RFI: FUCK EVERYTHING WE'RE GOING ON TOUR!

The band is Warmer Mi1ks and we're touring w/ Six Organs of Admittance + Hush Arbour.

Mon Oct 10, Buffalo, NY - Soundlab
Tues Oct 11, Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom
Wed Oct 12, Dearborn, MI - Stormy Records
Thurs Oct 13, Bloomington, IN - The Church
Fri Oct 14, Columbia, MO - Rag Tag Cinema
Sat Oct 15, Lexington, KY - Uni of KY Memorial Hall Ampitheater

Touring is completely great (booking a tour is not) (this is possibly less true when it's full-time) even if all the shows go badly. I am annoyed and sad and frustrated that I've done so little of it.

Otherwise, (and I find this really hard to do in practice) try to plan cool things to do on at least a couple of days -- either wake up early to do something in the town you're already in or wake up early, leave, and get to the next town early to do something. Otherwise you'll just stay up drinking every night, wake up feeling shitty, leave late, and just get to the gig in time.

Exercise is also not a bad idea - long hours in the car plus lots of fast food equals quick deterioration in the way you feel.

Have fun! Like Casuistry, I've only toured a little and would really like to do it more.

have a wicked time! i'm soo fucking jealous :)

Mind you, this was a band with three (moderately) hott chicks in it.

Good advice all around. Right now it's a scramble to get everything ready. I'm glad I had today off in order to get stuff taken care of.

The amphitheater is big outdoor greek style amphitheater. Basically a big bowl carved into the ground with a stone stage at the center. We've played there once before. It's difficult because there is no PA and absorbs all the sound which is a big problem if there are lots of folks in the band. (which is the case)

if you only stay in hotels, they will eat up any money you actually make during the tour. your best bet is to crash at people's places. first, email anyone you might know in these cities. failing that, post to your myspace/friendster accounts about needing places to crash. ask your friends to forward this information. if you still dont get any leads, kindly ask from the stage at the end of your performance.

if someone offers, do your best to gauge whether they'd be a good person to say with. ask them if the place can accompany X [X = # number of bandmates - 1; reasoning below] number of bandmates and if they have roommates. ive heard weird stories about bands staying with people who live with their parents/grandparents/etc, so you might want to avoid that kind of situation. ask them if they have to get up early for work the next day, which might make your morning logistics easier or not, depending on the situation.

always make one bandmate sleep in the van for security reasons, even if you're staying in a nice neighborhood. rotate the responsibility during the tour. make sure they have sufficient blanketing to stay warm throughout the night. dont forget to wake them up the next morning so they can use the bathroom/eat/etc.

assign one bandmate to be responsible for getting the band up on time. this is sometimes harder than it looks because you will have been up late boozing it up the night before. do not give this task to habitual oversleeper or you will be screwed. [i always set my alarm clock to help the bands out just in case.]

be a good houseguest. i know this sounds obvious but man, have i heard some nightmare stories yet luckily never encountered any. in short: bring your own toiletries, dont leave the place a bloody mess for your host and above all, BE NICE TO THEM. unless they are mean to you and in that case, just try to get out of the place as soon as possible.

i try to be a good host to the bands that stay with me. my place isnt huge but its clean and i always try to give the bands some sort of non-fast food breakfast [usually bagels, fruit, juice and coffee]. if they feel like watching TV or browsing the internet [make sure not to save your passwords on their machines, fyi], they're more than welcome to.

also, laptop with wireless access is an invaluable tool.

Ha, actually I DO now, but we haven't toured (or gigged for that matter) yet, so maybe I'll be changing my tune.

I think crashing with good friends or family is cool, but something about asking people, who probably weren't planning on having a bunch of dirty musicians sleeping over, for a place to stay rubs me the wrong way. If it's a culture where this is standard after-show procedure, then I guess that's different.

xpost: I don't!

i like the 'don't eat, don't sleep' advice above, but i'd like to add a few things: steal shit whenever possible (not from hosts, duh, but from stores), get some good 'return scams' going, and it is very possible, easy even, to sneak into hotels after people check out super early. My band has actually gotten hours of 'hotel sleep' by just walking in.

sleeping outside never all it's cracked up to be. seems like a great idea in the daytime, but after you've packed up the van, the very idea of settling down on the grass or a rooftop somewhere usually makes for a cranky next day

do you know what table scoring is? Do that if you're not grossed out by the idea of it. I don't do it but the rest of the band does

Siphoning gas used to be a good idea, but with gas prices what they are, it's grounds for murder now in certain places. Don't get shot over a tank of gas.

treat yourself to the occasional hotel, ice cream, and bag of cocaine. These things help even out the 'sorry there's no money,' the 'soundguy is drunk,' the 'Cat Power is playing down the block and Little Wings across the street' and my personal favorite, 'one drink ticket per member.' Like, fuck you, asshole, you know??

Have a good time. I think your 7" is killer.

Finding places to stay was not hard at all. We only ran into trouble in Cleveland, and that was a bad scene all around. And in Buffalo a beautiful French girl took us in, which was great.

We are probably going to try for another tour at the end of December so that we've got three short tours done in a six month period.

We plan thusly:

Reykjavik
Belfast
Dublin (horrible, likely to be crossed out)
Glasgow (people be really nice and shit)
Edinburgh
Liverpool
Manchester (feel like a shred of driftwood)
Oxford (does this count as college town lol)
Birmingham
London
Cardiff (looks like worse and worse idea, likely crossed out)
Paris
Brussels
Amsterdam
Hamburg (beat1es fans roffle how do i coiffed moptop)

does it seem wise to play more than one night in london? there's so much going on...what a bag of worms.