(Backlog) Tour Day 6: The SoundPony (Tulsa, OK)

So far Oklahoma has the best roads I've ever driven on. Seriously its like sailing down a sea of silky pavement. All of a sudden you'll look down and realize you are going 230 knots and you didn't even realize it.

If it weren't for the masses of smoke from roadside grass burnings mixed with chemical fumes from the innumerable chemical plants along the way you could probably sleep like a baby through this entire stretch of the Indian Nation Turnpike.

At the moment we are leaving Oklahoma, just entering Missouri where I'm doubting the roads will be as nice based on what I remember from our last trip to St. Louis in June.

The show last night at The SoundPony was a lot of fun. Again we were met with another bustling tight knit music scene similar to Newport and Nashville. The crowd on a Monday night was fantastic.  Adam's parents even made the 3.5 hour drive from Kansas to see us!  What an awesome surprise!

The staff awesome too. The offered us unlimited free hotdogs and three-two beers which I had never heard of until yesterday.

Another first for me was a fat and floppy spill off the bass drum near the end our set. I went for a usual epic jump at the Marty McFly ending of After All and unfortunately botched the approach entirely, slamming down into Mike's toms nearly knocking over one of his cymbals.  I was embarrassed for a moment, but then remembered there's no points for proper dismounts in rock and roll.

After the show we scored our fourth consecutive place to crash on this leg of the tour. This time in the MOTHER F'ING EMBASSY SUITES….WOOT WOOT who's on their way up now?!?!?!

HAHA seriously though it was very sweet of our new friends Alicia, Allison and Laura for letting us crash with them. Strangely enough two of them worked at Maxine's in Hot Springs where we played this past Friday night. Laura was actually working there the night we played…small world, but very cool to see some familiar faces hundreds of miles away.

And finally, the absolutely most important news... with only one show left, Mike and Brad have begun pulling away from the pack in the ARA Radio Challenge.  Adam and I still suck.  Marissa...sorry had you got in earlier you may have been in the lead.

"Adam Rubs America Radio Challenge" Scoreboard
Mike - Foo Fighters - 5
Brad - Metallica - 5
Steve - Red Hot Chili Peppers - 3
Chris - Doors - 2
Adam - Creedence Clearwater Revival - 1
Marissa - Beatles - 1

Tour Day 3: The Double Wide (Dallas, TX)

Back on the super wide Texas highways en route from Dallas to Austin. Excited to see what Austin is like in the aftermath of SXSW. We had so much fun in Austin two weeks ago, everyone is really happy to be going back. There is certainly some BBQ brisket in our near future.

Last night at the Double Wide in Dallas was an unusual night. Kind of an off night for us. Certainly wasn't the best show we've ever had, but we still managed to see some weird shit.  This girl won a pickle for this awkward feat.

Sometimes a really fun/quirky venue with a good staff can make a bad night good again. A few drinks after the show with new friends never hurts that either. Especially the kind of drinks they had at Double Wide. I'm a huge White Russian guy, so this was hilarious.

I was shocked by how tasty this was with Yoohoo.

After the show we partied with two new friends. Thank you again to Misty and Kui. So nice of you to put us up for the night. Several drinks and a few old punk albums later we crashed till low flying airplanes shook us awake in the morning.

Southern hospitality is the balls.

In other news, Mike continues to crawl ahead of the pack in the ARA Radio Challenge. Looks like he is starting to pull away…oddly enough Adam hasn't scored a single point in his radio challenge.

"Adam Rubs America Radio Challenge" Scoreboard
Mike - Foo Fighters - 4
Brad - Metallica - 2
Chris - Doors - 1
Steve - Red Hot Chili Peppers - 1
Adam - Creedance Clearwater Revival - 0

Tonight it's Momo's in Austin. Can't wait for brisket and rock and roll!

(Backlog) Tour Day 2: Maxine's (Hot Springs, AR)

Hot Springs totally blew away our expectations. All we knew of Hot Springs was that Bill Clinton was born and probably scored with tons of chicks down there. Other than that we just figured it was a quiet little town.

Yeah guess not, there's actually a really vibrant nightlife in downtown Hot Springs. We had a great time performing at Maxine's.

After the show we checked out the Strip Karaoke joint, for a few seconds until they told us it was a $10 cover to sing and watch strippers. We met up with our new friends Shannon and Carol. They were the great. We hung out in their hotel for the night grabbed some showers in the morning and took off for Dallas around 1:30 the next afternoon.

After about two minutes of driving our oil light came on, so it was off to the Walmart to get 5 gallons of store brand oil. Good stuff.  We also discovered you can get a machete for the low everyday price of $8.48.

The drive to Dallas has been cushy, these Texas highways are super wide and allow for maximum "driftability." Which is good because I'm driving (yes I'm writing this in my head right now…it's actually Sunday morning.)

Tonight we'll be at Double Wide in Dallas. The local papers have us playing at a couple different venues. But it's looking like The Double Wide will be our best bet!

And last but not least…Mike has taken a slight lead in the ARA Radio Challenge.

"Adam Rubs America Radio Challenge" Scoreboard
Mike - Foo Fighters - 2
Brad - Metallica - 1
Chris - Doors - 1
Steve - Red Hot Chili Peppers - 1
Adam - Creedence Clearwater Revival - 0

(Backlog) Tour Day 1: Cowboy Monkey (Champaign, IL)

Backlog...yep I'm already behind with finding time at places with good free wifi to post these. So we'll have to pretend like it's yesterday afternoon again.

So night one of Pound tour leg 2 is in the books. We arrived in Champaign around 6 PM for load-in/soundcheck and to meet up with our good friend Tim Wilson on his 22nd birthday. This was our first time at Cowboy Monkey, which I have to say is a really really nice music venue. It's a little bit buried admits the curvy weird streets in downtown historic Champaign, but if you ever get a chance to check it out, it's a real nice find…

We had a great time bouncing around a roomy stage.

Major props to Neoga Blacksmith and Black Jack Radio, two good local bands two good sets.

After the show we went to Joe's and drank with the University of Illinois's finest/drunkest. It was a dance party sandwich.. normally I'd say we were the salami, but last night so we were more like the creepy side of french fries.

After a few drinks we ended up missing our connection for a place to crash, so we snuggled up with the laptop and some Super Troopers and fell asleep.

Brad, a good friend that came along with us to lend a hand/keep it real/hang out, made a miracle run to get 24 bottled waters, pizzas and pop tarts so we all went to bed well fed and whatever the opposite of thirsty is.

Today we're on the road to Arkansas to play in Hot Springs at Maxine's tonight. Drive has been pretty nice, lots of grass and rocks to look at. It's a nine hour drive and so far Adam has been rocking it all on his own. He's a machine, he is to driving shifts as Sting is to tantric sex.

That's pretty much it. We're excited to make our first Arkansas appearance later tonight. We drove through it on our way to Austin a week and a half ago, and really enjoyed variety of hybrid city names like Texarkana and Arkadelphia. Anyone know any other cool ones down here? San Antonasa? Arklehoma? Las Vegasaw

Oh yeah I almost forgot the most important part. We started a contest yesterday to see who could guess which band/artist we would hear the most on the radio over the next 7 days. The winning band from the last road trip was Aerosmith, Phil Collins was the one before that. So far most of us aren't doing so well on this trip. Steve (playing the bass for us on this tour) is the only with a mark on the board after 14 hours of drive time already logged.

"Adam Rubs America Radio Challenge" Scoreboard
Chris - Doors - 0
Mike - Foo Fighters - 0
Adam - Creedance Clearwater Revival - 0
Steve - Red Hot Chili Peppers - 1
Brad - Metallica - 0

If anyone else wants to get in on the ARA Radio-Merica Challenge. Send us your picks and we'll you enter you for a chance to win the grand prize…. a full massage package from Adam, a $45 value as gift from us to you.