New York, I love you but you're bringing me down

As a result of a lack of internet access, I have to summarize our last few post-canadian dates.

MAY 5 @ Death By Audio, Brooklyn, NY - We played with Tera Melos (a band we have been unashamedly enthusiastic about) and Fang Island (a band that, for lack of a less indulgent reference reminded us of Thor Axe). Decent show, oddly messed up by some timeslot drama that involved us playing last out of 6 bands instead of third out of 6 bands. Eh, what can you do. Some things are out of your control sometimes...........

MAY 6 @ Red Door, Portsmouth, NH - The last time we played New Hampshire we weaseled our way onto the Christian rock stage at the jack-o-lantern festival in Keene, NH. This time we played a legitimate show with electro-pop folks Tiny Whales. It was rad, and Ryan from TW (former dorm-mate of mine) was more kind to us than any human being should ever be. This hospitality involves a free places to stay, one free meal, and 90 Pabst Blue Ribbons.

MAY 7 @ O'Briens, Boston, MA - We expected nothing going into this show and had an amazing show as a result. Played with Tiny Whales again, as well as Ho-Ag side project "Zoig Ma-Noig". They used a highly specific Game Boy program to generate beats. No complaints.

MAY 8 @ Pianos, Manhattan, NY - New York venues tend to do this thing where they ask the people coming into the show what band they are there to see and then pay the bands accordingly instead of splitting the door money between bands like normal people. That's all I have to say about Piano's.

MAY 9 @ Rock Star Bar, Brooklyn, NY - This show happened about 6 hours ago. Because of some form of miscommunication, we were forced to stop our set after only playing two songs. This is unfortunate, since more people came to see us tonight than any of our other New York shows. We started setting up at 10:10 PM when the promoter of the show informed me that we were going to most likely be cut off at 10:30. This was all because of the bartender, who was spiteful because of another misunderstanding (she interpreted my claim of trying to "play as many songs as possible as quickly as possible" because we knew we might be cut short as me saying we would play "as many songs as we possibly could"). Earlier in the evening, the same bartender (one of few females I've met in my life that I have no regrets referring to as a "total bitch") pre-emptively scolded me and Aaron for not tipping after we ordered PBRs. Of course, this was before we even had the opportunity to tip.

Needless to say, I tried to steal a DVD played from this bar. I failed.

I've never been so bombarded with rudeness as I was tonight. Four people drove two hours to see us (which translates to one hour per song we played) and my sister spent two hours riding public transit from far-north Manhattan to see us. I didn't know what to do, so I went into total Fugazi mode. I ran out to our van and grabbed a box of our "Flashlights" CDs. I walked around and gave a copy to everybody I could see that seemed to care about our band. A few minutes later, I only had one copy left. I was watched like a hawk by the bro-douches as I leaned over the bar, trying desperately to give the asshole bartender a copy of our cd. "I WANT YOU TO HAVE THIS CD" I yelled at her, "IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ME."

In a few ways, this is the best New York show we've ever played. Tomorrow we're going to finish mixing our record at Alex Newport's studio in Brooklyn. Hey, New York; you can stall us but you will never stop us. We're not bigger than you, but we're more determined than you will ever understand. You will never crush us, no matter how many times you try.