Columbus/Day Off etc

No updates for the last few days. Computers have been hard to come by.

We are in the Taj Mahal of Terre Haute, also known as the Holiday Inn.

We had an off day yesterday after four solid days of heavy driving and great shows. The mid-west is more spread out than it looks on the map, let me tell you. We had a great time in Detroit at the Belmont. The gig was a benefit for a local Detroit charity, so it was cool to connect with a local scene in a different way than usual. People were hella friendly, which you may not guess driving through the husk of a city that is Detroit. I always like those kinds of towns with their desolate beauty and no bullshit attitude. People have no pretense, they welcome you like family. Ray won a picnic basket in the silent auction before the bands went on and almost flipped out when he couldn't find it at the end of the night but it turned out to be behind the bar so all was well. My friend Jessicallyn who just moved back to D-troit from NYC to have her first beautiful baby also came to the show. Great to see a familiar face somewhere you've never been before. We played a great set and had a blast. It was a rowdy crowd who'd been drinking since the afternoon it seemed, so the energy carried us throughout the night.

We didn't stay in Detroit after the show and drove straight through the night to Columbus, Ohio. At Columbus we crashed with three college girls who were amazingly gracious hosts. We then headed to our gig: this awesome little club called Treehouse which we liked as soon as we got there. It reminded us of Cake Shop in NYC, but distinctly midwestern: xmas lights strung up throughout, cheap beers, wood paneling, mellow vibes, good juke box. In the live room there is a gigantic tree, must be over 100 years old, growing through the floor and up through the roof into the night sky. Maybe it was the spirit of the tree, but we played one of our best sets of the tour there, and the crowd was at one with us the entire time. The one thing I'm consistently getting off on this tour is how each crowd seems to really connect to almost everything we play. They LISTEN to what we're doing and whether they're dancing, nodding their heads, or just watching from the back, they seem locked in. It's a powerful thing to be a part of and feels like we are tapping into the great vein of music gold every night, letting it take us for a ride.

After our set, Gost Shirt came on and completely slayed. It was without a doubt one of the highlights of our tour to see these guys play. They played a purely creative and high-energy set that went from whisper quiet to punk screaming, but all the while with great feel, hooks, lyrics and heart. Listen to them. We are going to do our best to get them out to Brooklyn in the coming months. They need to be heard.

After the show and many hugs and drugs from and with locals and yocals, we retreated to the back yard of our Columbus hosts for the tail end of a bonfire cook out. Some brilliant friends schooled us on the phrases "off drip" and "off rip". Expect to see these show up lyrically in future AP songs.

Which brings us to yesterday, our off day. Drove to Terre Haute. Hotels are dirt cheap, so a good place to have a free day. We swam in the pool and drank at the bar all afternoon and evening, went to some mainstream chain restaurant and ate unspeakable foods at night, and crashed early and happy.

We are now off to St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati (yay WOXY!!!!), Athens and one other Ohio town which I cannot remember the name of at present, before heading back to Brooklyn.

We will post a ton of photos as soon as we can.

And make sure to TUNE IN ON MAY 6TH AT 4PM EASTERN TIME FOR OUR WOXY.COM LIVE SESSION.