it's May 28th.
we've been home for three weeks.
kinda dropped the ball on the last of these posts.
the last week of the tour was when my body started shutting down. not in an any dire way, really, but it was just...before the last week, there was no end in sight. i didn't know what the end of the tour really meant. we had been performing practically every night for a month and a half, new city every day. that was the new normal. when we hit Manchester, it started dawning on us that, yes, this time next week, we'll be sleeping in our own beds. from there on, i was sleeping harder, the shit food i'd been eating finally was
unfortunately, three weeks after the fact, my memories are a bit fragmented, but i typed down bits of notes from the last handful of days, which i'll expound on briefly.
- in Manchester, Brent had to deal with a drunk racist at the bar prior to the show, which put a damper on the entirety of the night. that being said, Rap Night (both in Portland and M'chester -- that's a terrible abbreviation but i'm keeping it) is a beautiful thing, and i'm glad we were able to participate in both. New Hampshire emcees are on their shit. shouts to Eyenine, Mike Wing, Cody Pope, Seth On Gray Street, and the countless others we rocked with.
- New Haven saw us performing at Crunch House -- a hole-in-the-wall DIY space located behind an industrial laundry operation. not too many people at the show, but, my personal favorite performance of the tour. afterwards we ate pizza at a joint that had over half of its parking lot covered by a mountainous woodpile.
- Brooklyn was a lot of fun. we always have fun in Brooklyn. Eze joined up with us for this show, and it was good to have his energy back in the mix. sound dude was a dick. we found a 24-hour bagel shop which made my heart dance, and i woke up to the sound of a dog both humping Height's sleeping back and making a wretched hacking sound. Desmond the cat was far more pleasant and i held him briefly.
- leading up to Trenton, a lot of people said, "Trenton? Why are you going to Trenton?!" and i would calmly reply that we're on tour, and you go to places when you're on tour, and in our case, Trenton was one of them. really enjoyed the show. after the show we were all trying to sleep, but everyone else at the house we were at were trying to get fuuuuucked up. one guy shook my hand very firmly and said, "Hey, let's go upstairs, do some drugs, and talk about hip-hop." the term "let's do some drugs" is a little disconcerting, no? no specifics, just, some drugs. i politely declined and slept upright in a recliner. we left promptly in the AM.
- i saw my brothers in Philadelphia. we played in a very tight basement. stinky, sweaty, lovely. there was a cat named Pudding upstairs that slept in the same spot all night. Gavin Riley is one of my favorite performers. Cosmi's has very good cheesesteaks.
- Baltimore. the end of the tour.
the show was pre-curfew due to the unrest over the Freddie Gray case. despite that, the people of Baltimore were great -- calm, positive, optimistic. Sam from Future Islands was a last-minute addition to the show, and let me know that he was rocking one of our shirts in a recent F.I. press photo at Abbey Road. it's weird playing a show at 7pm. and while the tour didn't have the last grand hurrah that all of us (somewhere in our minds) felt that it would have, it ended the way it was supposed to. we were content. we left Baltimore just as curfew struck, and just as a sea of people took to North Avenue to protest. we drove through the night and were home by sunrise.
we cannot thank Dan/Height enough for believing in us and giving us this giant opportunity to travel the country with our raps. i highly recommend reading this article that he wrote about the DIY hip-hop scene last year. the Zen emcee.
also, major love and thanks to Eze Jackson, PT Burnem and B Rich for being solid tourmates with invaluable advice and killer music.
thank you to every kind soul that let some stinky rappers into their houses to shower and use all their wifi, for every venue/promoter that opened their doors to us, and for all the dope artists we met/performed with along the way.
and lastly, thanks to everyone that bought a cd or a shirt, took a sticker, liked us on facebook, tweeted us, followed our instagram's...all of the support was/is incredible, and we're grateful to have you on our side. hope to see all of you again soon.
-b
