#nasalrod

It was a long haul,‭ ‬about five hours,‭ ‬and we left early.‭ ‬Joel started to get road hypnosis by the end.‭ ‬Michelle was tuned out for a lot of it,‭ ‬dancing in her headphones.‭ ‬Literally. She popped them off to see what Tyler,‭ ‬Joel,‭ ‬and I were head-bobbing to.‭ "‬I looked up any you were all grooving,‭ ‬so I had to see if what you were listening to was better than what I was listening to.‭" ‬It was Joel's mp3s on random--‭ ‬we were all head bobbing to Gojira. Actually,‭ "‬random‭" ‬for Joel's player means‭ "‬a lot of Dead Milkmen and Burning of I.‭" ‬Which is all pretty fantastic driving music.‭ ‬Even in our van's tinny speakers,‭ ‬those Burning of I songs are stand-outs...‭ ‬they were my first write-up,‭ ‬and like most freshman efforts,‭ ‬I look back on that piece and think they deserve a better review.‭ ‬They should be heard--‭ ‬get their records.‭ ‬And hey,‭ ‬we're playing with them at The Kraken in October. But I digress... While we didn't actually make it to Spokane last time,‭ ‬our pit stop in Ellesnburg definitely wasn't this hot in the spring.‭ ‬Spokane was really,‭ ‬really sweaty.‭ ‬We got to the venue before the doors unlocked and found a pub around the corner with WiFi,‭ ‬air conditioning,‭ ‬and‭ ‬$2‭ ‬Blue Moons.

The venue itself has a huge back room for gear and merch,‭ ‬removed from the show space,‭ ‬with a bar upstairs,‭ ‬and the flashiest drink tickets I've ever seen.‭ ‬I didn't get much use out of that--‭ ‬I did my turn as designated driver...‭ ‬largely because my body was rejecting beer.‭ ‬Dunno why. The Spokane crowd was really nice--‭ ‬Spokaners,‭ ‬as far as I can tell,‭ ‬are really nice in general--‭ ‬and I was handed a parking lot Pabst tallboy while we were loading in.‭ ‬The end of that beer was like swallowing sand...‭ ‬I drank water through most of the night. We initially balked at the pay lot behind The Hop...‭ ‬until we saw the price.‭ ‬Paid parking lots are expensive in Seattle.‭ ‬The lot we were in,‭ ‬noon,‭ ‬evening,‭ ‬and night,‭ ‬was‭ ‬$1.‭ ‬I think we can handle that. ubik.‭ ‬and Nasalrod were absolutely the weirdest bands of the night,‭ ‬and different kinds of weird,‭ ‬so one of us couldn't inoculate the crowd for the other.‭ ‬There was a lot of metal metal metal on tap from the Spokane bands,‭ ‬and we were in the middle of the whole thing.