Rademacher with Airborne Tour Diary : Losing track of days already

So we are driving north on the I-5, driving from LA to SF, and my laptop is out of batteries. So this whole blog entry is going to end up being transcribed from scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad. That’s right, this tour diary is going analog.

Greer is driving our rented Dodge Caravan and it is 9:34 AM.

We are going to have to make a brief pit stop in Fresno to tie up some loose ends that we left hanging. They are the following :

• Get Tape Machine and Tape and take to Tiny Telephone.


• Get Phone charger. I forgot mine at home.


• Get passports. Greer and I forgot our passports. We are going to Canada on this tour. Woops.


• Get drum throne.


• A blanket.


• Get Greer’s practice amp.


• Transcribe blog.

(p.s. I am proud to report that we accomplished all of the above tasks during our brief stop. Oh. and the above photo is by Jeff Koga, FYI.)

Yesterday, which we spent in Los Angeles, was a blast. Our photographer pal, Ben Hoste, came over to our HQ in Studio City and did a little photo shoot with us. We were working with him on some ideas for stop animation shorts, so, when our video of an animated killer goose goes viral on youtube, remember that you read about it here first.

Then we headed over for load-in at the Henry Fonda Theater, which is an absolutely stunning venue. IT is gorgeous, the staff is great, we had our own dressing room, the beer was cold, etc.

Once we got over the shock and awe of thinking “I am going to play here tonight!” we settled in and started warming up. Our soundcheck went allright. It is something we need to work on. The Fonda was for sure the largest room we have ever played and I was a little unsure of how much of our sound should be coming from the stage volume and how much should be heard over the monitors.

The end result was that I just frantically asked for more and more of everything in my monitors. That seemed to work ok, but if anyone else has a better idea, I would love to hear it.

One of the greatest thrills I have ever experienced, and I think Greer would be with me on this, is when a venue opens the curtains at a sold out show and you’re on stage and all these faces stretch back as far as you can see. It is pretty awesome. You look out, and there are just people everywhere.

It has happened to us once before, when we shared the stage with the Silversun Pickups, but it still gives me the chills. I wonder if that feeling will ever go away?

Our performance, in my opinion, was lackluster. For sure not our best. We avoided most of the big mistakes, but I slipped up on some lyrics, my guitar was cutting in and out on one song, and enough minor things went wrong that it was really hard to just get up and get into the music.

And that is the sort of vibe we want to project from stage every night. The “get into the music” vibe, not the “lackluster” vibe. It is something we are always trying to achieve. When we are playing well, that is what it feels like to me, it is a strange “mystical” point where I can just relax and let the music play itself and I can stop “thinking” about it so much.

Hopefully we can pull it together and get to that point tonight at the Bottom of the Hill in SF.

The Airborne Toxic Event kids bought us a bottle of champagne to welcome us on board their tour, which was super sweet. If you’re reading this guys, thank you.
They played wonderfully, as did the Henry Clay People. Both of those bands seemed like they were totally in their element. I think it will be easier for us to sit down and enjoy our tourmates’ performances once we nail down our set, but until then I think I will just feel anxious and tense while watching those two bands – because they are so damn good.

Somehow one of my friend’s names was scrubbed from the guestlist last night, and she couldn’t get in. I felt really awful about that when I got a message from her on facebook.

So … I am so sorry Meredith!