Expanding Universe: Gooblins, Blizzies, and the Father of Death

Prologue
As you probably read in the last blog entry, we were supposed to spend this week traveling to and from WorldCon in Reno, but had to pull out for horrible, stupid reasons (namely money). In an act of desperation last Saturday (mere days from the time we were supposed to leave for Reno), I contacted mankind's (and my) last hope, The Protomen, to see if we could join them on their latest run through the non-DFW portions of the state of Texas. To my great delight and surprise, I was contacted that night by Murphy Weller himself, and the wheels were set in motion. Before I knew it, it was Tuesday morning, and we were loading up the trailer and hitching it to the Macho Van to meet our friends The Protomen in Houston.


Tuesday, August 16 2011
With all of our previous mishaps involving overheating engines, broken air conditioners, malfunctioning windshield wipers, and blown tires, we decided to go into this final road trip of the summer with all systems operational. The A/C was fixed (goodbye, all remaining tour money!), the oil was changed, the fluids were topped off, and the trailer was outfitted with a shiny (dirty) new (used) spare tire. With the trailer packed full and the Macho Van in top operating condition, we had only one thing left to do before we could hit the road: gather supplies.

Sorry if you were expecting a case of beer and a gallon of vodka, but it's Texas in August, mother fucker!

Though it unfortunately makes for a less interesting blog entry, I am happy to report that the trip from Dallas to Houston went off with absolutely no complications, and we arrived in our host city with enough time for us to check into our hotel room and watch a little TV on the loudest, broken-est television set I have ever encountered before making our way to the venue, Super Happy Fun Land.

This was our second time at SHFL, and I think it's safe to say that the venue is a bit... eclectic. Located on the train tracks in a mostly abandoned warehouse district just southeast of downtown Houston, Super Happy is a venue that's a little hard to swallow at first. The graffiti-covered outer walls aren't exactly inviting, and the dark, expansive insides are covered with a fairly large amount of nightmare fuel.

Is... is that... Roseanne?

But beyond its odd exterior, SHFL is a pretty cool venue with a good stage and some cool staff. Unfortunately, we had a bit of trouble with the sound guy, and our sound (especially onstage) left a lot to be desired. Even still, the crowd (which was quite large for a Tuesday) gave us a warm reception, and further showed their generosity by buying a very sizable amount of merch throughout the course of the night.

When the Protomen finally took the stage, the place was even more packed, and the crowd was energetic and ready to rock. The Protos seemed to encounter the same sound issues that we did, and I noticed an unmasked KILROY making frequent trips back to the soundboard to try and remedy the situation. Luckily, everything seemed to even out before the end of their second song, and the rest of their set went off without a hitch.

Thomas and Julio couldn't get enough!

The only other incident of the night occurred when an in-character Turbo Lover, in full Dr. Wily-attitude mode, was shoving his way through the crowd on the way to the stage (as he typically does), when a testy audience member got a little pissed about his "ill-mannered" behavior and decided to shove him back. When Turbo got back to the stage, he grabbed the mic and gave the guy an innocent, Wiley-esque "fuck you" and the dude got super pissed and stormed out of the venue. His loss, of course. Going to a Protomen show without a sense of humor is like jumping out of a plane without a parachute, of course it's going to end badly!

At the end of the night, we loaded up our wares and bid our ProtoFriends goodbye until we were to meet again on Thursday in San Antonio. We got a little food, then headed back to the hotel for some sleepies before heading to San Antonio in the morning.

Wednesday, August 17 2011
Wednesday was our day off between ProtoShows, so there's not much to tell. Lots of driving, and lots of laying around in an icy cool hotel room. For the second day in a row, Julio had to feed his debilitating Blizzie (aka DQ Blizzard) addiction, and I've never seen anyone so happy to ingest a delicious frozen treat.

Not pictured: Blizzie-induced erection

We also had a chance to satisfy my own personal south Texas addiction, El Taco Tote.

You're damn right it's Tacotote Time!

Thursday, August 18 2011
Checkout time at the hotel was at noon, yet load-in at the club, Jack's, wasn't until 6pm, so we had a lot of time to kill. The obvious solution? Natural Bridge Caverns! Sure, we're a band on the road, but that doesn't mean we can't do tourist-y stuff every now and then. The cave itself was pretty damn cool, and the tour guide (though mostly disregarded by the rest of the tour group) had a lot of cool things to say. The tour we went on had a lot of rare formations, and a lot of odd ones, like the "cave bacon."

Thomas found the cave bacon to be irresistible!

Once we got to the bottom of the cavern, the guide killed all the lights and we got to experience a few minutes of total darkness, which was both cool and terrifying, as it gave me a pretty damn good idea of what it would be like to be blind. It also made me think of Cradle of Filth.

When the lights came back on, we found out that we were in a room they called the Cathedral room, primarily because of the formations on the wall that resembled a giant pipe organ. Giant pipe organ, you say?

One Night Only: The Cave Gooblin

After finishing up at the caverns, we headed back into town and decided to just ambush the club a few hours early. They were totally cool about our early load-in, and we even had enough time to grab a few pizzas before getting to work on the show.

And no, the giant fish smoking a blunt is not part of our usual stage setup...

Pretty much everything about this show was better than the Houston show. Both the sound and the soundman were amazing, the lights were killer, and the crowd was rowdy, on their feet, and more than willing to participate in chants, claps, and the waving of lighters during "Nothing is Epic." The energetic crowd (peppered with the smiling, rocking faces of various Protomen) and the loving, welcoming feeling from the city of San Antonio made for a tremendously awesome "farewell" for this particular stage show and summer of touring. If any of you reading this were present that night, I just want to say thanks! You gave us a great sendoff, and truly energized us to come back after our break with the best album and stage show yet.

The Protomen must have felt the energy too, because of the half a dozen or so times I've had the pleasure of sharing the bill with them, this was by far the best performance I have ever seen them give. They ran through the entirety of Act II, which was quite a treat, but the excellent sound at Jack's made the whole affair sound massively huge ("The Father of Death" sounded like a damn bomb going off). On top of this, the band themselves were going absolutely nuts: stomping around the stage, headbanging, stage-diving, fist-pumping with such abandon that I would be surprised if at least one of them didn't suffer a bit of a dislocated shoulder! All around, it was just an amazing night of performances in front of an amazing crowd, and I couldn't have been happier to be a part of it.

After their set, I received my customary big, sweaty hug from KILROY, and after they finished signing an ungodly amount of autographs and taking an assload of pictures with assloads of fans, we all gave many hugs and high fives and smiles before heading north as they headed south. It's difficult to vocalize how thankful we are of the Protomen, and how lucky we are to be able to play with them and spend time with them and learn from them. We've played with dozens of national and international touring bands during our run so far, but never has a band been so willing to give us advice and be frank and honest about both the downsides and payoffs of following this crazy rock n' roll dream. It's an honor and a pleasure to be able to play shows with and spend time hanging out with such a fun, cool, and genuinely awesome group of people, and I look forward (as always) to our next encounter with those crazy Tennesseans known as The Protomen.

And so, with this blog entry, we officially lay to rest this crazy summer of shows known as the Expanding Universe tour. And in doing so, we shall retreat back to HQ where we will soon emerge with new music, new stories, and a new stage show to share with you all over again. Thanks once again to everyone we have met during our travels, and a huge thanks of course to everyone who has supported us in our dream, both now and in the past. This is only the beginning, faithful friends!

URIZEN Era III: coming soon!