Magical Sunbeam of Justice

Sooooo, I know I really never finished those stories from tour, but as you can maybe see, I’m in a constant state of being backlogged. I can’t seem to stop making memories long enough to recount them. I’m a person who is always in favor of new experiences and discoveries. Which brings me to some big news: 

I will be living the life of a bi-coastal jet-setter, and relocating my home base to the wonderful city of Seattle, Washington. For those of you elsewhere in the world, that’s in the northwestern corner of the United States. My stupendous, lovely and mega talented wife Beth will be starting a really amazing job at the The Vera Project in June. I’ll be driving all of our stuff out there in a couple weeks, and then flying back for a bunch of different music-related events and activities I have coming up in Philly/NYC in the next few months. I’ll probably end up flying out to Seattle at the end of the summer, but you will know that kind of stuff when I do. But after that happens, I’ll still be in Philly on a pretty regular basis. Expect some Oh! Pears shows and DJ South Jersey Party Supply appearances ;) I’m seriously considering having some massive orchestral shows again in Philly too! I’ll be out in Philly for recording a lot as well, which I’m super excited about. I’ll save that for another post, but I’m beside myself with joy about the upcoming Oh! Pears stuff. 

Many of you probably know that I grew up in the Seattle area, so this is sort of a homecoming for me. It really feels much different than a homecoming to me though. I grew up in a town called Shoreline, just a bit north of Seattle. Although I did go to shows like 5 times a week at The Paradox (the only all-ages venue in town at the time), I was extremely shy and generally scared of exploring Seattle as a teenager, and had like 5 friends total. So I wasn’t part of the music scene there at all, and I didn’t take much advantage of how much awesome shit was happening all around me. Not to mention the incredible natural beauty of that part of the world, which I was almost entirely oblivious to. There’s just so much there that I’ve never experienced, and I feel a zillion times more ready to go out and get into it now. In fact, it makes me shake with excitement just thinking about it. I’ve been back to Seattle a bunch of times since I moved away, and I’m continually struck by how new it feels to me. I don’t even really know what to expect. But I do know that I can’t wait to make slammin’ beer with my older bro Jesse, have completely ridiculous and absurd joke conversations about totally off the wall shit with my younger bro Peter, go for walks with my mom, listen to jazz records with my dad, and party my ass off with everyone else out there. 

I’ve been in Philly for 10 years now, and I’m a completely different person than when I arrived. It’s kind of shocking to think about how different I was back then. For one, I could barely talk to anyone because I was so shy. But I had also spent most of my life before that just watching TV. I just hadn’t really put myself out there very much at all. Pretty much as soon as I got out to Jersey, I met Andrew and Chris and we started doing Pattern Is Movement. And as soon as that happened, things really started changing fast. Not long after, we moved to Philly, and I started hanging with the Pizza Club crew. I remember one night we were playing Street Fighter II, and then we went to Silk City for a dance party (Immediate maybe?). I had never once danced in my life, but Doug and Kyle and me started doing SFII fireballs and dragon punches like they were dance moves. That was one of the best nights ever for me, because I remember realizing that everyone in the room was just doing whatever the fuck they felt like doing, and that’s what we were all into about each other. Now, I pretty much dance like a complete jackass, and I love every goddamn second of it. And in the last few years, I’ve had an incredible time with the massive Oh! Pears posse taking up half of the room at Johnny Brenda’s and playing to a couple hundred of our best friends, dancing ourselves silly afterwards with Chris spinning his Bearbait jams. I mean, there are waaaaaaaaaay too many good memories that pop into my head to even get started. I’ve just been listening to the entire Relay/Arc In Round catalog and it’s throwing the memory jawn in my brain into overload. BUT BUT BUT….Please don’t think that this is anything like the end of the memory-making that will transpire between me and the city of Philadelphia. I’ve got so much more to do here. I just won’t be at JB’s EVERY night. However, I’d still like to really, sincerely, thank all of my Philly friends for being such wonderful people. I’m seriously getting teary-eyed just thinking about all of you. Here’s to many more years of intense partying. 

So anyway, there’s a whole bunch of other stuff I need to post on here, but I’ll save it for later. I have so much to be excited about. I hope you guys are all feeling that way too. My sincere love to any of my friends who are reading this. 

<3, Corey

Hello. Chris and I are on a ferry from Norway to Denmark, where we’ll be staying with my great pal Snaevar from the bands Mimas and Dad Rocks! . This ferry ride is almost four hours. Right now Chris is taking a nap. I just went out on the deck outside. It’s pitch dark outside, but with the ship’s running lights I could see the wake and a few waves here and there. It was extremely windy. I could barely even walk around. It was also super cold. I stayed out for as long as I could. I’ll probably go back out for a few more minutes before the trip is over. So now I’m back inside, listening to Mozart’s Requiem. Sometimes spending a few minutes experiencing the power of nature makes me want to also experience the power of the human condition. Both the sea and Mozart’s Requiem feel impossibly huge to me whenever I experience them. I feel great. I feel like I’m doing something that’s exactly what I want to be doing. The thing I want most in life is to find a way to keep this going. There’s absolutely nothing in life that’s better than this for me. I love travel, I love making music, and I’m well suited to both of those things. It feels like I could pretty much just do this for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy. So that’s my goal right now: to figure out how to do that. This ferry is so so nice. I feel like I’m on a cruise right now. It’s so colorful and clean. There’s a buffet restaurant and a duty free store. There’s a first class and business class. First class looks a lot like an airplane. A bunch of seats all facing the same direction, same kind of seats from a plane. There’s a really large staff as well. Last night we played in Oslo, Norway. It was pretty low key. Monday and all. Before that was Gothenburg, Sweden. We played at this spot that does shows, but is only open for a brunch on Sunday. So we played that. It was a little crazy cuz we’d been up all night the night before partying, and we got very little sleep. We really didn’t know what to expect, playing at a restaurant while all these people sat enjoying their brunch. The crowd actually looked like exactly the same people that would have been at a show though, so that helped. They sat very quietly, and didn’t seem to respond much to all my hilarious jokes. I got the impression people were interested, but in a situation like that it’s pretty hard to tell. But then we played this new song that I wrote like 3 days before the tour. This song works every single time, no matter what the circumstances are. Every time we finish that song, people go totally apeshit. Maybe I’m onto something. It doesn’t really have a name yet. It’s about the simplest song I’ve written. I’m getting into simpler structures lately. It’s kind of a challenge for me in some ways, cuz my brain likes to complicate things. But I’m also a pretty complicated dude, and I really enjoy complex music. There’s a place for all of that stuff though. Anyway, it turned out that people were hella down with the show. Always a pleasant surprise. We talked to some seriously rad people after. And we caught this amazing sunset. The venue was right at the mouth of a river, and there were large chunks of ice floating by. The whole sky was red for a few minutes. It was just beautiful. …. And more later. Never enough time to finish these ☺ There’s a lot of other shows I haven’t gotten to yet. Might save some of those for when I’m home and have nothing to do ☺

Yo wassup! I’m writing from the town of Toulouse in France. We were supposed to be in Barcelona last night, but during the drive, both headlights went out. (Well, one of them went out sometime earlier in the day, but I figured I had a couple days to take care of it.) So I couldn’t see anything for a few seconds. Not too exciting when you’re in the middle of nowhere in pitch dark. But fortunately, we didn’t die. I put my high beams on for like the next hour to get us to Toulouse, so we could get a hotel and get this shit taken care of. The whole ride, everyone was flashing their high beams at me, honking, waving, doin’ all kinds of shit to get my attention. I just kept on driving, like I was completely oblivious. Felt like a real jerk for a bit, but eventually I was like SHUT THE FUCK UP. I FUCKING KNOW. I’m just super stoked that I didn’t get pulled over. That whole situation has been taken care of now, was just a matter of new bulbs. It’s crazy that they die so close together like that. Really just a matter of a few hours.

…….And now I’m writing from Barcelona. We just rolled up like an hour ago. We’re staying here tonight with this AWESOME dude Edi from the band ZA! They are an incredible band. Incidentally, I was listening to them when I got hit by a car recently. And I still love the shit out of that record. It’s a deep love. Right now I’m drinking what I assume to be what a mojito is supposed to be. It was made in like 5 or 6 steps, as opposed to the slushy-like jawns I’m used to. And it’s absolutely bangin’. Bears some flavor resemblance to a mint julep. Just a bit. I’m doing laundry next door, but I thought I would chill at this bar for a few. Chris is at Edi’s place dealing with a pretty intense neck cramp. What a fucking bummer! I really hope he’s alright. A number of the beds we’ve been sleeping on have been quite hard. Possibly a factor.

Barcelona is FUCKING DOPE. I haven’t done shit here, but I definitely get the impression that it’s the fucking shit. I wish I had more time here, but also there’s the fact that I’m absolutely gonna be back, so I’m not gonna sweat it too hard. Maybe we can chill here on the way back up north. Tomorrow we play Tanned Tin Festival in Castellon. I’m super pumped. ZA! Is playing as well, and Dead Western, and Nat Baldwin, and a bunch of other champs. I think it’s gonna be a fucking blast. For real. Holy shit, this mojito is hella strong. Needed that :) It keeps getting more delicious.

Okay, so lemme seeeeeeee. Last time I hit yallz up, we were in Chalon sur-Saone. That was a great time. I keep saying that, but it keeps being true. I love tour. I love travel. I love meeting new pals to party with. I love Chris. I love playing jams. I love singing. Seriously, this shit is for me, straight up. Soooo, after that last entry, we headed to Caen, France. This show was real DIY kind of stuff. The promoters were hella nice, and the peeps were feeling that shit. Good show. After that, we dropped our shit at the place we were sleeping, and headed over to this bar with the promoter, Pascal,  and company. They bought us tons of delicious alcohol. I mean for real delicious. There was this toffee vodka that was just fucking outstanding. I kinda thought it would be gross, but it was so god damned tasty that I started fearing for my life. I restrained myself just enough not to throw up. I also had some kind of beer/liquor concoction that tasted like grapefruit. It was so so so good. And this other strong ass beer. This was Chris’ b-day night as well. Like at midnight, that is. Then we went and danced to a bunch of weird music. Look, I’ve got nothing but love for Europeans. Really, nothing but serious, serious love. But they like some bullshit jams sometimes. Just my opinion. They played Cypress Hill, which put a nice big smile in my heart, but then they played a whole bunch of silly shit. Every once in a while, they played a decent jam, but not often. This isn’t an across the board observation, mind you. There have been lots of strange nights of music, and a few really good nights. I had a really good time in Zurich (Which I called Munich earlier, btw. Stupid foreigner mistake). The DJ there played lots of really dope 70s shit like Lilliput and Joy Division, and other solid rock n’ roll cuts from the 60s/70s. I can get down to that shit for sure. I feel like people here mostly haven’t discovered the magic of soul, r&b, or hip hop. That saddens my heart a little. It does feel a little lonesome to not be able to enjoy the majesty of some Tribe, or even some Snoop with the people around me. In Ljubljana, there was this spot where me and Chris got down to some real deal hip hop, that not even Chris could recognize. That was great. But we were almost the only ones really feelin’ it. BTW, these are some records I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know until now: Q-Tips’s first solo record, and Mos Def’s first solo album. LIKE HOLY FUCKING SHIT. If you haven’t heard them, do that now. I love Chris for that. ……..AAAAnyway, that night was a fucking BLLLLLAST. And then after that we were in Nantes. That night was also fucking awesome. There’s a new venue there called Le Stakhanov, that’s really awesome. We played there and drank a lot of delicious champagne. This was Chris’ actual b-day. It was great. More of a chill night overall, but really really great people. Me and Chris were hanging out with this great girl named Gabby, who spoke really solid English, and was just so fun to hang with.  We stayed with the promoter, Alex, who was just such a nice guy. He got us these slammin’ pastries the next morning. After the pastries, we headed to see this giant mechanical elephant that is made to look similar to the kind of stuff that Jules Verne was into. It was pretty amazing. It was being repaired, so we didn’t get to see it walk around, but there are youtube videos for that. We then headed to Rennes, and played at this Tavern that was built in like 1550 or something. The show had been moved, cuz the popo shut down the original spot. Bastards. Anyway, the show was chill, and that town is really awesome, cuz it’s got tons of buildings that were buit in the 1500s. I love that kind of shit.

……….Will post more soon! Lots more shows to tell yallz about. Tanned Tin was SO SO SO SO GOOD. I know about all these unbelievable bands now that I hadn’t heard before. 

<3France<3

What up. We’re in the town of Chalon sur-Saone in France. We played here last night, and today we got to sleep in and chill a bit for a relaxing day off.

We played in St. Gallen, Switzerland two days ago, in a really nice venue called Grabenhalle. The promoter of that show was an incredibly nice dude named Marcel, who had really great hair. The other band was Dear Reader, who are from South Africa. We had a really chill dinner with all of the folks involved in the show, around the corner at a great restaurant. I always like when all the people involved in the show are eating together. It really ties the whole evening together for me. Everyone was super chill. The set went really well, especially because the sound was real legit at this place. Really filled out the sound of the two piece jawn.

I’ve been talking to a few people around Switzerland about this interesting setup they have with the Catholic church, and probably other churches as well. Apparently, the way that people in Switzerland tithe is that the church sends them a bill once a year for like a thousand francs. Our pal Ollie from Basel said that he arranged a meeting with the priest when he turned 18, to have himself excommunicated from the church, so that he wouldn’t have to pay the church bill.  From what I gather, if you just didn’t pay the bill, you’d be sent to collections or something like that. I talked to a couple of guys who said that they hadn’t been to church for like 10 years, but still payed the bill every year, cuz they didn’t want to disappoint their parents. But even their parents don’t actually go to church anymore. Part of the reason people did it seemed to be that they wanted the benefit of being buried in the church cemetery. I just found the whole thing pretty interesting. Especially since everyone I talked to seemed pretty down with paying it, even if they don’t really believe in God or anything.

St. Gallen is a really beautiful town. The morning after the show we walked around with Marcel for a while and went into an amazing church that was at least a few hundred years old. Looked like it had been refurbished a whole lot. All that tithing I guess? It was awesome though. After that we went by this abby library, connected to the church. It was pretty rad, but we would have to pay admission to actually look in, so we just went to the gift shop and got some postcards. I think we’ll be able to see enough rad shit for free on this trip that it won’t be necessary to actually pay for things like that. Anyway, the town was beautiful. It’s a very old place, and most of the buildings are hundreds of years old. It’s not on a grid at all. It’s more of a circular shape that spreads out from the town’s center, which is the church. It’s definitely a bit of a maze, but it’s really awesome to walk around. It feels so dense, cuz you can’t just look down a street for two miles. It feels like everything is on top of each other.

Last night’s show was a rad time. We rolled up and had a SLAMMIN dinner. This place we’re in is an art collective compound of sorts. One of the people involved is really into cooking, and it was the shit, for real. We weren’t totally sure if anyone was gonna come out, cuz it’s the off season in this town. Lot’s of people are on vacation till the end of the month. But after dinner, we went over, and there were a whole lot of people, and they LOVED the set. We sold a ton of shit, and had a fun ass night. It was rad as hell. I learned that this place is the birthplace of photography, and apparently their basketball team is awesome. We partied with some really sweet people, and this dude Frederic gave us some delicious home brewed beer J

Tomorrow we play in Caen, which is really close to Normandy. Stoked to be on the coast!!!

Bringing Jawns to the People of Switzerland

Ohhhhhh man. This tour is the best. We’re in Basel, Switzerland right now, headed to St. Gallen tonight. Last night we played in Basel. The people at Agora Bar are the shit. It’s a small spot, so I think we might have blown their eardrums out. It was a really interesting set. One of those sets where everyone was hella chatty for most of it, but there are a handful of people feelin’ those jams in a hella deep way. I know I was. We played a rad set. People, you have to hear the present version of “Helena” with Chris on the drums. If I wasn’t playing on it, I would probably be throwing shit and freaking the fuck out. It’s so so so hot. Anyway, people started getting like hella chatty after that for like “Tchaikovsky”, and some of the quieter stuff, and even during this John Vanderslice cover that’s pretty rockin’. And then for some reason, when I broke into the opening chords of “Under the Olive Trees”, people totally got quiet. I mean, my guitar was cutting out and shit, it wasn’t even that great honestly. But people LOVED it. All of a sudden, everyone was all up on our shit. We weren’t even going to play the last couple songs, but people were all about it. So we played this one I just wrote last week, and people were all like, OH HELL YEAH. Then we played “The Sounding of the Earth”, and people were all like OH GOD DAYYYUMMM!!!! Or at least that’s how I remember it. They might have said those things in German. But we had a fucking blast. The people were really really cool. 

The night before that was Munich. That show was RAD. Probably the funnest set of the tour so far. We both felt for the first time the power of this two piece setup. I still can’t help but miss the strings sometimes, but there’s a real visceral power to this setup. I mean, if Chris Ward is up in your shit, you just can’t go wrong. For real. My cough is still a little weird, but I think it’s been pretty okay for the shows mostly. My voice is at like 90% right now, which isn’t so bad. I don’t know if I’ve talked about this much before, but in the last like year, I’ve really realized that I fucking LOVE singing. I can’t get enough. That’s one of my favorite things about tour is singing all the time. Anyway, people just loved that shit, and the show went really really well. After that, ma and Chris danced to some really great 80s post punk jams and Britpop. I took a video of Chris, who was really bringing some ingenuity to the dance floor, but it’s too dark to see :(

First Week

We’ve been gone for a week now, and so far we’ve been through Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia. Not bad! I’m writing from an apartment in Faenza, Italy, which is the ceramics capital of the world. I have yet to see any Elvis mugs yet, though. I did see an expensive looking letter jacket that said “Milwaukee” in the window of a store called Blues Brothers. I don’t get the significance of such things to Italian people, but it’s gotta be there somewhere.

So anyway, a for realz update/ rundown:

Chris and I flew out last Sunday, and had a hella long trip of it, with a flight to Brussels, and a 3 hour layover before we flew to Berlin and spent the night there, with my pal Grinni. There were a bunch of plans after that which got switched around several times, but we ended up with a Fiat Doblo, some drums, and some Ritter Sport, and made our way down to Munich, slept in a hostel, and drove down to Italy.

First show was a solo set that I played in Padua, Italy in an after hours club/ collective. It’s a lot colder in Italy than I thought it would be. I’ve also been battling this intense cough for the last 3 weeks. Before I left for tour, I picked up this stuff called Throat Coat, which is a tea. I refrained from eating the pizza they got for us and drank a bunch of tea before the set. I was actually fairly worried that I wouldn’t be able to sing at all. I hadn’t even tried to sing a note for like 4 or 5 days before that in hopes that I could save up my voice a little. After we got situated, I went through parts of a couple tunes, and the tea seemed to be helping. I figured that maybe if I sang real real quiet, I wouldn’t hack up a lung while I was singing. So when I actually did play, it pretty much worked out. No hacking, except for one song. I couldn’t hit high notes for shit though, and still can’t. Sucks. It’s an interesting experience to play a solo set for a room full of people that you’ve never seen before, from a country you’ve been in for like 2 hours. I’ve definitely found that there are way more similarities than differences between me and just about any people I’ve ever met anywhere on tour, but it’s still kind of surreal sometimes. Definitely more so because it was just me sitting there, and a room full of people staring at me. I’ve come to find out that I really enjoy that kind of thing. It’s really intense. Almost like being in confession, but in a much healthier way. People were really quiet and attentive, and it was awesome. After the set, I got down with that pizza hella hard. It was pretty much like the pizza I’m used to in the states, but maybe more floppy than most pizza. Mainly, it was pizza, so it was the shit. We had a real cool time hanging out with people there. They were super chill. We stayed with this awesome dude named Davide.

The next day we headed for Belgrade. As we were leaving town, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much frost in my life. It was hella thick. It looked so cool the way it coated everything. Like a gingerbread house or something. The drive was mad long. Fortunately, getting through the borders was not a big deal at all. They really didn’t seem to care too much. Funny thing is, for both the Croatian and Serbian borders, there are 3 separate booths you have to drive up to and give someone your passport. Maybe it made it even easier that we didn’t speak the language. That way we didn’t even have to answer any questions, except that we didn’t have anything to declare. Incidentally, the rest stop gas stations in Slovenia are called Hip Hop. They were not playing any hip hop music, unfortunately. Once, I did hear this folk-ish music with a slammin’ backbeat though.

Belgrade (Beograd) is much bigger than I imagined it to be. It reminded me of Seattle actually, with a lot of waterfront, and lots of hills. There’s a river that runs through the middle of the city, and there’s a new part and an old part of the city on either side. I definitely was digging on the old side a lot. Pretty sweet architecture. The newer side was pretty dope too, with this interesting utilitarian 80s vibe in the apartment buildings. Kind of like some stuff in NoLibs, for you Philly peeps. Not exactly, but sorta. There are some interesting things I picked up from conversations there. For one, most people live with their parents until they get married. This is due in part to the expense of education, and the lack of part time jobs. Also, people are totally into Beirut (the band), which I found interesting because Belgrade is in the Balkans, where Beirut’s sound gets a lot of it’s influence. It makes a lot of sense, though, because all the people I talked to knew a hell of a lot about American indie jams. More than I do, I think. I wish we could have spent another day or two there. Seemed like a really interesting place. The show was really fun. Our first show as the two piece setup. I started off with the electric guitar, as I was planning to mostly play that during the set. It started fucking up on me after like the second song though, so I switched it out for the acoustic. That sounded way fuller, so I was glad I figured that out in the first set of tour. Being that it’s just a two piece, I’m very conscious of the notion of filling out the sound as much as possible. There was this dude yelling shit and getting on the stage to have conversations with me while I tuned. He was super friendly, so it’s really just funny to me that I’ve had that I’ve had that experience in several countries now, not least of all being the US. Stefen, who put the show on for us, has a totally rad band that I will totally pass along to yallz if I find some recordings. They played earlier that night. I had an awesome time with the other band too. Really good people. A side note: apparently, vampires were invented in Serbia. I need to investigate that more next time. And I need to scope out this dope ass castle we drove by. It was fucking HUUUGE. Like, a whole town, not just the place where the king chills.

Next was Ljubljana, Slovenia. We played in this crazy looking little village that I would sort of describe as a shantytown or something. It looked like the people that lived there made it all themselves. I thought it was awesome. There was nonstop partying happening all night, and we walked around, drinking and scoping the different scenes out. This one bar was playing really dope early 90s hip hop. The people there didn’t seem too sure how to dance to it, except for these few dudes who seemed to be hip hop heads. DJs I think. Anyway, me and Chris got pretty drunk and had a super fun night.

The last couple of days we’ve been in Faenza, Italy enjoying delicious food at Clan Destino, which is the venue we played at. It’s more of a restaurant than a venue really, but the owner is really into jams, so she also does sound, lights, and puts bands up at her place. This is the second time I’ve been here, the last time being when the car broke down on the previous tour. So I think I’ve had dinner here about 5 times now. It’s been soooo good. Chris was talking about the fact that there’s a bit of difference between northern Italian and southern Italian food. I think there’s less focus on pasta in the north.  Today we drive to Zurich, Switzerland. 

Hey peeps, 

So we’re in Slovenia! A lot has happened in the last few days, but I haven’t had any time at all to write in this here blog. Even now, I really only have a few minutes, so I’ll have to go into some more detail later. I have some videos, but I have to figure out how to upload them. So far:

I played a solo set in Padua, Italy. …….Ummm, and anyway, I’ll tell you about it later :)

More to come!!!

This picture I took from the stage during our set at Fusion Festival in Larz, Germany a few days ago. What a fabulous set! Such a great time!!!! So tour is now over :( We made a bunch of new friends, and had the best time I think it’s possible to have. 

So after our show in Czech Republic, we headed to Berlin, where we arrived HELLA late. We showed up like 20 mins before we were supposed to play, but the people there were very gracious and got us all set up in a hurry. The promoter Melissa is super super cool, and made me feel like less of a jerk for showing up 3 hrs late. Our set was a tad rushed, but it turned out to be a good kind of rushed. Schokoladen was totally packed, which felt really good. I think playing Berlin was an affirmation of some kind for me. A personal subconscious goal has been met. Anyway, the set was rad. We played great, and Jon broke out some fills I hadn’t heard him play before. So dope. Then Buke and Gass played and they RUUUUUUUUUUUUUULED. I had heard a couple tunes online, but wasn’t that familiar. They are such an incredible band. A two piece, with very interesting instrumentation. The dude had an instrument he made that’s half bass, half guitar, or something like that. He played a kick drum at the same time, which had a snare and tambourine inside of it. The lady played a bass ukelele and had some jingle bells strapped to her shoe. And she sang like a motherfucker. They made these really awesome rock-ish songs that are kind of unplaceable to me. I don’t really know what to compare them to, except to say that the sound of their instruments reminded me of old nasty electric blues albums. But they’re not at all a blues band. I’m describing it pretty poorly. Anyway, go scope that shit out if you like music. They were really really nice people as well, so it was a fabulous time all around. The DJ ruled as well. He played really awesome oldschool soul records, which I have heard far too seldom on this trip. 

Next day we headed to Larz for Fusion Festival. This festival is difficult to describe if you haven’t been to it. I know because many people tried explaining it to me before we played there. It’s been going on for a long time, and it’s nothing like most festivals. There are lots of really rad bands, and lots of bands I don’t care about. A very large portion of the music is techno, which I have never been a fan of at all. But the idea is that there’s something for everybody. The focus of the festival is more about partying and having a cool experience. There’s a ton of huge structures built specifically for the festival, and there are a bunch of crazy light shows at night. I can’t do justice to the statement that I had a total blast one night in the Techno Forest. That sounds like a personal hell to me as I write it, but it was totally awesome. I stayed out all night and slept for like an hour or two, and then go ready to do it all again. The problem with the day after we played (a day off for us) was that it started to rain. I still had a GREAT day walking around and hanging with new pals, and caught some fabulous bands. Some highlights from the festival: Buke and Gass again, still incredible. Zentralheizung of Death (des Todes), which is Kirmes’ band. They are rock as fuck. Kirmes had been spending all this time telling me how terrible he was at drums, and then he DESTROYED them during this set. Probably the most modest man I have ever met. He kills on the drums. His band reminds me a little of DMBQ. Just nothing but slammin’ rock and roll from start to finish, and the crowd LOVED it. A set of pure joy for me. I also caught this band Sistersss (I hope I’m spelling that right), which was a really sick 2 piece post rock band, with the rad DJ from Berlin on guitar. Gotta see if I can find some stuff online. They were rad. SchnAAk played, and their set was ultra badass. I’m a big fan of those dudes now. This band Action Beat was fun to watch. They have I think 3 drummers, 4 guitars, and a bass, and they just all play the same things at the same time. A wall of sound and watching dudes rock real real hard. Fun stuff. I missed a few bands that I really wanted to see because I got lost, or got the set times wrong. The last rad set I saw was a DOPE DOPE DOPE set from our Spanish buddies ZA!, where the rain really stepped up its game. During their set, it was pretty hardcore. But after, it turned into a huge mudbath. After the set I had an intense dance off with new BFF Grinni and Johannes and the rest of the posse. Then we were gonna bounce. Which is when Standa thought he may have lost our car keys in the mud. This commenced a few hours of torture for me and Standa, while we ran all over the place trying to track the keys down. There was a torrential downpour the whole time and it was also like 55 degrees. So after a few hours of freezing my ass off and wringing my hair out, I discovered that our pal Kirmes had the keys. So I went to shiver myself to sleep and then meet up with him an or two hour later. He looked kinda terrified when he saw me. I think I looked like I had died or something. Anyway, Kirmes, being the sweet motherly guy that he is, helped me find a shower and get situated. I felt much much better after that, and we packed up and headed off for Osnabruck, Germany. 

This dude Doerk put the show on for us at Big Buttinsky in Osnabruck, and he was so sweet. His buddy (I’m just awful with names, but he was a hell of a guy) even gave us balloon flowers at the end of the set. He’s a balloon artist by trade. Seems like a good way to make a living. Mark, who works at the hostel we stayed at, came out to the show and we chilled. Such nice peeps in that town! 

Then our last show was in Hamburg. Really cool town. We rolled up early, so I walked around a bunch. I went down to the river, which is like a more picturesque Delaware river. I rolled through a nice little restaurant area, and checked out this old church. I really can never get sick of looking at old churches in Europe. It’s just unbelievable how much effort went into building them, and how much detail there is in every single aspect. This one seemed a bit newer. Like 1800s sometime. So then we loaded in at Astra Stube, and I talked to this rad dude Lucas for a while about jazz. We went over and ate a DELICIOUS meal of some sort of zucchini casserole. Dark Dark Dark was playing at the club we ate at, and we hung out with those peeps for a bit before their set. Those guys are awesome. Totally chill peeps. We watched a couple of their songs, which I found to be quite lovely, and headed over to Astra Stube. Our set was definitely one of the best we had played on tour. For me, this was the end of the first tour I had done in quite a while, and the first for me as a bandleader. It felt fantastic to know that it had been a success, and also it proved to me that this band has real potential. We consistently played really well, there was a great energy in our performances, and I think the audiences got something real and good out of it. I don’t really know who’s going to be coming out next time around, but I have a much more solid idea of what this band means and how it translates. During the set, I heard Jon playing around with the beats in a very compelling and purposeful way, Josh playing with so much feeling and originality (a great skill of his in drawing new meaning out of written music), and Standa playing with more emotion and a sense of ownership of the parts. I think we played great at that show. We did an encore of three songs we had already played, and they felt completely different and fresh the second time around. I felt really damn proud to be playing with these dudes, and I felt musically fulfilled and energized by the whole tour. Afterwards we went to a dance party with our extremely sweet and wonderful promoter Daniella. She is a total sweetheart. We had some really lovely conversations. A couple of the Dark Dark Dark dudes came out too. Man, they’re such nice people. So many good experiences with people and bands on this tour. 

The next day I dropped Josh off with his grandma, who was also on tour in Germany with a wind orchestra I think. Then we drove to Erfurt to drop some things off and spend a precious few more hours with Kirmes. Then we headed to Dresden, and I drove on to Prague to drop Stan off. I’m right now chilling in Dresden with Jon, and we’ve been hanging out today with Johannes Zink and his family. This town is GORGEOUS. I want to live here sometime. 

Some fun facts about the band: 

Jon loves: chocolate (especially Ritter Sport), that Beck song about someone’s sister named Deborah, and America. 

Josh loves: Everything and everyone, comfortable footwear, and really outrageous dancing.

Standa loves: Cello, kebab, and Jesus.

Some fave jams from the van: Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, UK Grime, Bach, Ives, Beethoven, Thin Lizzy, Tribe Called Quest, Broadcast. 

So what’s next? Gonna head home soon and get cracking on the next record. This one’s gonna have way more instruments than the last record, and it’ll be a full length. I’m absolutely completely stoked as fuck to get going on it. It’s probably 75% written right now, so I’m ready to start recording. There’s a bunch of other stuff in the works that I’ll talk about more as it gets ironed out. But the main thing is: I’m definitely in full music mode right now. Oh! Pears is gonna be getting out into the world a lot more in the coming years. I’m filled with joy when I think about it. More soon!

Thanks for reading about the tour everybody! Please check in, as I’ll be writing about writing and recording the next record.

Love, Corey

Such a fun night last night! We played early in this really fresh outdoor area, then a bunch of people wanted us to go play some more in the park, so we ended up making a little music video with a bunch of people from the show. Was a good time! Tonight is Berlin! Gotta get moving….

I’m writing this on a word document, to be posted whenever I have internet. This is the first bummer post of tour, but it had to happen sometime right? At the moment, we’re stranded in the town of Faenza, Italy. This is a lovely town to be stranded in, for sure, so it’s not all bad news. Faenza is apparently the ceramics capital of the world. There’s a museum I might go to, just down the street from where we played a couple nights ago.

When we pulled into town, our car started doing some strange things. We pulled up to the venue, I called every number for the rental agency I could find and nobody answered. So we had a super delicious three course gourmet meal (the venue is actually a really nice restaurant), and watched some Mr. Show for a bit before playing around midnight. The set went really well (I broke a string again! WTF! ), and the people were very friendly and excited after the show. Matter of fact, I’ve only got 1 record left to sell, out of all the merch I brought with me. And that was only the 11^th show! We had a really lovely evening. The owner of Clan Destino (the venue), Morena, is such a cool person. She’s a very sincere and passionate fan of music and she’s had Jon’s band Capillary Action play a few times. She doesn’t even charge admission to concerts. She pays us, feeds us the best food you could ever have, runs the sound, and puts us up at her place. What a pal!

The next day we got up and got our gear together. I went to grab the car, and it didn’t start. Thus began the first shitty events of our tour, which are as we speak, ongoing. I won’t bore you with the details, which are very very numerous, but we still don’t have a way to get to the next show. I cancelled Ljubljana last night, and also Belgrade today. It’s a huge bummer for me, as those were two shows I was especially excited, because I was really excited to experience the cultural difference…….ANNNND, anyway, it worked out and now we’re in Vienna. About to check out whatever we can in the next 3 hours. Feeling SOOOO much better. Will tell yallz all about it soon.