The Sunday before we left, June 13th, we did a semi-acoustic show at the Nomadic Image art gallery in downtown Santa Ana. My longtime friend Andy works there and managed to finagle us onto the bill. He also happens to be an extremely talented photographer and he took these shots of us at that show, which was really low-key and a lot of fun:
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On Wednesday we left L.A. and drove up to the Bay. Spent the first night in San Jose with Jennie's brother and his husband. On Thursday we drove into San Francisco for our first show on the U.S. Bombs tour. We had to load in at Slim's around 5:30 so we spent a couple of hours tooling around the city, then headed over to the venue, where we sound checked:
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Our friend Nikki, who we stayed with while we were in SF, showed up shortly after we arrived so we kicked it outside for a bit after sound check.
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Then we were told we could go down to our dressing room, which was a shock enough in itself to us! The bill included two other bands besides us and the U.S. Bombs: the Forgotten and Druglords of the Avenues. The Bombs and the Forgotten had their own green rooms; we shared ours with the guys from Druglords, who could not have been cooler, nicer, or funnier. Seriously, a great group of dudes.
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The Slim's folks kept refilling our cooler with beers so there was hardly a need to leave the dressing room until we played at 8:15. I really thought we'd be playing to an empty house but there was already a decent amount of people there, including some of the guys from Rancid (who I didn't see but were apparently digging us!) and even a few of our own fans who had come out just to see us. It was a pretty great show; the audience was rad and lively and the sound was amazing.
After we played we got pretty drunk and watched the other bands, chit chatted with Lou (our booker) a lot, and met some of our fans. We were wasted and back at Nikki's by like 1:00 in the morning.
On Friday we were scheduled at the Shire Road Club in Sacramento for our second night with the U.S. Bombs. The Druglords guys were on the bill as well, plus the Hanover Saints and a local Sacto band. Got to the venue around 6:00 and it was a lot lower-key than Slim's; just one small green room for all the bands and because it was an all-ages club we were only allowed to drink in the green room and onstage, so that's pretty much where we hung out! Couple shots from that show:
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Hardly anyone was there early enough to see us play but the few people that did show were cool, and we had fun. And that night we actually got to meet and hang out with the guys from the U.S. Bombs! They were super cool, really nice guys. Here we are with Duane Peters and Kerry Martinez:
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And here we are with Lou Medrano, who booked us on the shows with the Bombs and without whom none of this would have happened...we love him:
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On Saturday we were on our own as the Bombs tour headed back down South and we had a headlining show at the Stork Club in Oakland with our girlfriends in a great little three-piece called the City and an amazing all-girl Kinks cover band called the Minks! We were so busy that night we didn't get any photos but one of our fans was kind enough to send this shot over to me:
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On Sunday we had to drive home (boo). Here's a little video wrap-up our friend Nikki made of our time in SF and Oakland:
C*NT SPARRER from nikki roddy on Vimeo.
So now we're back down south, but we'll be heading back up to the Bay Area the weekend of August 14-15! Until then we're keeping ourselves occupied recording -- here are a couple shots from our first session last weekend:
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And we have some shows coming up as well. If you're local to the Long Beach area, come see us July 6th at Di Piazza's with Cat Party, Knives, and some other bands. and if you can make it out to the Inland Empire later in the month, get over to Angelo's in Pomona for this all-tribute night with some other awesome cover bands!
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Til next time dudes.
XOX
Sara M.
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