|
|
| TOUR JOURNAL |
December 16 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
Neumos
with The Wrens, Okkervil River, The Emergency |  | My, my, what a good time that show was.
We get to the venue to find out that Pretty Girls had cancelled.
Something about one of them being on their deathbed.
I was bummed as I'd been wanting to check them out for a long time now.
On the good side, The Emergency stepped in with only 3 hours notice.
You know your radio station is doing well when, with only 3 hours notice, you can score an act as rad as The Emergency.
Fortunately we were first so all we would have to do is stay sober long enough to play and then the night would be ours.
Unfortunately during the opening bars of sound check, Jason pedalboard (affectionately known as "That Fucking Huge Heavy Box") started making all sorts of Godawful noice.
The culprit turned out to be the Vox wah pedal.
A mad dash to Guitar Center squashed that fly.
Meanwhile, downstairs KEXP had laid out quite a spread of food, a seemingly bottomless beer cooler. They even scored us a fifth of Jack.
We signed some posters for the show.
Then we played to a totally sold out house.
All I could see were heads, all the way to the back wall.
Heads.
After we finished, we packed up our gear and proceeded to get pretty drunk.
Before I knew it, we were on our way home.
I woke up the next day and realized I still wasn't a rock star.
|
| December 15 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
KEXP
Live In Studio Performance | John is a lot cuter in person.
:) |
| December 3 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
Lo-Fi
with The Village Green |  | | "Studio 66" - A bimonthly night of 60's mod, psychedelic rock, vintage soul, and Brit pop; with DJs, bands, go-go dancers and visuals!! |
| November 19 2005:Tacoma, WA, USA
Hells Kitchen |  | ALL-AGES
5:30-6:00 Wallpaper
6:20-6:50 The Purrs
7:10-7:40 Voyager One
8:00-8:40 The Divorce
21+
9:30-10:00 The Emergency
10:20-10:50 The High Dials (Montreal)
11:10-12:00 MONO IN VCF
12:20-1:20 Razrez |
| November 18 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
High Dive
with Spanish for 100, Dept. Of Energy |
| October 18 2005:Portland, OR, USA
Berbatis
with New York Rifles, Panda and Angel, The Tough and Lovely |
| October 13 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
Nectar Lounge
with Voyager One, Black Nite Crash, Martian Memo to God |  | This is gonna be a kick ass show and it's gonna cost $7 to get in....however, we've been given a number of extra tickets.
If you are interested in going to this show, drop us a line and we will mail you tickets as long as supplies last! |
| October 9 2005:Auburn, WA, USA
KGRG 89.9 FM | | Live Radio Performance (7pm PST) |
| October 6 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
The Crocodile
with The Heavenly States, Bre (ex-Kuma) |  | | Purchase tickets online! |
| September 29 2005:Tacoma, WA, USA
Hells Kitchen
with Come Down Heaven, Dudley |
| September 23 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
Cafe Venus / Mars Bar
with The Zero Points, Elysian |
| September 15 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
Seattle Art Museum
SAM's Thursday After Hours |  | Playing Rock'n Roll in a museum goes against an entire lifetime of behavioral conditioning which taught me to be quiet in such places.
Thankfully they had a bar.
But they ran out of bourbon!
Jason drained the bar of all the bourbon they had.
How was he still standing?
We played to sets of subdued Purrs tunes to a sizable, appreciative crowd and I must say that, in the end, it was a total blast.
 |
| September 10 2005:Portland, OR, USA
Roseland Grill |  | We went down to Portland to play the MusicFestNW, which is supposed to be the Northwest version of SXSW.
Lets just say, they have a long way to go.
The drive down was thankfully uneventful. We get into town in time for free pizza at what was supposed to be an “industry meet and greet” type thing.
No industry that I saw. No one met anyone.
We got free pizza though.
We saw a couple bands playing while we were eating but very little sticks in my mind about them.
We loaded in our gear to the venue, which is called the Roseland Grill. It’s the second stage of a much bigger venue called The Roseland Ballroom. Its basically too nice and kind of dead and corporate inside.
Then we got the hell out and went to a strip club.
We ordered 5 shots of Maker’s Mark.
While the old lady bartender was halfway through the last pour, the bottle emptied.
“Oh no the maker’s bottle died,” declared a startled guest.
“Yes,” she replied smoothly, “But at least it went peacefully.”
We should all be so lucky.
The strippers were kind of hot but kind of uninspired in a Blue Velvet kind of way.
Then its back to the venue to check out some of the other acts of the evening.
Jim went into the venue through the service entrance.
Jason went in through the front door.
They were patting people down like it was a fucking Iron Maiden concert or something.
So, of course, Jason’s drugs are confiscated.
That made him happy.
Onstage right before us was one of the worst acts I have seen in a while.
It was some stand up comic sort of guy, playing “humorous” rap songs on an acoustic guitar.
He actually rhymed the word “rickets” in a tune. I fortunately, don’t remember either his name or what word he rhymed with rickets.
The urge to flee was growing stronger.
Upstairs was a bunch of crap rap bands puking out sexist stupidity to beat machines while kids, lobotomized by the media into thinking they were being entertained, beat their chests in a gorilla like fashion.
It didn’t sound like it would ever stop.
The bass drum was coming right through the ceiling into our room.
It was then time for us to play.
We had been rehearsing for a couple weeks for this show with the idea that it would be a good chance to play infront of some different people…and truthfully there was a great turnout of what is kind of becoming our usual crowd in Portland.
We played very well I must say, especially considering that pounding crap from upstairs was going the whole time.
Here is some photos:
The Jason's Sing...
Jima writes important stuff on his hand...
Craig beats the skins...
Its a 3 Guitar Attack...
Ow! My Eye!
Then, what was another of the worst bands I have ever seen took the stage.
Some funk-fusion-jazz-metal crapola.
God, they had no idea what they wanted to do, other than show off their technically mediocre chops to their girlfriends.
We split out of there fast.
So fast we didn’t even wait around to get paid.
We went to see The Out Crowd playing at some other venue.
At least there were a couple decent rock bands playing.
|
| August 25 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
Neumos
with Voyager One, The Vells |  | Neumo's is a nice place to play. In case you don't know, the basement contains at least 3 dressings rooms and showers (?!). Each band was given a couple six packs of Miller High Life in bottles and a tiny fridge to keep it cool. That number of dressing rooms was particularly key on the night we played as there were 3 bands. We were first. We played well. People seemed to like it.
 
We debuted a new tune to which the crowd responded well.
 
I then spent most of the rest of the night hanging out at what I believe is our first official "Merchandise" table setup at the back of the bar. There was a groovy oil-ameboa light back there that helped me pass the time between ever increasing CD sales. The Vells were on next. They play nicely constructed pop tunes and have wireless vocal microphone headsets. I don't think I could ever play with one of those things on. Its just not Freudian enough for me. Then came Voyager One. Although their new CD really only lists 2 people in the band, there was a full on team of musicians on the stage. The sound was huge as was the multimedia extravaganza that was projected upon them while they played. After it was all over Craig borrowed $20 from these two Scottish chicks who were holidaying in Seattle. He said he'd pay them back at the after-show gathering that we typically have at Jason's place. But then he gave them a fake address. |
| August 6 2005:Portland, OR, USA
Towne Lounge
with The Out Crowd, The Shrills | Various members of The Purrs started to arrived at Purrs headquarters around 1pm to load gear for their drive to Portland to play with the very cool band, The Out Crowd. Turns out The Out Crowd came up to Seattle the night before to play and as usual crashed at Purrs headquarters. After a late after-show party, bodies were slowly peeling themselves off the couches, floor, and the bushes outside. At this point The Purrs were quite sleep deprived.
The Out Crowd loaded up and left for Portland via Dicks. They sure do like to talk a lot about Dicks.
The Purrs loaded up and left for Portland. No Dicks.
Aaron and Sandy from the kickin’ local band, The Zero Points, joined us on the road for a weekend of debauchery. Thank god our van Connie has a nice big bed in it. Both Jason’s and Jehan, laid down and rested as Jim drove the gang down the I-5 gauntlet.
We arrived early, ate some Mexican food, walked to Powell’s bookstore, then wandered back to load gear into the Towne Lounge. The Towne Lounge is a new hip Portland club, nicely decorated with lots of mirrors. The staff was very nice and made sure we were all treated well. We had a really great turn out. We saw so many friends and family from Portland and Seattle, and made many new friends.
The Shrills started out the night with a tight set of BJM-styled rock. We played a good set as well to a full room. The Out Crowd then blew the roof off with their always hot as shit sets. It was a great show and it was cool to meet some of our Portland rock-star heroes such as Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols and Sara Mayfield of the defunct bands, King Black Acid and The Atoms. She has a new band but I can’t remember what it’s called. I’m sure it’s a good one.
After the show everyone went to an after-hour party hosted by the Shrills. It’s really a blur at this point. …there was lots of drinking and smoking, talk of rainbows, and a very cool jam session. We then went to Stuarts, the Out Crowd drummer, to eat some hummus and crash at 7am. We woke up at noon to eat at the Kennedy School then loaded up Connie for the trip back home. I-5 was a mess. We were a mess. A glorious mess.
|
| August 4 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
High Dive
with Joy Wants Eternity, Half Light |  | ** The Purrs new LP CD Release Show! **
Tonight it was the Purrs CD Release show for their brand spankin’ new LP, “The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of”. After six months of recording the album ourselves, insane sleep deprived days at Electrokitty studio mixing and mastering the album, fighting over art work, it was high time to celebrate the album’s release.
The Purrs are very happy with how the album turned out and have been blown away by the positive reception it’s received. People tell us they love it, radio stations across the U.S. and Canada are playing it, we couldn’t be happier. After releasing only EPs it sure is nice to get all these songs we’ve been playing for years recorded. Now we can move onto the next batch of songs in the kitty. …ouch, ah sorry.
Oh, yes, the CD Release show! What an amazing show it turned out to be. The venue was packed and charged with energy. Half Light opened the set with their signature sound of dreamy psychedelic-country bliss. It was a pure delight. The Purrs followed with a high energy set. The only thing that went wrong was after one spurt of smoke our fog machine broke. We were on too much of a high to notice. After the set it took Jim a half hour to walk from the stage to the bar. People kept buying him drinks. By the time he got to the bar he already had four beers in hand. He can’t turn down a drink. He then met someone from eastern Europe who demanded he buy Jim some shots of Vodka. Well, this nice chap just poured them down his throat for him as Jim already had his hands full. The band met lots of nice people and saw so many friends, new and old. It was a great time. Joy Wants Eternity ended the show with their shoegaze wall of sound played nicely to some mind-melting film. It was truly a fantastic show.
After the shows the Purrs went to their usual hang out to unwind with friends. This happens after every Purrs show. We’ve been doing this for almost five years. For some reason on this night, seven cat run into the house almost at the same time. This has never happened. The cats played, we laughed, we drank, we went to bed. The MAN had to end the party as we all had to go to work the next day.
|
| August 4 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
KEXP | Today the Purrs loaded their car-eating Ford econoline (we call her Connie) to the KEXP radio station to play a live in-studio performance. We were all very excited to play live on one of the coolest radio stations that exists on this planet. We loaded into their plush studio and prepped for a noon live show with the lovely Cheryl Waters. Kevin Suggs was on had as our sound engineer. He did an amazing job getting us setup, getting the sound dialed in, and making us feel comfortable. Well, it was hard for us to keep calm as this was going to be largest audience we were about to play live for. We had some friends there to cheer us on, Cheryl came in at noon to kick of the show, and she really made us feel at home. We channeled that nervous energy into a high energy set. We played two songs, Cheryl asked us some great questions for the interview portion of the show, then we launched into two more songs. Afterwards we left to unload our gear and head to our day jobs, all of us electrified from such an experience.
You can hear the live show by going to KEXP’s archived audio stream and selecting to hear the 12pm show on August 4th.
|
| July 16 2005:Tacoma, WA, USA
The Kickstand
with Blei, The Pharmacy, Of The Swaying Sort | Boy we haven't been back here in quite a while.
And truthfully, we haven't had much luck in this town. It seems like every time we played here, we ended up in some flaky bar where the inmates are running the asylum...
(....a note to prospective bar owners, just because you like to drink doesn't mean you know how to run a bar....)
But this time was going to be different, right?
....wrong....
On the way down I realized that I don't really get out much.
The I-5 has really degraded since the last time we passed through.
Huge craters where car bombs went off, um I mean, pot holes formed....Inexplicable concrete walls in the middle of the highway that have been erected for "our protection"....It wasn't a pretty picture.
But the journey was without real incident (as was the whole road trip actually).
We get into Tacoma around 7 pm.
Tacoma is a strange mixture of bombed out buildings and burgeoning pockets of sanity. The schizoCulture is actually endearing in my opinion. One block is filled with corpses and crack whores, the next with art house theaters and coffee shops.
And that is where we're playing tonight, a coffee shop.
And that is where things start to go awry.
Because of the massively high employee turn over (always a bad sign), none of the newbies know how to open the alleyway door which would have allowed us easy load in without having to disturb customers.
Instead we get to load in through the front, knocking about tables, chairs and the odd occupant that might be trying to enjoy a coffee.
We were supposed to the be first of 4 bands for the evening and since the venue is a coffee shop, the show would start at 8 pm.
Just as we begin setting up we realize there is no P.A. system.
(note to coffee shop owners: "P.A." stand for "Public Address" and is a system of electronic devices that boosts the volume of any sound input into the system. It is often used to allow audience members to discern human voices singing over the din of other musical instruments.)
We decided to bail on the scene for a while and go in search of dinner.
That was when we discovered that people in Tacoma don't seem to eat food.
There were no places to eat for miles in any direction.
During our fruitless journey we came across a pretty sleazy bar that advertised "Pizza" on a sign out front.
Inside was a drunken collection of derilects presided over by a crotchety old coot.
We ask about the food.
She tosses us a worn menu.
$2 personal pan Di Giourno pizzas?
Aren't they $4 in the store?
I was suspicious. The blaring butt rock wasn't helping my appetite either.
Just then, 2 dolled up teenage girls step into the bar. They hand the old coot their (fake???) IDs. The lady doesn't even look at them.
"Whatdya having?", she asks.
The girls, probably in surprise at actually being allowed to drink, wait just a second too long before ordering something.
A grizzled old pedophile leans across the bar from my right and slobbers.
"Lemme buy you two a drink!"
I wish I'd had a camera for the deer in the headlights look the girls had.
"Don't be scared", the drunk continues, "I jesh wannna ki-ki-ki-kiss you."
We decided to bail on the food thing and head back to the coffee shop.
We ended up rigging up a basic PA system using a guitar amp from the other band. Extra special thanks to "Of The Swaying Sort" for the amp and to Dayna, our default road manager for this excursion, for tweaking the EQ making it sound 100% better.
Now to the good part of the evening.
We played in front of a very small but enthusiastic bunch and actually had a really good time. The two girls from the hell bar even showed up.
I think we |
| July 5 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
The Crocodile
with Two A Day, MANPLUS |
| June 25 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
Cafe Venus / Mars Bar
with The Zero Points, White Gold |  |
| June 18 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
The Dubliner
with The Zero Points |  |
| June 1 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
High Dive
with sea.mine, Upstate |
| April 16 2005:Seattle, USA
Monkey Pub
with Los Peligrosos |  |
| April 2 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
The Dubliner
with Weary |  |
| March 25 2005:Stanwood, WA, USA
Stanwood Hotel
with Spanish for 100 | The Stanwood Hotel is an honest to God RocknRoll dive bar.
Its a small cinderblock building with a inexplicable wild west facade.
There is no stage.
You play on the floor in one corner surrounded on three sides by melted vinyl LP's glued to the walls.
And yet, the sound is really good.
The bar also treated us very well.
Craig spent most of his time there drinking and having an in depth conversation with a manniquin.
Meanwhile Dose and Jason protected the van against roving gangs of hoodlums that were unabashedly walking down the street smashing car windows.
I spent my night trying to avoid drunken circular conversations about T-shirts.
And yet, I had an awesome time and will definitely come back for more. |
| March 7 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
The Rendezvous
Nadamucho New Music Monday
with J. Hiram Boggs and the Satisfaction, Lost Incredible |  |
| February 22 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
Sunset Tavern
with Silver Sunshine, Lillydale |
| February 19 2005:Bellingham, WA, USA
The Nightlight
with Something For Rockets, The Femurs |  | Bellingham....ah what can you say?
This was the first show with our newest member of the band, Connie....Connie the 1986 Econoline 350 XL van that is. While Jason was pulling Connie into his driveway he tagged the fender of a Lexus that someone had foolishly parked on the street. We then loaded the van with our gear and hauled ass north for Bellingham.
Bellingham has been a town The Purrs have been trying to get into for a while. Well we finally scored one and it turned out to be a pretty kick ass gig too.
We played at a venue called The Nightlight Lounge. We pull up to the bar and 2 guys meets us at the load-in area with a nice big metal cart. They proceed to help us load our stuff (!!!???) on to the cart and then haul it all the way to the stage for us (!!!???).
I can safely say that we've not been treated so well in....well...forever.
Not only did they haul our gear, they gave us a dressing room (???) with beer and food in it!!! The venue itself is super swanky. I kept walking around trying to figure out how the hell we ended up in such a nice place. Then it occurred to me that we are a kick ass band and that we deserved to be treated uber-nice for once in our 4 year history.
That's right kids, we've been a functioning unit for 4 years. The headliner that night was a band known as "Something For Rockets", notable because the lead singer is the son of violin legen Itzak Perlman.
Dose, having played violin since he was 5 or so, was pretty curious about The Perlman Connection. He chatted up Rockets Perlman for a couple minutes, telling him how he was a big fan of Papa Perlman...then proceeded to hit him up for $20. "I'll pay you back tomorrow," Dose said. I think Rockets Perlman was a bit spooked as Dose walked out of the dressing room $20 richer.
We were first. We played and totally kicked ass. Our guitar sound was especially awesome that night. Then it was time to commence drinking.
The Femurs had bailed on the gig. The management sent in a surrogate band which I was too wasted to remember the name of. Sorry guys. Jason tried to take a picture of a hot chick we'd seen earlier in the evening at a local eatery. She got scared too. Then the management came down on him for taking pictures. We never did figure out why.
Something For Rockets played. They were OK, but not really my tea cup. Next was the load out. Again, the sound guys stepped in with the magic metal cart and whisked our gear off to the loading area. It was like heaven.
The van was loaded and so were most of us...except for me....I was painfully sober as I was the designated driver. Everyone should be extra nice to the designated driver, taking one for the team like we do.
 < |
| February 1 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
The Crocodile
with Arkade, Half Light |  |
| January 28 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
The Catwalk
with Some By Sea, Suretoss, Conversation Heart | Sameer Shukla, Pixel
** A Shtick Zine Benefit! ** |
| January 3 2005:Seattle, WA, USA
Chop Suey
with Vista Vista, Driving The Eights, Velcron | OK, We're playing last out of 4 bands on a Monday at Chop Suey. Well, it could have been worse I suppose.....I'm not sure how.  We had band dinner at some place called "The Honey Pot". Good food, slow service. ...and then we had a drink at some place called "The Satellite...something or other". Expensive drinks, slow service. Whatever. Considering it was our first time on a stage in over 4 months it went pretty well. The Management had provided our dressing room with a case of bottled water. That was nice. The bottles were frozen solid. No large fuck ups in our set. Hell, there were even people there to the bitter end. Thanks to everybody for sticking around. See you in February....  |
|
| Check out gigs from these years: |
|
2001
|
|
2002
|
|
2003
|
|
2004
|
|
2006
|
|
2007
|
|
2008
|
|
2009
|
|
2010
|
|
|
