We started the day by pumping ourselves full of some excellent Chinese food courtesy of our friend, Jennifer. We headed to New Iberia after that. Strange to have been based in Louisiana for so long and play our second new Louisiana town in the same weekend. Our first stop was at the home of Christopher’s brother and his wife. The house was the same one that Christopher grew up in. The property was absolutely gorgeous and iconic. You couldn’t find much more of a true Louisiana experience. They had a 200 year-old tree replete with Spanish moss and you could throw a rock in the bayou from the back porch of the house. We spent a few hours relaxing and doing things like riding in a canoe pulled behind a four-wheeler…on dry land. We also played tackle football and basketball. We went canoeing in the bayou. Then we ate some homemade chili. Quite a day. Eventually, we did head down to Stingray’s to put on our show with The Pwells, Archeia, Cheater Pipe, and To Rise Above. It was a fantastic night of rock in roll in one of those places where the stage takes up a good portion of the club. You can always tell a good rock club by that test. If the stage and sound system doesn’t take up at least a quarter of a club, then it probably won’t rock too hard. Christopher’s entire family showed up for his first show in his hometown. We even dedicated a song to his mom. The night rocked. The next day, Christopher’s mom cooked gumbo for us. His dad cooked brisket. We went fishing. We ate crawfish. We watched the Superbowl. You get the picture.
MVPs: Christopher and the Oubre family.
Insight gained: There is nowhere on earth that the words “home cooked meal” are more meaningful than in south Louisiana
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Ok, honestly, at least half of the band had never even heard of Leesville, LA, even though we live in the same state. Now, perhaps if somebody had said Fort Polk, then we would have known where it was, because Leesville is the city that supports Fort Polk. So, it’s not like it’s a tiny little place, it’s just better known for its big brother the army base. But, in order to play Leesville, we had to get to Leesville first. And that turned out to be a little more of a chore than we thought. We took a wrong turn on some backwoods Louisiana highway and ended up in a community where apparently everybody rode on Hoverounds. It was probably too strange to describe adequately. Nobody seemed old, or crippled, or anything. It just seemed to be the preferred mode of transportation. We eventually got back on track and managed to make it to Leesville in time for our interview with Sandy at KROK. She seemed a little nervous when we got there, but she did a perfect interview and was incredibly sweet. We got the impression that a lot of bands don’t do radio interviews at the Leesville station. They were also nice enough to play Anthem for Closure, even though it’s a little heavier than their usual format. After that, we headed to find the club and get some food. The place we played, Sidewinders, was actually attached to a Mexican-American restaurant called Spirits West. The only problem with Sidewinders was it was outdoors…and it was 26 degrees that night! We loaded in our equipment, while the bar tried to come up with as many heaters as they could. We even had one of those things going that looks like a jet engine. For all their trying, however, nothing could really keep up with the freezing air. At one point, we set up an entire PA, and then took it all down and used the one that belonged to our friends in Southern 7. Southern 7 opened up for the show, and played a good set despite their nearly frostbitten fingers. While they were playing we did another KROK interview in the form of a live remote with Rick Barnickel. He was a great guy, and we were especially entertained to find out that he was from squint’s birthplace, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We put on a fairly good rockshow, all things considered. After all, our limbs would barely move. The place was mostly filled up with people, which was kind of amazing considering we were in Louisiana, and the 26 degrees probably felt like 2 degrees would have felt to a northerner. Many people spent a great deal of their time huddled by a fire pit next to the band. The bar sold a lot of Jagermeister, and that was probably due in larger measure to the fact that people were trying anything to get a sensation of warmth, even if they had to burn themselves up on the inside. The band, too, couldn’t resist the temptation to try and stay fluid with Jager. The show pretty much demanded an afterparty, since we had made a bunch of new (drunk) friends and fans. We had a blast partying with the people of Leesville. We finally made it back to the hotel room and got some sleep, but not before having a few more beers and a 20 minute wrestling match between Matt and Tote.
Strangest graffiti: On the wall of the Clarence Texaco. The first line read something like, “XYZ repoed Alice Walker’s Dodge”. Below it, another man had written, “I repoed that cherry!” Now, think about that logically for a moment. If some dude originally took Alice Walker’s cherry, and was therefore theoretically in possession of it, and then another dude came along and “repoed that cherry”, would he not indeed have to take it from the dude that took it in the first place. And would he have to repossess it by means of intercourse? It raises some interesting questions.
Insight gained: Even in freaking Louisiana, you can still play a show outside in 26 degree weather. How far south do we have to move?
MVP: Rennix Promotions.
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After gorging ourselves on Taco Bell in El Dorado, we loaded up and caravanned our way to Tyler. Tote and Christopher traveled together in Tote’s truck, while Matt and Dane took charge of the van and trailer. We got to Tyler nice and early, which made things really relaxing, especially since we had a hotel room at the Ramada across the street from Click’s. We loaded all our stuff in, had the obligatory Cici’s Pizza Buffet for dinner, and then we crashed in our room for about a 30 minute nap. While we were there, our friend Erin knocked on the door to check in and remind us that she and some of our friends had booked the Executive Suite around the corner. Can you say afterparty? First, there was a rockshow to do, though. When we got back over to Click’s, Dallas band, Paperface, was loaded up on stage and ready to go. They had a great sound, and put on an excellent rockshow. We’ll probably end up playing with them again at some point. We weren’t at Click’s very long before we got some very sad news from our friend, Carrissa. She informed us that her son, PFC Allen Jaynes, had been killed in Iraq. She asked that we honor him with a song, and we did. It was one of the very most moving moments we’ve had as a performing band. Still, it was a rockshow, and even those in mourning had come to try to lift their spirits some, so we attempted to put on the best show we could. The gravity of the situation only intensified everything, and we felt that it was one of our better endeavors. There were lots of hugs after we finished playing. After the show, our friends Mike and Pat, from Click’s, invited us to a party at Mike’s house. Mike was gracious enough to extend the invitation to our fans. So, like that, the first afterparty was born. We loaded a bunch of our fans into the van and headed over there. After a couple hours and a good time, we bid our farewell and headed back to the Ramada for the after-afterparty. Does anybody besides rock bands do after-afterparties? The Executive Suite was, well, in a word…sweet. Pretty freakin’ kickass for a Ramada. We spent some time laughing and drinking with our friendfans, and headed to bed about 6am.
MVP: PFC Allen “Fuzzy” Jaynes. Special love to Carrissa and Ashley and all those who cared so deeply for him.
Insight re-minded: While we travel around the country playing rock music and drinking beer, there are great young men and women risking and giving their lives in service of their country.
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Christopher, Dane, and Matt loaded up in the van in Ruston and headed for El Dorado. Meanwhile, Tote was already en route from Dallas. By the time we showed up, the guys from Southern 7 were dutifully loading in their stuff. They were a great bunch of guys, which is good, because we have more shows booked with them in the future. After Southern 7 got up and rocked the house, we took the stage in front of the usual suspects. Though it wasn’t our biggest Einstein’s crowd, it was one of the best, as people lined the entire front of the stage from the first note to the last. Christopher had a rather special kind of show, and by special we mean…ridiculously intoxicated. It was among Christopher’s worst performances, and likely will go down in history as one of his top 3 most drunken gigs of all time. At least we hope, anyway. Fortunately, the crowd was willing to look past this, and found it more genuinely amusing than appalling. The band, of course, found it more appalling that amusing, but, hey…whatcha going to do, right? It got so out of hand that eventually Dane took over Christopher’s bass (Dane does not play bass) and Matt taught him how to play a cover of The Hives “Hate To Say I Told You So”. The crowd ate this up, but we were thankful to get off the stage. Christopher was so messed up that we had to get him out of the club and somewhere he could pass out, so thanks to Alice for taking care of him. The rest of the band had to load all of his crap. Later, we had an afterparty at the Luther residence. We drank and laughed and talked while Christopher snoozed away on the couch, dead to the world. The next morning we even got to spend some time with our Godson, Mitchell Luther. See, they actually made us the legal Godband for Mitchell. It’s in the will and everything.
MVPs: The Luther Family. They rocked out with us during the show, made sure Christopher got safely the hell out of the bar, gave us a place to have an afterparty and bed down for the night, fed us tacos in the morning, and gave us a cool Godson.
Insight gained: Doesn’t matter how many times you’ve had 6 beers and 2 shots before a show, this could still be the one where it all catches up with you.
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Happy New Year everyone!
We are hitting the road again beginning this week with shows in Monroe, LA and Ruston, LA.
You'll see a couple of south Louisiana dates finally making it onto our calendar, it's been too long since we've headed that direction.
In other news, we are busy mixing and working on artwork for the live record we recorded last year, hopefully we will have it ready for a March release! Keep your fingers crossed! In the meantime - catch a real live show!
squint
www.squint.com
www.squint.com/myspace
JANUARY
Monroe, LA – Friday, January 12th – The Blue Monkey
Ruston, LA – Saturday, January 13th – The Dawg House
Shreveport, LA – Friday, January 19th – Flannagan’s
Houston, TX – Saturday, January 20th – Acadia Bar
El Dorado, AR – Friday, January 26th – Einstein’s
Tyler, TX – Saturday, January 27th – Click’s
FEBRUARY
Leesville, LA – Friday, February 2nd – Sidewinders at Spirits West
New Iberia, LA – Saturday, February 3rd – Stingray’s
Baton Rouge, LA – February 10th – Click’s
South Louisiana – February 22nd-24th – tentative
MARCH
Ruston, LA – Thursday, March 1st – Rabb’s Steakhouse
El Dorado, AR – Friday, March 2nd – Einstein’s
Shreveport, LA – Saturday, March 3rd – Flannagan’s
Austin, TX – March 13-18 – SXSW
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squint / Blog
2/3/07 - New Iberia, LA - Stingray's
We started the day by pumping ourselves full of some excellent Chinese food courtesy of our friend, Jennifer. We headed to New Iberia after that. Strange to have been based in Louisiana for so long and play our second new Louisiana town in the same weekend. Our first stop was at the home of Christopher’s brother and his wife. The house was the same one that Christopher grew up in. The property was absolutely gorgeous and iconic. You couldn’t find much more of a true Louisiana experience. They had a 200 year-old tree replete with Spanish moss and you could throw a rock in the bayou from the back porch of the house. We spent a few hours relaxing and doing things like riding in a canoe pulled behind a four-wheeler…on dry land. We also played tackle football and basketball. We went canoeing in the bayou. Then we ate some homemade chili. Quite a day. Eventually, we did head down to Stingray’s to put on our show with The Pwells, Archeia, Cheater Pipe, and To Rise Above. It was a fantastic night of rock in roll in one of those places where the stage takes up a good portion of the club. You can always tell a good rock club by that test. If the stage and sound system doesn’t take up at least a quarter of a club, then it probably won’t rock too hard. Christopher’s entire family showed up for his first show in his hometown. We even dedicated a song to his mom. The night rocked. The next day, Christopher’s mom cooked gumbo for us. His dad cooked brisket. We went fishing. We ate crawfish. We watched the Superbowl. You get the picture. MVPs: Christopher and the Oubre family. Insight gained: There is nowhere on earth that the words “home cooked meal” are more meaningful than in south Louisiana
Reply
2/2/07 - Leesville, LA - Sidewinders at Spirit's West
Ok, honestly, at least half of the band had never even heard of Leesville, LA, even though we live in the same state. Now, perhaps if somebody had said Fort Polk, then we would have known where it was, because Leesville is the city that supports Fort Polk. So, it’s not like it’s a tiny little place, it’s just better known for its big brother the army base. But, in order to play Leesville, we had to get to Leesville first. And that turned out to be a little more of a chore than we thought. We took a wrong turn on some backwoods Louisiana highway and ended up in a community where apparently everybody rode on Hoverounds. It was probably too strange to describe adequately. Nobody seemed old, or crippled, or anything. It just seemed to be the preferred mode of transportation. We eventually got back on track and managed to make it to Leesville in time for our interview with Sandy at KROK. She seemed a little nervous when we got there, but she did a perfect interview and was incredibly sweet. We got the impression that a lot of bands don’t do radio interviews at the Leesville station. They were also nice enough to play Anthem for Closure, even though it’s a little heavier than their usual format. After that, we headed to find the club and get some food. The place we played, Sidewinders, was actually attached to a Mexican-American restaurant called Spirits West. The only problem with Sidewinders was it was outdoors…and it was 26 degrees that night! We loaded in our equipment, while the bar tried to come up with as many heaters as they could. We even had one of those things going that looks like a jet engine. For all their trying, however, nothing could really keep up with the freezing air. At one point, we set up an entire PA, and then took it all down and used the one that belonged to our friends in Southern 7. Southern 7 opened up for the show, and played a good set despite their nearly frostbitten fingers. While they were playing we did another KROK interview in the form of a live remote with Rick Barnickel. He was a great guy, and we were especially entertained to find out that he was from squint’s birthplace, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We put on a fairly good rockshow, all things considered. After all, our limbs would barely move. The place was mostly filled up with people, which was kind of amazing considering we were in Louisiana, and the 26 degrees probably felt like 2 degrees would have felt to a northerner. Many people spent a great deal of their time huddled by a fire pit next to the band. The bar sold a lot of Jagermeister, and that was probably due in larger measure to the fact that people were trying anything to get a sensation of warmth, even if they had to burn themselves up on the inside. The band, too, couldn’t resist the temptation to try and stay fluid with Jager. The show pretty much demanded an afterparty, since we had made a bunch of new (drunk) friends and fans. We had a blast partying with the people of Leesville. We finally made it back to the hotel room and got some sleep, but not before having a few more beers and a 20 minute wrestling match between Matt and Tote. Strangest graffiti: On the wall of the Clarence Texaco. The first line read something like, “XYZ repoed Alice Walker’s Dodge”. Below it, another man had written, “I repoed that cherry!” Now, think about that logically for a moment. If some dude originally took Alice Walker’s cherry, and was therefore theoretically in possession of it, and then another dude came along and “repoed that cherry”, would he not indeed have to take it from the dude that took it in the first place. And would he have to repossess it by means of intercourse? It raises some interesting questions. Insight gained: Even in freaking Louisiana, you can still play a show outside in 26 degree weather. How far south do we have to move? MVP: Rennix Promotions.
Reply
1/27/07 - Tyler, TX - Click's
After gorging ourselves on Taco Bell in El Dorado, we loaded up and caravanned our way to Tyler. Tote and Christopher traveled together in Tote’s truck, while Matt and Dane took charge of the van and trailer. We got to Tyler nice and early, which made things really relaxing, especially since we had a hotel room at the Ramada across the street from Click’s. We loaded all our stuff in, had the obligatory Cici’s Pizza Buffet for dinner, and then we crashed in our room for about a 30 minute nap. While we were there, our friend Erin knocked on the door to check in and remind us that she and some of our friends had booked the Executive Suite around the corner. Can you say afterparty? First, there was a rockshow to do, though. When we got back over to Click’s, Dallas band, Paperface, was loaded up on stage and ready to go. They had a great sound, and put on an excellent rockshow. We’ll probably end up playing with them again at some point. We weren’t at Click’s very long before we got some very sad news from our friend, Carrissa. She informed us that her son, PFC Allen Jaynes, had been killed in Iraq. She asked that we honor him with a song, and we did. It was one of the very most moving moments we’ve had as a performing band. Still, it was a rockshow, and even those in mourning had come to try to lift their spirits some, so we attempted to put on the best show we could. The gravity of the situation only intensified everything, and we felt that it was one of our better endeavors. There were lots of hugs after we finished playing. After the show, our friends Mike and Pat, from Click’s, invited us to a party at Mike’s house. Mike was gracious enough to extend the invitation to our fans. So, like that, the first afterparty was born. We loaded a bunch of our fans into the van and headed over there. After a couple hours and a good time, we bid our farewell and headed back to the Ramada for the after-afterparty. Does anybody besides rock bands do after-afterparties? The Executive Suite was, well, in a word…sweet. Pretty freakin’ kickass for a Ramada. We spent some time laughing and drinking with our friendfans, and headed to bed about 6am. MVP: PFC Allen “Fuzzy” Jaynes. Special love to Carrissa and Ashley and all those who cared so deeply for him. Insight re-minded: While we travel around the country playing rock music and drinking beer, there are great young men and women risking and giving their lives in service of their country.
Reply
1/26/07 - El Dorado, AR - Einstein's
Christopher, Dane, and Matt loaded up in the van in Ruston and headed for El Dorado. Meanwhile, Tote was already en route from Dallas. By the time we showed up, the guys from Southern 7 were dutifully loading in their stuff. They were a great bunch of guys, which is good, because we have more shows booked with them in the future. After Southern 7 got up and rocked the house, we took the stage in front of the usual suspects. Though it wasn’t our biggest Einstein’s crowd, it was one of the best, as people lined the entire front of the stage from the first note to the last. Christopher had a rather special kind of show, and by special we mean…ridiculously intoxicated. It was among Christopher’s worst performances, and likely will go down in history as one of his top 3 most drunken gigs of all time. At least we hope, anyway. Fortunately, the crowd was willing to look past this, and found it more genuinely amusing than appalling. The band, of course, found it more appalling that amusing, but, hey…whatcha going to do, right? It got so out of hand that eventually Dane took over Christopher’s bass (Dane does not play bass) and Matt taught him how to play a cover of The Hives “Hate To Say I Told You So”. The crowd ate this up, but we were thankful to get off the stage. Christopher was so messed up that we had to get him out of the club and somewhere he could pass out, so thanks to Alice for taking care of him. The rest of the band had to load all of his crap. Later, we had an afterparty at the Luther residence. We drank and laughed and talked while Christopher snoozed away on the couch, dead to the world. The next morning we even got to spend some time with our Godson, Mitchell Luther. See, they actually made us the legal Godband for Mitchell. It’s in the will and everything. MVPs: The Luther Family. They rocked out with us during the show, made sure Christopher got safely the hell out of the bar, gave us a place to have an afterparty and bed down for the night, fed us tacos in the morning, and gave us a cool Godson. Insight gained: Doesn’t matter how many times you’ve had 6 beers and 2 shots before a show, this could still be the one where it all catches up with you.
Reply
squint in the New Year!
Happy New Year everyone! We are hitting the road again beginning this week with shows in Monroe, LA and Ruston, LA. You'll see a couple of south Louisiana dates finally making it onto our calendar, it's been too long since we've headed that direction. In other news, we are busy mixing and working on artwork for the live record we recorded last year, hopefully we will have it ready for a March release! Keep your fingers crossed! In the meantime - catch a real live show! squint www.squint.com www.squint.com/myspace JANUARY Monroe, LA – Friday, January 12th – The Blue Monkey Ruston, LA – Saturday, January 13th – The Dawg House Shreveport, LA – Friday, January 19th – Flannagan’s Houston, TX – Saturday, January 20th – Acadia Bar El Dorado, AR – Friday, January 26th – Einstein’s Tyler, TX – Saturday, January 27th – Click’s FEBRUARY Leesville, LA – Friday, February 2nd – Sidewinders at Spirits West New Iberia, LA – Saturday, February 3rd – Stingray’s Baton Rouge, LA – February 10th – Click’s South Louisiana – February 22nd-24th – tentative MARCH Ruston, LA – Thursday, March 1st – Rabb’s Steakhouse El Dorado, AR – Friday, March 2nd – Einstein’s Shreveport, LA – Saturday, March 3rd – Flannagan’s Austin, TX – March 13-18 – SXSW
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