Paper City Summer Tour 2011!

24 shows, 36 cities, 60 days. USA, here we come!
Last night’s home show was awesome; you can say the tour ended with a bang!  I can’t explain to you the feeling of being home after an epic trip like this.  I still feel like I’m in a dream, and I can honestly say that I’m a changed person.  This blog will remain as a time capsule—an online photo album.  *sings* Memorieeeees…  We have so many memories, so many stories to tell.  This collection of pictures represents merely a fraction of the fun we had on this tour.  Maybe next time we’ll hire a full-time photographer (or videographer!) to document the whole thing; to really do it justice. 

Last night’s home show was awesome; you can say the tour ended with a bang!  I can’t explain to you the feeling of being home after an epic trip like this.  I still feel like I’m in a dream, and I can honestly say that I’m a changed person.  This blog will remain as a time capsule—an online photo album.  *sings* Memorieeeees…  We have so many memories, so many stories to tell.  This collection of pictures represents merely a fraction of the fun we had on this tour.  Maybe next time we’ll hire a full-time photographer (or videographer!) to document the whole thing; to really do it justice. 

Our last night was super fun.  Played at one of my new favorite bars called the Lost Leaf in Phoenix (I’ll be back just to visit), and had an absolute blast.  Met so many cool people—Phoenix’s scene is off the charts!  It’s like Long Beach’s finest people exploded into another parallel, warmer world in the desert, creating long-lost cool cousins that look nothing, but act totally, like one another.  Place is chill—gonna be back.  On a bittersweet note, we return home today.  I must say, I’m going to be happy to sleep in my own bed, but God, how I’ll miss the road.

Today we drive to Arizona for our final road show.  Willcox was fun because it was sort of in the middle of nowhere and it seemed like a hub for road travelers.  After dinner we saw a rainbow that stretched from the mountains to our hotel—talk about a wink from the big guy.  Since Phoenix is only 4 hours from here, we’re gonna take our time, kick it at the hotel, and play as hard as we can in honor of our last show away from home.

We hauled ass from El Paso to Austin only to find that our show had been canceled!  That didn’t phase us, as we took the opportunity to wheat paste the streets instead—El Paso will know that we were here.

Austin.  The people are friendly and the food is the bomb.  Chase Frank is awesome, and so is Austin BBQ—dry rubbing it UP!  I love how the Beauty Bar is decorated; lots of glitter on the stage, silhouettes of a pretty 60’s lady all over, and a giant disco ball spreading light-deferent sweetness across the dance floor.  In an hour we drive to El Paso to play a show tonight at The Percolator.  We’re all splitting the 9 and a half hour drive; I hope to get some sleep in the car when it’s not my turn to drive—wish me luck, darlings!

HOUSTON WAS TOTALLY RAAAAAD!!!  You know when you go out, and you don’t think the night is going to be that fun, so you have no expectation whatsoever, but you end up meeting a bunch of cool people, playing an awesome show, and having the time of your life?  That’s sort of how last night went at Super Happy Funland in Houston, Texas!  And let me tell you, Super Happy Funland really is Super, Happy, and a Land of Fun.  First of all, the stage is awesome (nice and big, with cool stage lighting and a projector flashing color-color-color), and second, the people are just REAL people.  Like, the type of people that you meet and feel like they’re really not strangers at all, but people you may have known in another life; or perhaps they’re related to you somehow through a parallel lineage.  Anywho, it goes without expounding that we had a night that was hard to close.  In a little while we will be driving to Austin to play a show at a place called Beauty Bar, and I have a really good feeling about it.  We’re going to be reuniting with Long Beach Native, Chase Frank, for a good-ol’ “Long Beach in Austin” extravaganza.  Austin, here we come!  <3

New Orleans was pretty fun.  I loved hearing the Dixie music and jazz playing throughout the town.  The French Quarter surprised me with how clubby it was—but we found refuge in a few places that had a vintage French vibe (along with some good live music).  On Friday night we went on a Mississippi river tour on the Steamboat Nachez.  It was really beautiful, and at one point we passed by a sugar factory that made the air within a half-mile radius smell like brown sugar.  So sweet.  In an hour we leave for Houston; playing a show tonight at Super Happy Funland—I can’t wait!

Had a GREAT time in Savannah.  Rocked the Sentient Bean, and loved all the peeps who came out for the show!  What an awesome vibe&#8230;  It was Shelby&#8217;s last performance with us, so the pressure was on to deliver, and he did!  We stayed up til 5am to take the Shelbster to the airport; it&#8217;s our first day without him in over a month and a half!  Tomorrow we pick up our O.G. drummer Dave Waterman in New Orleans to finish the tour with us.  We&#8217;re on the home stretch, folks; another week and a half, and it&#8217;s home-show time!

Had a GREAT time in Savannah.  Rocked the Sentient Bean, and loved all the peeps who came out for the show!  What an awesome vibe…  It was Shelby’s last performance with us, so the pressure was on to deliver, and he did!  We stayed up til 5am to take the Shelbster to the airport; it’s our first day without him in over a month and a half!  Tomorrow we pick up our O.G. drummer Dave Waterman in New Orleans to finish the tour with us.  We’re on the home stretch, folks; another week and a half, and it’s home-show time!

We stopped in Virginia to see my old friend Tommy.  He treated us to an awesome cheese/wine tasting at Cheesetique, a fabulous gourmet cheese restaurant in a really cool part of Alexandria.  Afterwards, we went to a pub quiz with a few of our new friends from the restaurant (shout-out to Emilie and Mon Ami Stylo) and we won a bunch of farm-fresh produce for getting 3rd place!  I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.  Next time we come to Alexandria, VA, we’ll stay for longer than 6 hours—what a great city!

Had a lot of fun today in DC.  There’s so much to see, it’s impossible to do it in a day.  Felice and Andrew toured us around the Monuments—my favorite was Thomas Jefferson’s.  While there, I planked as many surfaces as I could to show my patriotism and devotion to this country.  If y’all would like to see those photos, send me a message, and I’ll post them.  I’m seriously tired—two all-nighters in a row, and I lost a stupid contact lense.  I better get to bed so I can be on the ball tomorrow as we travel to Virginia and the Raleigh.  Wish me luck on buying some more contacts—my prescription’s at home; D’OH!