegrass band come in after us. Apparently, the kids were quite underwhelmed after getting such a heavy dose of rockawesome. Mindy told us that one of the kids raised his hand and told them that their music sounded silly, another said they had just heard a much better band, another informed them that they must not know what they are doing since they don’t have a drummer and the drummer keeps time (a nugget of wisdom imparted to them by Mr. Noah Shomberg himself), several refused to listen and waited outside, and some fell asleep. Sorry, bluegrass band. Anyway, the enthusiastic response we received makes us think that maybe the next tour we should only cater to the 6-and-under crowd.

Pretty lazy rest of the day. We hung around Mindy’s apartment for a while and then Jeff and I went to see his friend Hilary in a play, which was fantastic. If you are in Chicago in the next few weeks, go and see “Effie”. It’s gooooood.

4/23/10:

After 2 full days and 3 full nights in Chicago, it’s off to Michigan! First stop is Muskegon, a small town of about 50,000 where our friends from Four Finger Five are from. Their manager rallied troops in the town and we had a really fun show at the Blue Note, which is half music venue/half night club. They have an amazing sound system and are just all around great people who are really trying to put the town of Muskegon on the live music map. They really rolled out the red carpet for us. We were told that they had hired 15 hookers for the show, but I don’t think they ever showed up… So much for getting some sweet new STD’s on tour. They had this great LED light board set up for us behind the stage that scrolled our name and had our promo photo in lights. The guy who was working the lights was really great and we invited him to come to Lansing to do lights the next night. They crowd in Muskegon was a bit smaller than expected, but very enthusiastic.

Most memorable exchange:

Excited Venue Owner Tim (right before encore): “OK, now guys do the thing where the drums just go crazy and the bass just pulls its tone right THROUGH the drums and the guitar just plays very melodically but also shreds, like with a calmness but with INTENSITY!”

Jeff: “What if we just play a cover song by a band that we like?”

Tim: “YESSS! Do your thing duuuuudes!”

At the end of the night Jeff, Noah, and Andrew decided to go to a crazy party at venue owner Tim’s house, while I took option B and decided to crash at Four Finger Five’s manager’s house. We stayed up late and talked about the music biz. Option B = good option.

We are playing the Underground Music Showcase on July 23rd.  We’ll be rocking the Golden Triangle Moe’s BBQ at MIDNIGHT.  Super Radfest ’99.

4/18/10:
Louisville: gorgeous city. I had been a few times before, but never to the Highlands, which I guess is the name of the area where the Hideaway Saloon is and where we were staying. The Hideaway Saloon especially rules because they have a band house a few miles from the venue where bands can crash for free under the kind and hospitable eye of de facto innkeeper Jim. As soon as we got to the Hideaway, the bartenders began to warn us that Sunday nights were typically very slow and to not expect a big crowd. They said this was compounded by something called “Thunder”. I had no idea what “Thunder” was, but kept hearing the name tossed around all night. Appaaaaarently, Thunder is a big fireworks festival that had just happened the previous night that everyone within 50 miles had gotten completely shitslammed at, so everyone was nursing hangovers on the day that we arrived. The folks at the Hideaway Saloon were pretty correct in their prediction about the night. We played to a select handful of bartenders, shady-looking shadesters, heady hippies, and a dude at the bar who either passed out or died midway through our second of three sets. We took the night as an opportunity to play a few tunes that we are currently in the process of writing, experiment a bit, and mess around with new lighting configurations. The sound guy was really nice and gave us some great recommendations of things to see and do in the city. We were walking through an alley next to the venue and nearly stepped on a huddled dark mass that ended up being a person. He didn’t seem too bothered by it and decided that he would rather stay put and mutter at us than give up his prized sleeping spot. Final verdict: we have to come back to Louisville because it is gorgeous and everyone we met was extremely nice, but we definitely need to come back on a Friday or Saturday night to see the most of what the city has to offer.

4/19/10:
After heading back to the band house after the show, we made a collective decision to catch up on the season finale of Spartacus; the latest and greatest gladiator-themed show to hit the airwaves. Needless to say, we were up till about 4 in the AM and therefore didn’t get up until nearly 3PM the next day. Just in time to grab a quick bite and pick up Andrew Hoag from the airport. He would be joining us for the rest of the tour to assume tour-management duties. No more worrying about merch and accounting because those things are super lame and we would rather be loud and band-ish. We had a good day off to explore our little part of Louisville. Ran some errands, caught up on e-mails, Facebooks, etc and went to good restaurant downtown for dinner. Highlights were: me having to take a shot of the nastiest vodka that the waitress could find and Andrew having to take a shot of the nastiest gin the waitress could find (we each lost the nose game). Luckily Jeff either made the waitress laugh or nearly vomit by loudly discussing Lucy Lawless’ boob-to-nipple ratio (verdict: kind of strange, but still appealing) in the near-empty restaurant.

4/20/10:
Off to Bloomington, IN! Quick little hop from Louisville. Thinking we will try to make the drive to Chicago after the show tonight. We’ll see how that goes….

The show in Bloomington was surprisingly eventful. After arriving to the venue (Max’s Place) very early, we killed a few hours by walking around the IU campus, which was gorgeous. We were treated to a short set by a female acoustic duo whose name has since escaped me. But ladies, if you are reading this, you rule. We set up and played to only a handful of people, which wasn’t the coolest thing ever, but one of the girls in the opening group got up and sang “I Want You” by The Beatles with us, which was great. We also had this guy with this crazy didjeridu/hand drum contraption that he had made jam with us on a few songs. To explain what happened next, I should give a bit of perspective on how the venue was laid out. The venue was a smallish (80 capacity roughly) restaurant and music club with the stage located in the front near the front doors and windows. Near the end of our first set, I looked back at Noah (as I do) only to see a guy push/throw/shove another guy straight through the plate glass windows in the front of the venue. They guy quickly jumped up and ran away. Needless to say, we just kept playing, although Jeff did look somewhat concerned that the rest of the big plate glass window would shatter and kill him dead. We took a little break after the first set so we could help the owners clear the glass off the stage and patch up the window. Andrew was especially clutch here because he had very strong work gloves. Perfect for picking up gnarly shards of glass. I went outside and spoke to the guy who threw the other guy through the window and in a semi-coherent drug-addled state he explained that he had beef with this other guy for a few days. Apparently they were crashing at the same house and the guy just wouldn’t stop walking around naked. So obviously, he had to be destroyed! Anyway, we went back and played our second set to a venue that was at that point without a front window. This did prove to be kind of convenient, though. Jeff was able to jump out of the window while playing and play his bass from the sidewalk, drawing curious stares from passersby.

Yo world!

Here is YOUR chance to save a fat wad of cash (for the first time, right?) and see Ghostland Observatory, Neon Indian, Dirty Projectors, and like 50 more awesome bands, The Foot. included!

CONTEST:
Bring 10 people to the Westword’s Hot 32 contest at Herman’s Hideaway, and you will have earned yourself a **FREE** ticket to the Westword Music Showcase the very next day! ($30 Value)

Here’s what you do:

Step 1:

MESSAGE THE FOOT. and:

A: pick up your tickets to Westword’s Hot 32 (free of charge) from us directly, or

B: click here: http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p401/thefoot_photos/Hot32ticpage.jpg and print off this page o’ tix

Step 2:

Gather your friends and come to Herman’s Hideaway on Friday, June 18th to see the Foot. rock your face

Step 3:

Roll up on us after our performance at Herman’s Hideaway and show us your 10 smiling friends

Step 4:

Wave your **FREE** ticket to the Westword Music Showcase for the whole world to see!

AND REMEMBER:

Vote The Foot. Best “Rock Band in Denver…

If you don’t get your hands on a free WMS ticket, make sure to use the promo code: THEFOOT when you buy them online

Love.

It could happen to you…

Hey guys! Welcome to the brand new FINDTHEFOOT.COM, the new official home of The Foot. Click around, check us out, and check back often for numerous updates, videos, new shows, new pictures, and new awesome.

Also, make sure you click the button at the top of the page and download our new album, “Primary Colors” for FREE! Offer only available until April 15, so steal while you can.

New tour dates on the LIVE page. See when we will be in your neck of the woods.