June 26 - My house - Omaha, NE

The Grand Finale. This is going to be a long entry.

Well, we made it to Kansas City. We actually didn't even take the van in to be looked at. The leak seemed to have slowed down overnight, so we just went for it. We still had to keep pouring in tons of fluid to get the steering wheel to move, but we made it. 

We met back up with Jerad and the KC gang right when we arrived. Also, a bunch of our friends from Omaha ended up coming down to see the show!! That was awesome. The show was at Doozens Coffee Shop. They do outdoor concerts there, so of course there were huge ominous clouds on the horizon. 

Our friendband from San Antonio, A Kid Named Thompson, was scheduled to play with us in Omaha the next day while they were on their own tour, and their show for our KC date happened to fall through, so we said "come to KC and play." They did! They played first, just as the dark clouds were gathering. They got through about 4 or 5 songs before some sprinkles started to fall. We decided it would be a good idea to move the show inside.

After moving the P.A. system into the tiny building, Jerad and Mat played an acoustic set. It was wonderful. A highlight was a song called "Life Is Good," which had a cameo appearance by me and Ryan. The concept of the song is easy. You make up your own verse on the spot, and then the chorus goes "OOOooooohh. Life is goooood." 

The Sharks played next, and the volume inside this place was hilarious. They don't do electric shows inside, so it was a task to get everything sounding right. They rocked it, as usual. The atmosphere inside the coffee shop went from sort of awkward, like "uhhh why are these people playing loud instruments in here?" to a full out rock show.

We played next, and our set marked the return of Austin to the band. We were really pumped to have him back, even though Cam did an amazing job in his place. Before we played, I made a mental note that the place we were playing looked like a music video or something. It was just a cool little scene behind us and there was no stage. So I thought it would be cool to just have it be a group effort and play IN the crowd. It's sort of hard to explain, but I just put my mic stand in the middle of the people and encouraged them to spread out around us. It turned out to be sweet. We were all rockin out together. It was definitely the best show of the tour up to that point.

After the show we stayed at our friend Amy's house, which was very very nice. Everybody was able to go there to crash, including our friends from Omaha who came down. We all had a great time.

In the morning, it was time for the dreaded Drive Home. I had been trying my hardest to not think about going home. The thought of going back to the real world is just too awful. But we had a big Comeback Show to get to in Omaha, so there was some silver lining I guess.

Austin was soooooo sick he threw up like 5 times during the van ride. Welcome back to the band dude!

We got to Sokol Underground and met up with A Kid Named Thompson, The Pay Off, and Artillery Funk. What happened next was legendary. All 3 of the openers were AWESOME. We  had a great crowd too, around 100 people showed up I think. For some reason, everyone was sooo pumped. That never happens for us! But people were going wild.

Before we played, I felt the need to get everyone on the same page with a pep talk. The band and crowd all gathered at the edge of the stage and put our hands in the huddle and made a pledge to rock the fuck out and dance and remember that there is no better time to go crazy with all your friends or something like that. It was an impromptu speech, but I was just feeling the vibes. I think it helped because no crowd has ever rocked that hard for us. When that happens, it's just sooo awesome. Being in a band, you REALLY feed off of the crowd's energy. I really love losing my mind onstage and I definitely did that last night. It was our best show ever.

For some strange reason, we also decided to give away our merch for free. We have so many CDs that we don't know what to do with them. I think we ended up giving away a TON last night though. We also gave away every single shirt that we had left haha. At this point, we've had the same merch for so long that I just want to get rid of it and, more importantly, get our music out there any way we can. Anyway, back to the show.

The Sharks played last and it was unbelievable. The now-legendary Mr. Ghost made his first appearance with the Sharks. Mr. Ghost is a magical being who goes ABSOLUTELY INSANE onstage while the Sharks play. I have never laughed so hard at anything in my life. I'll try to get a picture up here sometime soon so if for some reason you weren't at the show, you can see what he looked like. The crowd energy was amazing, the Sharks played great, and we were all totally exhausted. 

The Comeback Show was an incredible success. I am seriously going so far as to say that was my favorite show that we've ever played. It was a GREAT way to end the Sharks From Far Tour. I'm so so so sad it's over though.

That's all for now, I'll probably post another final Wrap Up soon.

-Joe

June 24th - Jason "Squints"' mom's house - Claremore, OK

Yesterday during our 9 hour drive from Austin, TX to Claremore, OK, our van got messed up. We had been keeping the drive alive by pouring power steering fluid into the tank every time we stopped because there was a leak. Somewhere along the way, everything went wrong. Anthony tried to fill it up again and it basically just went right through to the ground. No more power steering!

We rolled into the venue in Claremore with no gas and no power steering. It was a mess. I'm envisioning us pulling into the lot at Sokol on Thursday just like we're in some movie. We'll just barely chug into the parking lot, come to a gasping stop, and the tires and doors will collapse and fall off as we triumphantly exit the van and play an awesome show.

The show last night was so awesome. Best of the tour, in my opinion. We played at The Tree in Claremore with our old homies The Last Slice and Kicktree. They were even better than last time, and I thought we played pretty well too. My voice is still messed up for whatever reason, but I just yelled through the pain. The show was awesome because people got the Sharks' CD last time and knew the words to their songs haha. AND we actually sold merch this time! 

Graffiti on the wall of the venue

After the show we got to stay at Jason's house from the Last Slice. It's this awesome place in the country and a lot of people from the show came out to party. It got out of control. We played Knights of the Round Table again, this time Ryan stole most of the fluids. We spent hours out on this awesome deck just hanging out. The people in Claremore are awesome. Cody was trying to convince us all to just stay here for life. It was tempting.

At the end of the night, I was forced to fight Anthony. I don't know if he was sleepwalking or what........ but he was like a zombie on a warpath. I had to tackle him and fight him to the ground so he didn't destroy the whole house. This morning we woke up and hugged, because he didn't remember it happening. He must have been asleep.

The scene in the morning

So, today we have to either try to get the van fixed VERY quickly, or else drive all the way to Kansas City with no power steering. I'm pretty sure it's possible, but we'll have to wait and see what happens. Either way, we're getting to Kansas City on pure willpower. We're playing with Everyday/Everynight and I'm not going to miss this.

It's on.

-Joe

June 23 - Motel 8 in Austin Texas

Another long update here. I thought I'd have the internet more often during this trip, but it seems to be about every 2 or 3 days. 

After Houston, we drove over to San Antonio, home of the Alamo. We were driving through downtown San Antonio looking for a parking place and getting pumped to see the Alamo, when suddenly I thought I saw like a miniature version of the legendary military landmark. 

"Wait, IS THAT THE ALAMO??" It was. The Alamo was barely more noticeable than a parking place. It's way smaller than we expected, and it's sort of just buried into the downtown area. Still, we went in there and checked it out because it was free. It was pretty interesting, but definitely less entertaining than we expected. Scott wanted to get extremely drunk later that night and go back to the Alamo so that he could write a song called "Can't Remember The Alamo." Pretty brilliant if you ask me.

Anthony's brother Andrew lives in Texas so he came to hang out with us and see the show. In the few hours we still had to kill before going to the venue, we wandered around the Riverwalk, which was AWESOME. That place was way cooler than the Alamo. Seems like a great place for San Antonioans to just go hang out with friends. Andrew even bought food for me, Ryan and Anthony. The other guys were in a bar so they missed out. Luckily for Cody, by missing out on free food he was able to take part in something else exciting. That's about all I can say about that.

We played in an awesome little punk rock venue called the Ten Eleven. It was owned by a friend of one of our bandfriends down there, Altus. It was tiny, and had dicks drawn on the walls, and had skateboard decks hanging everywhere. Our kind of place. We played with some pretty sweet local punk bands there. 

The Sharks played a great set, and everything was going well during our set until........... my amp stopped working. The piece of shit kept cutting out randomly, and almost nothing pisses me off more than stuff like that. If I suck because I'm not playing well, I can live with that. But if I suck because my equipment is letting me down it really tears me apart because I felt like we were playing a really good show until it started cutting out. It kept happening on and off during the last few songs until it totally gave out during the bridge of our last song, Modern Day. Add that to the fact that, yes, my voice WAS completely thrashed, and I had given up on actually playing things the "right way." 

By that time I was entering a violent rage, so I decided to just go wild. I took off my guitar and threw it on the ground. (Lightly.) More of a toss than a throw. Of course right when it got on the ground it started working again, so I just grabbed the mic and started running around the little stage yelling "WE'RE ALL JUST WAITING AROUND FOR A BETTER DAY" (the lyrics to the song) while my guitar just gave this crazy feedback. Soon enough Scott had the other mic and was doing the same thing, and I was on the ground strumming the open strings of my guitar, which was still just laying on the ground. Hopefully you can get a mental image of that because it was pretty funny. In a blinding rage kind of way. It was very cathartic. Haha

I don't know if people really liked us that night. I'll choose to blame it on the amp and not on our songs or my crazy antics. 

Best part of the night: Someone pulled out a gun! While the last band was playing, I was out back getting some fresh air when suddenly a group of like 15 people sprinted out the back door, knocked down a fence, and got the hell out of there. 

"Huh?" I said.

Someone else ran out after them, and told us that a dude had just pulled out a gun in a dispute over some ex girlfriend who was now dating another guy. I breathed a sigh of relief to find out he wasn't pulling the gun out because he didn't like our band. So the police came and arrested the guy, and the huge group of people fleeing the scene came back. Oh yeah, the band was playing the entire time. Awesome. The moral of the story is this: Sometimes when people get pissed, they make a fool out of themselves by flailing around a stage yelling and violently strumming open strings of a guitar. Other times, an angry person can make a fool out of themselves by pulling out a gun and threatening a bunch of people. Choose the right person to piss off.

After sleeping on a hard floor in the apartment of Josh and Steph from the band Altus (thank you very much), we hit the road for Austin. It was a really short drive so that was nice. We got to Austin around 12 or 1 pm and had WAY too much time to waste before going to the show. I found a free local newspaper that had an ad for Headhunters (the venue) and it had a schedule for our show. The Sharks - 11 pm. Hot From Far - 12 am. That's a lot of time to kill for a bunch of dudes who are tired and have nowhere to go. 

First we went on a wild goose chase for a music store. We walked for at least a mile in the 102 degree heat looking for this place and we never found it. Luckily there was a record store so we browsed for awhile. Ryan is a vinyl junkie so he was in heaven. Scott found a vinyl version of the Foxboro Hot Tubs album, which is one of his favorite bands, so he also ended up in heaven. I found an empty corner of the store to lay down, and I think if I would've fallen asleep there I, too, would have gone to heaven. 

After walking back to our original spot we ate at this barbeque place called Stubbs that was right across the street from the venue. It was incredible. Also, we just happened to notice that JENNY LEWIS was playing a show there that night. I'm a huge fan so I was pumped. I already had visions of the two of us meeting that night and falling in love. (Spoiler alert - Unfortunately that never happened.) 

So we wandered around for about 4-5 more hours into different weird shops and those of us who were of age went into some bars (sadly that doesn't include me.) Finally around like 7 or 8 o clock the venue opened their doors. The show didn't even start until 10, but we were all so exhausted that we just hung out inside until then. The place was sweet. There was one stage inside by the bar, and another one on a little outdoor patio area in the back. It was a pretty eclectic lineup. There were 8 bands playing, 4 inside 4 outside. Most of the bands were like old school hard punk rock, but the very first band to play was like white kids around our age playing weed-themed dub reggae with Jamaican accents. Then the very last band was sort of a hippie jam band. I commend Headhunters for putting on a show with such diverse styles. It definitely kept things interesting.

Also, a follow up to the Jenny Lewis part of this story, she sounded awesome. She was playing at an outdoor stage, so we went out by the fence and listened for awhile. She played in Omaha on the night of our first show of the tour, so it was nice to be able to hear some of her songs since I missed out last time.

Us and the Sharks both played pretty solid sets. It was hard because both of our bands played on the inside stage while a sweet band was playing on the outside stage, so it was.... "spacious" inside. The people who watched us seemed to enjoy it though. The bartender and sound guy really liked us too, so that was encouraging. 

We couldn't find a place to crash for the night, so we took the plunge and got a Motel 8. Cam's friend Ryan came in from San Antonio and he was planning on getting a room anyway, so it worked out perfectly. It was around 2 am by the time we got there, and I was SO wiped out. We had to get up at 9 in order to go on another epic drive and make it to the next show on time, so that didn't leave much time for sleep. I didn't care though. It was easily the best sleep I've had all tour. It was so awesome to sleep in a bed.

Now we're headed back to Will Rogers Land, AKA Claremore, Oklahoma, to play another show with The Last Slice. I can't believe we're already heading back there. The time is starting to run together. I gotta enjoy this tour while I still can.

-Joe

June 21 - Cam's cousin's house, Houston, TX

I haven't had internet connection for a couple days, so this might be a long update. The last 36 hours have been absolutely insane. 

On Friday night we played at a venue called The King Of Clubs in Claremore, Oklahoma. (Claremore is a suburb of Tulsa, and they're obsessed with Will Rogers. The whole county is named after the guy.) We played with two AWESOME bands called The Last Slice (ska) and Kicktree (old school pop punk). According to the local guys, there is a sadly nonexistant punk scene in Oklahoma, and those two bands are pretty much the only ones left. So there weren't that many people at the show, but the ones who were there were awesome. I think they might have even liked our bands. The crowd even "THREW THEIR MOTHERFUCKIN HANDS UP!" during the Sharks song "Degenerate" haha. 

The Sharks playing in Claremore

After the show, we had to get on the road right away because we had an off day that we wanted to spend in Houston at the beach. For those of you who don't know, it's a 12 hour drive from Claremore to Houston. 12 hours. At night. All in one trip. But first we needed Pizza Hut.

We went to Pizza Hut with the Last Slice and Kicktree fellows and their friends. We all ate a ton, but Ryan got the prize for "Most Incredible Display of Gluttony" when he ate so much pizza that he threw up. Seriously. 

After saying goodbye to our new friends, we hit the road. We're actually playing with those guys again in a few days so we'll have more Claremore stories soon.

To recap, it was now midnight, and we were just beginning a 12 hour drive.

The plan was for us to sleep during the van ride, and have  Cody take over the driving for Anthony about halfway there. Unfortunately it's very hard to sleep in a cramped van. We kept the vibes high by playing this new game called Party Lights. Whenever the vibes got too low inside the van, Anthony would turn on the interior lights and crank up the music for about a minute at a time and we would all automatically go WILD. It started with just dancing inside the van and yelling a lot, but a few Party Lightses later, Cody was on the ground with his pants pulled down telling me to take a picture of his ass and send it to all our friends. As gross as that sounds, the Party Lights were on so it seemed right! I think people really enjoyed that picture message on their phones.

I can't really speak for anyone else, but I think I got about two or three hours of sleep in the van. Anthony had decided that he wanted to try to go the distance by himself, but about an hour outside of Houston he said he was feeling the sleep deprivation effects BAD and finally let Cody take over. This was around 11 AM. Driving 11 hours in the dark in the middle of the night after playing a show was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Congrats to Anthony. 

Cody did an admirable job driving the last hour or so, but Anthony still couldn't sleep. He had to make sure we got to our destination of the amazing, sunny, beautiful beach safely. We did! We were so excited to FINALLY get to the beach that we forgot that we had all slept, at most, 3 hours in the last 24. 

It was 95 degrees and very sunny at the beach. We spent time frolicking, throwing a football around, and laying on the beach for about 4 hours. JUST enough time for all of us to get horribly sunburnt. Scott's is the worst, followed by Ryan. Mine is pretty bad too, but it was worth the pain to be able to hang out at a beach for a day.

After the beach we went to stay at Cameron's cousin's house. They have an amazing pool in their backyard, and an even more amazing substance called Aloe Vera that we gladly used to make our sunburns feel better for about 13 seconds. They also made us a real meal, which we were very thankful for. By 10 o clock we were all so dead that we just went to sleep on the floor. So, if my math is correct, we went close to 34 hours and only slept for around 3 of them. The human body isn't supposed to do that. 

I woke up here with no voice for some reason. We're playing a show in San Antonio tonight. I hope I can sing.

More updates soon

-Joe

June 19 - Somewhere on Highway 71

I'm tired. 

Last night we had an off day so we hung out in Kansas City with our very good friends Jerad and Hallie. We all met up in the Plaza, which is this cool area in downtown that has stores that are too expensive for us. After walking around for about and hour and watching a jazz band play outside on a sidewalk we went to this sweet huge fountain. For some reason I thought the fountains there were like human statues that had streams of water that made it look like they were peeing, but I did not witness any like that. The one we were hanging out at had fish that were puking water and people riding creepy horses. We were just hanging out there and wading in the water a bit, and Cody went and put his head into one of the huge streams of water. Fun fact: According to Hallie, Kansas City has the 2nd most fountains in the world. Apparently only Rome has more fountains. Pretty sweet.

After eating a delicious burger at a diner called Winsteads, Hallie had to part ways with us. She had to work early or something. Luckily for us, Ryan got a hold of a long lost friend who lives in Kansas City, so we all went over to his house to crash there. Those guys were totally cool and we just hung out on their back deck for a long time. We invented a new game called Knights of the Round Table. It consists of sitting at a round table and passing some kind of rich and rare liquid. It's very dangerous, but fun. 

This morning I woke up on a couch and realized I forgot to plug my phone into its charger, so I plugged it in. 

I let it charge for a little bit, then we left.

We're driving to Claremore, Oklahoma now. In our van we have to just keep all the windows open because the air conditioner doesn't work. It's kind of a drag but it keeps it relatively cool. I say relatively because it's probably like 95 degrees outside and only 90 or 91 inside the van. A nice breezy afternoon. Cody made the executive decision that we should all be shirtless, and it seems to be working out OK so far. 

I'm going to watch a Simpsons DVD now. Life is still good.

-Joe

June 18 - Somewhere on Highway 2

"It started with a bang"

Hi. I'm Joe. I play in the band Hot From Far. For the next week and a half we are going to tour the world.

We're teaming up with our best bandfriends, The Sharks. (For future reference, The Sharks consists of Cody, Scott, and Ryan. Hot From Far is me, Anthony, and Austin. Unfortunately Austin couldn't tour with us, so our friend Cameron is filling in for him.)

Today is the first OFFICIAL day of the tour. Last night we played in Lincoln, but it was still pretty much a hometown show, so today is the first day we're actually on the road. 

Last night we played at Duffy's with The Heat Machine. It was ok. Mostly just your average "bar crowd" with some of our good friends thrown in there. By the time we played the crowd in front of the stage was pretty minimal, but we had a good time playing. It was one of the only shows Austin could play, so we were able to play a longer set than we will be able to for the rest of the tour with Cam. Not because Cam sucks or anything, we just can't play the songs Austin sings. It wouldn't be right.

After the show we all went to Cody's house for a casual get together. You know, things like fighting with plastic swords, spilling several containers of various liquids, and projectile vomiting. Just like any other night, really. 

This morning we got on the road. It's extremely hot outside, and even hotter inside the van. But who cares, we're on tour! Aoiejfaoiwejfaowiejfowiejfoaiwejwoeji. It could somehow be raining drops of liquid razorblades and I would still be pumped. 

Before leaving today we celebrated by pretending we won the World Series or something and shaking up and exploding a bottle of champagne in the middle of the street. Cam tried drinking it too soon and FWOOOSHH it ended up spraying literally all up inside his nasal cavity and into his eyeballs hahaaaa. It's like my great great grandmother always said, "Never shake up a champagne bottle and try drinking it, because it will probably spray literally all up inside your nasal cavity and into your eyeballs."

Unfortunately, our show tonight fell through, so we're just heading to Kansas City to hopefully hang out with our homies Jerad, Hallie, and Mat. I'm assuming we'll hang out in The Plaza and laugh at all the weird statues that look like they're peeing. I'm not too disappointed about the show falling through really. It was going to be in Manhattan, Kansas, and that place is probably dead when K-State is out for the summer. I'd much rather wander around a cool city like KC with our good friends and laugh it up.

I'm wearing a Dennis Rodman Bulls jersey, very short yellow shorts, and sunglasses. Life is good.

-Joe