RECORD OF A CROSS

HI we’re in Philly! This is going to be a quick blog because it’s 2 in the AM, and we’re going to NYC tomorrow. This morning started out with crispy frozen grass, what a delight :)

The drive was super beautiful because of all of the icy trees and bushes

Stopped for some bagels and salad and donuts before loading into Underground Arts

They had a player piano!  I took a lot of video but I am so not waiting for it to upload. Maybe tomorrow.

Drawing station

The show was great, and I even was able to enter into a passionate conversation about pens with a man who really knows a lot about pens. It’s wild to think that tomorrow is the final show that caps off an insane year with Shearwater. Braindead, talk to you tomorrow xo

Here’s a nice photo a nice man named Matt Condon took of me last night. He told me he has lots more pictures coming.

Got paid in ones, that was a first.

I think I might start posting both Emily’s Emily photos and my Emily photos here, in case you aren’t going over to her blog. It’s fun to see them right next to each other anyway. For example, this one is Emily’s from last night and I’ll post mine again.. we look like we are in completely different places.:

I guess it will only work if Emily posts her blog before I post mine in order for me to steal hers. I’ll figure it out.

Check out this car’s mattress rigging job:

Shearwater had a Sirius XM session today, so Dan and I went to go hang out with them, play on ‘Scary Monsters’ and shove our record into the hands of someone capable of airing our music on Sirius XM. 

Me+STING

Made it back to the hotel and did some drawing, then went to E&Sadie’s room to have a mini spa night.

Now I’m drawing in bed watching Japanese wrestling. Tomorrow we’re going to Philly, yeah!

Last night our new ( new to me) friend Jenn ( Wye Oak) was kind enough to hand her whole house over for us to stay in. We arrived after a late load-out and were greeted by a cozy fire. Josh and Lucas jammed some piano and cello, and I can’t remember the rest because I was sleeping.

it’s cold.

Wolves of Whole Foods

Stump Guy

Shell Cows

We spent pretty much the entirety of the day inside the car because traffic was so bad. We also saw a vehicle very much on fire on the highway :-/. We did finally make it to Baltimore, though! My friend James from high school came to the show..it was fun to hear what he’s been up to. I think tonight we’ll be driving halfway to DC to stay at a hotel. Tomorrow we get to stay in the hotel,too! I’m going to try and get lots of drawing done.

My Emily submission for the day:

Hey, we’re in North Carolina! Last night we slept at Jonathan’s mom’s house, and she gave us bagels in the morning. Jay broke out his Apple Jack My Little Pony figure, and we all had a nice time photographing her. Emily braided her mane. There is relevance to Apple Jack, but Emily Lee probably goes into it on her blog, so there’s no use in me typing it all out here, right?..:)

I pretended to paparazzi Shearwater, and we were on our way.

E.Lee got this cool photo of me getting in the car.

Dan and I went to get more coffee, I took photos of everything around me, just about. 

Love this outfit seriously

Drove for a while and then stopped at Whole Foods for some lunch. This is someone’s discarded BBQ chicken lunch:

Saw the giant peach butt

Was very much into this red berry bush

My fave variety of mangos <3

xoxoxo

We’ve been listening to “Welcome to Nightvale” in the car and I think it’s affecting the way I see the world. Yesterday we stopped for some coffees and walked into a sporting goods store next door so I could get a headlamp to draw in the car in the dark with. It’s fun to walk around and look at the weird stuff they have in there.

Successfully working in the middle of somewhere in Mississippi.

Not much to report as we’ve pretty much just been driving and sleeping in a motel 6, but I have been eating a lot of peanuts and gummy bears. 

We got pulled over by the policeman for having expired registration. Or not being registered..you know what I mean. I offered gummy bears and that seemed to soften his position. We got away with a warning and then sped off to Atlanta.

Now here we are inside a venue called Terminal West. It seems pretty nice..they gave us tacos. I have a headache, but at least I have a head, you know?

Hi, I’m back again with another installment of Cross Record Tour Diary :) Tomorrow we will set out for a short run of tours with our beloved Shearwaterans, starting in Atlanta. We’re thinking we’ll drive ten hours or so, and stop somewhere near Meridian, Mississippi. The past few days have been full of band practice, shuffling around music gear, tacos, and makeup experiments. There are lots of details I’m leaving out and you’re probably confused, but I’m very tired- so you’ll just have to accept mystery. 

Jimmy with the tube light

Emily filled with the wonder of the tube light

JM warming up his lazers on me before our house show

Pre-house show

A bunch of nice people turned up to watch us practice in our living room!

Dog masseuse E.Lee

Iron extraordinaire S.Powers

The Emily picture tradition lives on

Put my sparkles on for our first show of the tour last night at 3Ten Austin :)

Jay doin pushups as usual

Our set was fraught with technical difficulty, but it was still fun.

Hello again! It was nice to take a few days off from blogging- we’ve had a pretty non-stop intense time since we parted with Shearwater..figuring out backline, rental car, travel, etc..

I think I left you in Frankfurt. I can’t remember. We stayed at this very sketchy hotel and I had stress dreams all night. Got out of there quick and walked around Frankfurt for a bit the next morning. We had to go back to get more falafel, too.

We then set out for Den Haag where we stayed with our friends Jeroen and Kata. They have two dogs, Sammy and Spiken- probably the most skittish dogs I’ve ever encountered..but by the end of our stay, they warmed up to us a litttttle tiny bit ( I gave them lots of cookies ). We were provided with delicious vegan groceries galore-- why are people so kind!?

Sammy:

Spiken:

Bizarre hanging babies in Den Haag..

Our venue in Den Haag, I already forget what it’s called, oopsies

Our merch table was set up under the Shearwater poster :)

Show with Kurt Vile was great- we got to see some familiar faces. The crowd was, however, very noisy. We were told that this is typical of Dutch audiences..bummer.

The next day we drove the hour to Amsterdam for a show at Paradiso.

This is uncharacteristic of me, but I booked an appointment to get my hair cut. It was with an amazing woman named Matsuki who gave me a shampoo-head massage and expertly trimmed my unruly bowl cut. She said she didn’t know how I got the appointment because she is usually booked months in advance, but she had a rare cancellation that day, lucky me :) I felt sort of like a diva because Dan was at the venue setting up while I was sipping an espresso getting my head massaged ! I did sort of like it. 

Road going up for a boat in Amsterdam

The venue had this great patio right in front of the canal.

And nice grapes.

This guy Arnoud who we met while purchasing an amp at the music store he works at came to our show! He brought his friend Brian. He recorded the whole show, and we’re friends now :)

This morning we drove to Groningen, which is only about 2 hrs away from Den Haag ( where we were still with Jeroen&Kata ) . Picked up our rental gear and we are now at the venue. We are staying in the ‘band apartment’ - so convenient, as it’s located above the venue! We just got finished playing- weird sound tonight, but I’m over letting that get to me. Over it. You know?

Here’s me on a springy thingy at a rest stop:

beautiful kitty in Groningen

I feel like these are old-fashioned hospital beds.

Maybe the most gorgeous supermarket I’ve ever been in..

Shearwater is playing here tomorrow night, so I left them a little hidden treat for when they get here. I have a suspicion that Emily Lee might blog about it ;)

HI! We are in Frankfurt. I”m making Dan blog tonight because...my brain. ENjoi:

Last night’s show and today’s lake swim made for a perfect ending to the Shearwater portion of our Euro adventure. 

The show: Cool theater. Great crowd. SW’s sound man Phil Jones mixed the hell out of our set and dubbed us out proper. Shearwater killed as usual, and we all had plenty of Zipfer (Austrian beer). 

The lake: Emily and I almost made everyone rush to pick up our rental car this morning, but luckily we were able to change the reservation last-minute. We were glad that we did, because that gave us a few hours to spend swimming with everyone at a beautiful lake near Ebensee. This was definitely one of the best swimming spots, possibly the best, I’ve ever visited. The weather was perfect, and it was the ultimate way to cap off a successful weird tour. 

We will surely miss the crew for the rest of the journey. Until next time!

This is Dan D, your guest blogger for today. First up, here is the final Emily/Emily selfie-war pic:

Josh throwing some underwear down from his balcony ( they are my underwear ) .

We picked up our rental car in Linz, Austria and drove about 5 hours to Frankfort, Germany. It was super fun on the Autobahn.. I had some good stretches of 170 km/hr (about 105mph) with a top speed of 190 (120 mph). 

The clerk at the hotel was of German and Jordanian descent, and he liked that I spoke English. He enthusiastically shared a paper he had just published about U.S. Arab relations. Not what I typically expect, but I didn’t hesitate to ask him for a food recommendation. It led to one of the best falafel sandwiches I’ve ever had

The futbol bar scene... glad we got out of there.  

Hallo! We are now in Ebensee, Austria.

Slovenia was the good-bad type of bad. But good! For example, our hotel apparently spent all of the money on the lobby- because it smelled really nice and was kind of fancy- but our room smelled terrible and was super hot. I can’t complain though- it was a free place to sleep!

Back at the venue we spent a while playing around in Photobooth. Great fun.

Ate at a funny Slovenian ‘Mexican’ restaurant. Yes, it was bad..but I appreciated them for trying. We had a wet sloppy burrito filled with cabbage and other various vegetables and french fries. Emily and I played ‘spit’ before dinner.

Emily modeling my shoesies

The show was a little weird, but not unpleasant. Had some good conversation with some sweet Slovenians :)

This morning we walked around Ljubljana and got some food from the market before hitting the road. 

Autogrill time.

This particular Autogrill had some very strange merchandise, including sperm candy and marijuana beverages.

Arrived in Ebensee, Austria and loaded in at Kino Ebensee. ( Kino means theater ). 

It’s a cute little town surrounded by beautiful mountains and a lake that we will swim in tomorrow morning!

Walked around some and got Chinese food! 

Ebensee band playing REM :)

Hi from Slovenia! Couldn’t update the ol’ blog last night,  we didn’t get done at INmusic festival until ~3AM..but here I am now! I know you were anxiously awaiting my post.

Yesterday we left Italy headed for Zagreb, Croatia.

Josh drying his pants by the sun.

Stopped at another Autogrille

strange Italian meats

When we arrived in  Zagreb at about 2PM we  wandered around for a while in the empty festival grounds and discovered beds, hidden forest trails, and a nude beach across the lake. Dan and I had the day off since we couldn’t get added to the lineup, so we had about 12 hours to kill.

We met a guy from one of the bands playing the festival ( Yeasayer ) and walked to a little beach across from the grounds. I asked a stranger if I could borrow his dingy and he very nicely said ‘yes of course!’

Some others showed up and went for a swim, too. Good times ensued. 

port-o-selfie

Here’s a photo of the Tesla Tower..looking rather like a..well..

The festival was LONG but great. Emily peed in a port-o-potty next to PJ Harvey, Sadie and Lucas and Phil talked to PJ Harvey, I watched PJ Harvey eat dinner, Lucas chatted it up with Jeff Tweedy, etc. Yeasayer and PJ  and a band called Kwashibu Area Band put on incredible shows, and so did Shearwater. Crowds were great, beer was warm, food was fried and pretty gross, I accidentally peed on myself, I found a pair of sunglasses caked in mud and washed them off, the crowds were rowdy, I don’t care about grammar anymore,

Dan and I fell asleep in the van after Shearwater’s set and I was very very confused upon our arrival at the hotel. There was a red heatlamp in the bathroom :

And now we are in Slovenia! 

We were all super hungry and just about tore apart the green room at Kino Siska

This place seems cool! After some days off I am excited to play some music.

Until tomorrow,

Happy birthday, Dad!

We are in ITALY! yeah! This morning’s drive was gorgeous, as usual..I played Tetris for a while, dozed off..normal car stuff. We went through a really long tunnel.

Stopped at a fancy rest-stop for some lunch

Stopped at another rest stop ( AutoGrille ) once in Italy for some espresso...probably some of the best espresso I’ve ever had. Weird place. Giant chandelier.

We then stopped at a little beach town. I’m not sure what the town is called, but the lake is called Lake Garda. The town may be called Lake Garda..? So beautiful! So Italian!

Parked the van and walked over to the lake. We snagged some beach chairs which we found out later we were supposed to pay for, but...got about an hour of free time in them ;)

pebbies

Sadie has been saying she can’t wait for her Prosecco on an Italian beach, so we had to have one.

After a swim, we walked to a nearby pizzeria where we had an amazingly delicious meal

Things got silly after dinner. Emily got violent..then others got violent.

HI! Here’s a picture of Josh from last night,holding a sword and a wooden horse.

This morning was really nice. Somehow I was downstairs before anyone else, and I sat on this Swiss patio for a while in the sun.

Gradually the others emerged, and we had a leisurely morning with coffee, cats and muesli.

After a couple hours of dilly-dallying we rounded up the crew and headed into town. Some of us went to the pool, and some of us went to the lake. I was amongst the lake-going folk. Saw some ducks, a Coot, doggies, huge flies, and lots of fuzzy green moss :)

On our way back home, Jirka asked if we could stop to retrieve a geocache, and we did! It was a little box of toys hidden under some roots at a cross-roads. I now want to start geocaching.

Back home, we got ready for the show at a “DIY” space in a little village called Tavannes. I could be wrong about that, and don’t feel like fact-checking atm.

The Swiss idea for “DIY” space is not the same as in the states. It was actually a pretty nice venue with a great sound-system.

Once again my battery is dying, so..this will have to be brief.

Woke up at Anya & Patrick’s house and had a stroll through the forest!

The Ems Villa

Walked to the Co-op and got this yummy Onigiri snack

When we got back to the house, it was time to play a show. It was beautiful and full of smiles :)

It was fun to hear Shearwater play a quiet set.

Tossed a ball around with this kid and laughed a lot..

And now we are in a different Swiss town, which I don’t know the name of..

There are cats and a fire and babies and delicious food!