Washington, 5/1-2/04 - All right! So we had two days set up in Washington, the first night in Bremerton at the Manette Saloon with the Mos Generator and American Hit List, and the second night in Tacoma with the Jet City Fix and others. We do love the outta-town stuff, and both these shows were guaranteed to be a hell of a good time, or at least something interesting to talk about for awhile. Our van, now nicely equipped with tinted windows and a CD player is becoming more and more comfortable to travel in. Future comforts look to include a TV of some sort and some built-in sleeping arrangements, but for now the Pass Out Kings on CD and sleeping bags used as pillows would have to be our only luxuries.

Bremerton is a nice cozy Naval town with all sorts of cool scenery surrounding the bay. We arrived 7-ish and began loading in gear after greeting our headlining host band, the Mos Generator. We were opening things up that night followed by American Hit List who were just finishing up a 10-date tour. We kicked off around 10, into our favored rock-block of "Side Effects/Super Volcano/Can't Reason With a Beast/Star Wars". Mark broke a string, and the AHL loaned us one of their guitars to get our set moving along again. Technical difficulties aside(doh!), we did pretty well and cleared the stage for the Hit List.

AHL rocked hard, and when one of their guitars cut out Mark returned their favor to us and loaned them his SG for the rest of their set. Finally the Mos Generator kicked into their set and the floor suddenly filled up. Being their home territory, the crowd was hungry for the Mos Generator. They blew both us and AHL away, making it clear who was the headlining band of the night. I believe guitarist/vocalist Tony Reed knocked over his Marshall amp(!), so Mark loaned him the Peavey 5150 amp he's been playing out of for the final rock-borrowing of the night. Afterwards we crashed at Scooter's house and partied into the wee hours of the morning.

After waking up to the sounds of sex in the next room and a greasy-spoon breakfast, we made our way to Tacoma. After hanging out most of the day we loaded in with a group of standard fare rock guys - everyone in tight black clothes, leather or denim jackets, shaggy hair, tatoos, etc. Funny, it's kind of a uniform. Opening was Brother Scott, followed by Blank Generation, followed by Millhous, followed by us, and then the Jet City Fix would close the show. Hell's Kitchen is a real cool club, nice and dirty like we like it. We had been trying to get in there for awhile, so even a Sunday night was good enough for us. Our set was pretty good and we went over well. After we got offstage we loaded out immediately as we had to get back home - Back on the road, we hauled ass from Tacoma to Eugene just in time to get to bed at 5:30am. Yuck. We did have a ton of fun though.

Highlights: Seeing friends again and meeting new ones, entertainment by Bob, people being nice to us.

Lows: Coming home as the sun is rising, and having to be at work at 8am.

Overall, I love rock and roll. This stuff is too much fun. Thanks to the Mos Generator, Flash and the Jet City Fix, and everyone who came out to see us and party with us, we really appreciate it. Hope to see you soon.

Love,

Ron

The WOW Hall, 3/3/04 - Okay, so it's been awhile since I've had a journal entry, so what? Things have been busy over here at Clerks central. We were scheduled to play the WOW Hall with the Supersuckers a few weeks prior, but due to a sudden family emergency we had to drop the show.

Not long afterwards I exchanged a few e-mails with the WOW Hall booking guy and we had a sudden gig opening up for the Suicide Girls. For those that don't know, the Suicide Girls is "the web's most popular adult community for people outside of mainstream culture." Soooo... it's something of a porn site with punk rock girls, alright? Anyway...

We kicked off our set around 9:30 with a rock block of "Side Effects", into "Super Volcano", into "Star Wars". We had not played the WOW for months and it was good to be back on stage there. There were lots of kids up front and it was nice to see them enjoying the show. This was only our second Eugene show with our new bass player Adam, and we're getting the last few kinks worked out nicely. We played a number of brand new songs including "The Black Magician" and "Heaven is a Heavy Set of Wheels", along with the usual favorites "Pinball Queen" and "Rock and Roll Records". After we finished our last song we packed up our gear and got ready for the Girlie Show.

The Suicide Girls were alright, but nothing super fantastic. I could see full-on nudity at the titty bar for less effort, but it was kind of fun. After their set was finished up we began packing our gear into the van and suddenly it lurched to the side. I thought, "What??" and Adam said, "Did you see that? Take a look!" Well, a girl had ran into the driver's side of our van, putting a 3 foot scrape into the side of it. I got her insurance info and we all went to Max's for a few pints.

Bummer: Not getting paid for the show. I mean, I love getting off of work early and hauling around my heavy ass gear in my gasoline-thirsty van so I can play in front of a few hundred people for free, right? I mean, we did get free drink tickets so we don't deserve maybe at least $30 for our trouble, right? Those girls did work awfully hard, kudos to them. But I'm not complaining... thanks to the WOW, the Suicide Girls, Tayla for taking pics and helping out as usual, and everyone who came out to see us. I hope to see you soon...

- Ron

The Fox 'n Firkin, 8/9/03 - This show was an anneversary party for Sacred Art Tatoo at the Fox 'n Firkin in Corvallis. We headed up in our new gig van which was also it's maiden voyage for a small road-trip with it. The van is quite deluxe and features a tan vinyl interior and non-matching rear doors. It is also quite the conversation piece as it currently has no radio to speak of. That's alright though, as it's an absolute beast inside and swallows all the amps, guitars, and drums we could throw at it and cruises the freeway with ease. It also can carry more people, so we took LeBron along with us for the ride. The last time we played the Fox 'n Firkin it was say, a little less than packed. So it was a pleasant surprise when there were people streaming out the door when we showed up. Two Bucks Short kicked off around 10 and were wayy tight as they always are. I gotta say that their drummer Scott's drum fills always make me go, "What was that?!?", and their bass player Kevin plays the prettiest bass lines I've ever heard. After they finished up we set up on stage and launched into our set. A newer song, "Side Effects" into "Super Volcano" from our recent album into "Timmy Built a Bomb" from our first CD. Great crowd response, and a good number of people in front and singing along. We finished up and tore down, and Capgun took the stage. But first, there was pudding wrestling(?!?) going on outside... 45 minutes later Capgun blazed into their set and rocked the place.

Fun show overall, the out of town stuff is always an adventure. Some girl said I looked like Steven Tyler which was pretty funny, yeeeeooowww!!!! (that was my "Steven Tyler") Leaving the gig, a block away from the club we got pulled over for having a brake light out, ugh. But I talked my way out of it, and we got the hell out of there. Thanks to Sacred Art, the Fox and Firkin, Two Bucks Short and Capgun Suicide, and everyone who came out to hang and have some fun. See you soon...

- Ron

97.9 NRQ's Red White and Boobs Party, 7/3/03 - This is the second show we've done for the local rock station KNRQ. These are wayyy fun shows to be a part of, everyone at the station is really cool to us and the gigs ususally involve girls in bikinis, girls in wet t-shirt contests, girls getting wild and crazy in various ways, etc. Each show has also had us in the studio talking about the event and getting us some radio play from the album, so it also provides a ton of exposure for us to people who haven't seen us before. This was the 4th of July party on the day before, seeing as though most people already have big July 4th plans already set up.

Things started off early with a rocket-pop eating contest, but Mark and I missed it as we were at McMenamins getting dinner. We showed up just in time to see 5South, they sounded great and were very tight. At this point the club was extremely packed, it was taking 15-20 minutes just to get a drink at the bar. Crazy numbers of big testoserone-filled dudes, and here's skinny little me trying to make my way through the crowd. We were on right after the homemade bikini contest, I couldn't even get through the wall of people to see what was going on. Shortly afterward we began setting up and within minutes were blasting into our set. Our energy level was at %110, there were a ton of people watching. A bunch of friends came out to see us and it was really cool to have them out getting crazy with us. We had a great time onstage and even added another song into the set towards the end. We were received really well, it was a ton of fun. After we played the Wet t-shirt contest got underway, and I could barely see anything but what I could catch was pretty neat. Afterwards we hung out a bunch and then made our way to the clubs looking for some fun. Thanks to NRQ, Evin and the Wetlands, and all of our friends who came and hung out with us (you know who you are). See you soon...

- Ron

John Henrys, 5/9/03 - It occured to me the other night that the journal does get read so I should probably put up something recent, eh? We play a lot of club dates and we're pretty comfortable in that type of setting. Friday the 9th we had a date at our home club, John Henrys. It's our regular gig; simply the best club in town for live music, and they treat us well there. Tonight we had four bands: the Perverts, Western Aerial from Portland, our pals 2BucksShort, and us. I got off work at 9 or so and by the time we'd gotten our gear packed up and had dinner, I had missed the Perverts. Sorry fellas. At this point there also wasn't any space to set up a merch booth either, oops.

Western Aerial are our buddies from Portland and they were great as usual. They're a rock band but super pop and dancable, so they had a gathering of people dancing up front for their whole set. It was bass player Ross' last show with the band, we'll miss you buddy. Our local pals 2BucksShort were tight and powerful, they're really damned good and are on Wondergoat records. I always like playing with them because they're a great band and they also bring all sorts of hot girls to their shows. I won't lie. We were up next and were the last band. It's cool to say you're "headlining" - but it's rough getting onstage at 1:15am because people start getting sleepy and heading home if you don't grab 'em. Fortunately the place had only gotten busier as the night went on.

We kicked into our set with our recent opening rock-block, "Side Effects" into "Super Volcano" into "Timmy Built a Bomb". Whoo! Great crowd up front, energy everywhere. I think we even got flashed at the side of the stage by a couple of the bartender girls, and that's never a bad thing. We blazed through our set, and by the time we finished "Rock and Roll Records" I spied a good number of people dancing up front and people going all the way back. Feels really good to play when everyone's smiling and having fun. Soon after we finished the bar was closing, so everyone started heading out and home. We still managed to sell 6 or 7 CDs and three shirts, which isn't bad considering we didn't have them out to look at. Just as well, as the official CD release party is still a couple of weeks away. Thanks to the bands, Keith and John Henrys, our friends, and everyone who came out and had some fun with us. Hope to see you at our CD release party at the WOW on the 23rd!

- Ron

Goodtimes Eugene Celebration, 9/21 - This was a really cool show - we've never gotten to play during the Eugene Celebration before, and thanks to this gig we were given a chance. Goodtimes here in Eugene has been shut down to live music for the last couple of years, but has recently been inviting bands to play there again. This show had four acts - Itchy Itchy, us, The Danged, and 2bucksShort. For this particular weekend this was a free show, and was set outdoors with a big stage and P.A. We were set to play at 8pm, and seeing that this was to be a big show Mark deemed that "full stacks" (two 4x12 guitar cabs, two bass cabs) were necessary.

As we had more than our usual time of 45 minutes to fill, we added a few songs into the set that we haven't played out for quite awhile. This included a cover, some not-often played songs off of the first album, and some songs from our next CD. We had a nice sized crowd of people up front before we began which felt real good. We began with our usual opener, "Star Wars", followed by "Super Volcano". Some of the songs we included from our first album were "Timmy Built a Bomb", "All He Wants is Sex", and "She is Famous", while from our upcoming CD we broke out "Peter Pan" and "Take it to Go", along with current set staples "Pinball Queen" and "Paperback Horror". Mike B. even played "Britney Spears" and sang our Motley Crue cover, "Smokin' in the Boy's Room". We closed with "Rock and Roll Records" and left the stage. We had a great turnout and crowd response, which made us really happy.

Hours after the set I returned to our merchandise box that had Courtesy Clerks T-shirts and sampler CDs, and found it had been opened. In all, it looks like around 8 or 9 CDs were taken along with at least 4 shirts. Gimmie a break people, don't steal our stuff. I was giving the CDs away, just ask me for one. Stealing the shirts isn't cool at all, those cost real money to make. Oh well, at least someone will be wearing our shirt anyway. In all, we had a great time. Thanks for Evin and Casey at Goodtimes, all the other bands, and everyone who came out to see and support us. See you soon...

- Ron

Three Days in California, 6/20-23 - I haven't written any show journals for quite awhile, I know - it's not that we haven't had any interesting gigs, it's just that I get... well, real lazy. Writing about this trip was a must-do though. We've been planning a small tour with the Pass Out Kings for months, but it's taken a long time to materialize. Jivan (POK drummer) put a hell of a lot of work into getting shows lined up in different cities, which is a lot more difficult that you'd think. In the end we had three shows lined up in California on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Scott K. (POK guitar) rented a new Chevrolet 15 passenger van for the eight of us and all of our gear, and we set off on Wednesday night. Here's how it went:

Putting all of our gear, personal belongings, and us in a van is harder than you would think - it gets awfully cramped in there. As our first date was in Los Angeles it meant a hell of a long drive for the first leg of the trip. Fortunately our van could average 75 MPH + speeds all night long, so even though we left Eugene after 8PM we arrived in LA before noon. We were fortunate enough to be able to stay with some friends who could put us up for the night, Pedro and Becky. We hung out all day around Hollywood, and had lunch at the famous Canters Deli. Hours later, we opened the show at Goldfingers. The crowd had a lot of familiar faces of family and friends, including some of Big Hippie and even my own brother Geoff. Thanks! We played our set until the sound guy cut us off (...) and than we began partying. Thanks to more friendly connections we somehow got into at an exclusive hip club called Star Shoes, which was filled with tons of attractive LA-types. We got the full rockstar treatment though, which meant cutting the line outside and getting free drinks inside. Things from here become blurry until the next morning...

After saying our good-byes and thank you's to everyone, we got back on the road for a 6-hour drive to Stockton. This next show was an all-ages event at the American Legion Hall, and the Clerks were opening followed by the POK. It was kind of like the WOW Hall or any other VFW-type hall for that matter. We arrived just minutes before the show and thrashed to get our gear onstage, but we were opening with "Star Wars" by 7:01pm. Being so early the crowd was a bit small, but they seemed to dig both of our groups. We didn't stick around very long to see what the other bands were going to be like though, as we had a party to attend to. Our wonderful friend of Jivan and hostess, Julie put us up for the night in a really nice house with a bar and a hot tub. By the end of the night everyone (except me) was partying in the hot tub and then in the next-door neighbor's pool.

After a breakfast at Suzy's the next morning and more pool antics, we said our goodbyes to everyone and got on the road to Nevada City. We didn't know what to expect with this show, really - the town looked to me like "New Orleans Square" or "Frontier Land" from Disneyland, but it was actually a really cute little town with a couple cool little bars. We began our set with "Pinball Queen" a little after 10pm and had a good time. We were received well, and the crowd received the POK even better. We didn't have any real lodging secured for this night, and decided to get a couple hotel rooms in the next closest town of Marysville. A few short hours later we were on the road back home, and after seven or eight hours we were back unloading gear in Eugene.

I had a ton of fun on this trip, I'm sure everyone else did too. Many thanks to the Pass Out Kings for making this whole thing happen, Geoff, Big Hippie, Pedro, Becky, Julie, Lovie (sp?), anybody who came out and saw us, and the many fine fast food establishments we visited. "Later Bitches." Certain parts of the trip stick out in my mind:

Highlight - friends and family coming to see us play in Hollywood, and then partying "L.A. style" like a rock star afterwards

Low point - getting accidentally stabbed in the back with a drum spike from Jivan's bass drum

??? - Mike B. almost getting arrested for bad unmentionable stuff outside the bar in Nevada City

- Ron

The Downtown Lounge, New Year's Eve - The Fabulous Rocco hooked us up with this one a few weeks prior to the date. This worked out great as it sounds like a fun night to play and it would give us something cool to do. Also playing that night were with groups Miami Airlines and Nature Boy Saints all the way from Seattle. This show would be the debut for Mike B.’s new bass gear, an Epiphone Reverse body Thunderbird, and a Mesa Boogie Walkabout head w/a 4x10 cabinet. The setup would make Nikki Sixx proud, besides sounding fantastic and having a huge sound to it. Mark especially digs this, as we no longer have to lug his bass stuff around.

We arrived a bit late, and by the time we got in the door we were hearing Miami Airline’s last song. I think Taylor from Alterego is in the group, sorry I missed it guys. The place was really packed inside, and as per the "Speakeasy" theme of the night everybody was wearing 20’s clothing and tuxedo’s. Whoops, we’re wearing our usual rock and roll clothes, our bad. What a night, the $10 cover got you access to both the Downtown Lounge and Diablo’s downstairs, a buffet, a champage toast, a chance to win a trip for two to Vegas, and rock and roll of course. In Diablo’s downstairs, "You couldn’t fit another person in there with a shoehorn ( - Paul Stanley)." Nature Boy Saints set up next, and I spied cool gear - Ric bass, Danelectro guitar, and what looked to be a vintage Rogers or Ludwig kit in Red Sparkle. Cool! The Saints were very dancable, and were really cool people too.

We didn’t get to fire it off until 1am, and we opened with "Pinball Queen". I enjoy opening with this song, it’s very straight-ahead. "The Devil" was next, followed by "Star Wars". Man, we've got to get the new CD finished up! Our cover of "Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room" found its way into the set, and is quickly becoming a permanent part of it. Lots of close friends showed up to see us and we made some great new friends too. Thanks to Rocco and The Downtown Lounge for having us, and everyone who saw us and partied with us later. See you soon!

- Ron

John Henry's, 10/31 - Happy Halloween man, this was a fun show. We were offered this gig a few weeks back on the stipulation that we put some 80's covers in our set. To make things fun we asked my big brother Geoff if he would play guitar for us - in my opinion he's one of the best players around here, but he unfortunately doesn't get to play out in this area very much. For the set, by the time we got around to picking the songs we really only had enough time to learn maybe four. Mark wanted a Cheap Trick cover, Mike wanted to do Motley Crue, and I was pushing for a Judas Priest song. In the end we chose "Hello There" and "Goodbye" (Cheap Trick, from Budokan), "I Love Rock and Roll" (Joan Jett), "Living After Midnight" (Judas Priest), and "Smokin' in the Boy's Room" (Motley Crue). We had three days, and only had three solid practices in, but I think we had it down okay.

For the show Mark was a Boy Scout, Mike was Nikki Sixx, Geoff was "LeBron", and I was a cheerleader. Fun outfit, but I always end up getting groped by just about everybody. There were originally three bands playing but one cancelled at the last minute, so we threw three Courtesy Clerks songs in the beginning of the set to fill time (Take it to go, Crazy Hot Girl, Love Song #4). After that we introduced Geoff and started the 80's party with "Hello There", into "I Love Rock and Roll". Some more practice on our part wouldn't have been a bad idea, but a pretty big crowd had shown up on the floor and was digging it anyway. John Henry's had packed up pretty well considering the other bars and parties going on in the area. I got to cover lead vocals on "Living After Midnight", and Mike took over for "Smoking in the Boy's Room". The coolest part for me in all of it was seeing guys pumping their fists in the air and singing along... wow, it's like we were in Motley Crue. Okay, maybe not. After that we finished the set with "Goodbye". Hot for Chocolate with a new bass player took the stage after that and played some covers of Joy Division and other groups. Thanks to John Henry's, Hot for Chocolate, my big bro Geoff, and everyone who came and partied! My memory of Halloween will never be the same.

- Ron

The Hollywood Taxi, 7/12 - I'm not completely sure how we ended up with this show, but I was excited as we'd never played the Taxi before. Quite a few of the big acts from the 80s play there when coming through Eugene, like Quiet Riot, Ronnie James Dio, Lynch Mob, etc. That's pretty cool, what I'd do to party with Kevin Dubrow. We were put on the bill with friends in the group Mine 37, and were opening for Virgin Records artists Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I'd never heard of them, but they're on a major label so they must be good, right? I'd also heard they were going to be on Dave Letterman (!) in a couple weeks too, or something like that. When we loaded in our gear earlier in the night, we watched them soundcheck for an hour or so - guess you get kinda picky once you make it.

Mine 37 opened the show, and were pretty cool. We took the stage and launched into our recent standard opener, "The Devil", and rocked out. Most of the way through the set I realized we had 20 minutes left, so we threw in "Alice's Shoes" because Alice had shown up. Actually, quite a few friends had shown up and were right up front. The Taxi is really cool, it's too bad it's out in Springfield. It's kind of a trek for the people who can normally walk to our shows. Anyway, I think the Taxi crowd dug us. BRMC came onstage next, and began rockin'. It seems they're into psychedelic rock and the like, and had a big Pink-Floyd light show w/a smoke machine to go along with their music. Cool enough I guess, they had the Taxi crowd dancin'. I had heard some of the biker clientele of the Taxi didn't like BRMC, as they weren't biker enough, or at all. I guess if you're going to have a badass name like "Black Rebel Motorcycle Club", you'd better play some kick-ass heavy rock and roll before guys on Harleys get pissed. Anyway, it was a fun gig. Thanks to Mine 37, BRMC, Thrasher presents, Duke and the Hollywood Taxi, and everyone who came out to Springfield and saw us. We really appreciate it.

- Ron

May 12 - HumpStock - A few weeks back we got offered a University-sponsored gig to play outside the Bean dorms on the Humpy-Lumpy lawn. It was to be on an actual stage, with a good P.A. and lighting. Our previous experiences playing outside on the University campus have not always been that great (time restrictions, volume level restrictions, bad P.A./sound, weird locations), but we thought it would be a fun gig to play. This, and we haven't been playing many all ages shows recently - our last advertised/public show was in March at the WOW. So this would be a good show for people who can't normally see us because they're under 21. A few days before the gig we found that some of our good band friends were also playing the show (Gabriel Blue, Compact 56, Ennis Bee), so I started to look forward to it. "Humpstock" wasn't the most appealing name for the show in my opinion, but I probably couldn't come up with anything better myself.

I only had a chance to see a couple of the bands before us - Ennis Bee around 3pm was great, but most of the crowd was sitting far away from the stage on the grass, or playing catch with a football. Nonetheless I thought they rocked - I want to be in Ennis Bee, they're one of my favorite bands around here. I'll play the tambourine or something. I split for awhile, but was back in time to see Compact 56. Those guys are tight, and put on a great show with lots of energy. Definitely the hardest band to play that day. By this time, the sun had disappeared behind the clouds and it was a bit chilly outside. We were up next, and broke into our set with "Bad Kids". As we don't often play outdoors, especially in cold weather, it was kind of weird to get used to. Can't quite twirl sticks as easy, and I don't think we were warmed up until halfway through the set. But lots of our friends had showed up and it was actually a pretty good turnout. Lots of people out front. Mark and Mike entertained everyone between the songs with their usual stage banter, and everyone sang along during "Timmy Built A Bomb", so I think it was a pretty good show. Thanks to everyone who came to see us, it was probably our best University gig so far. After the show, everyone went off to party, but that's another story...

-Ron

May 5 - The Jolly Inn - This is one of those weird dates that you remember well, and laugh about it later, but try to forget about at the same time. This gig was on Cinco De Mayo, and while I wasn't particularly excited about driving 100 miles into Portland traffic on a major holiday, it's not like I really had anything going on in Eugene that night anyway. A group Big Al, whom Mark knew a member from high school, had invited us up to play at a bar called the Jolly Inn. We loaded up the gear, and made the trek up to Portland, Mike and I in my lil' VW and Mark and girlfriend Caitlin in the Volvo.

While we don't always play the nicest places, I thought this place was pretty dumpy at first. We didn't even have a stage or platform to play on, just a dark corner near a foosball table. But what did make it cool was the free drinks for the band, 32oz'ers of PBR, all you could drink. The fact that I had to drive back to Eugene afterwards limited me to one over the course of the night however. At this point, I left the bar for awhile and went to hang out with a friend in town I hadn't seen for quite awhile. By the time I came back the first band had played already, and I unfortunately don't remember their name. Heard they were pretty cool though. Big Al was up next, and I wasn't ready for it. They put on a show like I've never seen before, their lead singer Aron was absolutely all over the place, jumping from chairs and clinging to pillars, drinking beer the whole time. It was kind of Morrison-esque, actually. People were throwing beer on him and the band, and before their set was done there was ½" of beer covering the floor the band was playing on. I dug their set actually, especially their John Cougar Mellencamp cover of "Hurts So Good", they put on a good show.

Over the course of Big Al's set, they managed to destroy the only microphone they had brought, and of course we hadn't brought one either, so a guy we met there went home to grab a mic. He came back, and we blasted into our set, opening with Bad Kids. We couldn't put on a show like Big Al, but we were rocking harder than usual and people were dancing and digging it. All is well, until 7 songs into the set during Alice's Shoes, some random guy completely runs head on into Mark, slipping on the ½" of beer on the floor and knocking Mark, Mike, and himself down and into my drumkit. The music stopped, and everyone was in a state of shock, and didn't know what to do. The guy got up and went back by the pool tables while we got back on our feet, completely confused by the situation. Mark strummed a chord, and realized the headstock of his guitar had been cracked by the a**hole who had run into us. Some random guy then grabs the mic and begins preaching about kicking the guy's ass and getting revenge for what he's done. Mike B., my hero, who had been drinking pretty heavily since we had arrived, puts down his bass and starts to move towards the guy who ran into us. At this point it starts to get hazy as there was a bunch of yelling and arguing going on, but before I know it Mike has the guy held down against the bar and he's ready to beat the hell out of him. Soon there are a bunch of people surrounding the situation, and other people are ready to kick the sh*t out of this guy, but the bouncer somehow intervenes and lets the guy out of the bar safely. Mike and the crowd try to get out, but the bouncer holds them all back with the door closed and the guy gets away. We were pretty pissed off at this point, so we just put our gear away and were done for the night. We did manage to get the guy's name, but I'm not sure how likely it is we'll see him again.

We had originally planned to stay in Portland and hang out that night, but the situation took the wind out of our sails and we headed home. Mark managed to get his guitar fixed for pretty cheap in time for the next gig, but Mike has sworn revenge on the dude. I'm just glad we made it back home in one piece without any further trouble. The last time we play the Jolly... Thanks to Sara from Spreadeagle and my bro for coming to see us, and Big Al for hooking us up with one of our most bizarre gigs so far.

- Ron