Breakfast Club (Hi-Fi) was a fantastic success. Packed house, good friends, some family, and cupcakes. Yes, cupcakes. Plus we finally got to see (and get) the 7-inch vinyl split with "Horses Head" on it. Super-duperThanks to Joe for not only letting us crash at his place, but also buying us breakfast and leading us to the expressway on the way out. Currently driving home to Chicago to take showers and stuff before the Reggies show. We loaded up the other Rotten bands gear into the trailer - packed full to capacity by Dave and Chris. Rotten Ron and Michelle hitched a ride with us, so now we're finding out how much weight we can *really* pull in this thing.

Played Columbia Street West in Ft. Wayne, IN. Really nice place, superb sound system, Only 2 people there for a song or two... But the folks were nice, and we didn't leave broke. Had our first sleep in the van at a rest area. Dave's laptop took a poopy all over Marks lap, leaving him a little wishing he had sent it in on the warranty a month ago when the battery stopped charging. Good thing Timmy brought his, or Dave couldn't play with his fancy schmancy new aircard at 70 miles an hour on the expressway. Oh what fun it is to ride, in a 6 man wireless sleigh. See you in Ohio!

We had fun at the Melody Inn in Indianapolis, followed by a *wonderful* stay at Dave's sisters house (we love you Beth!). What a great way to kick off the tour. They have a really good sound system there, topped off by Mike, the absolute most on top of it door guy/sound guy/bouncer ever. Casual Interruption, Xevious and Caesar Holiday were all really cool folks. To Xevious - six, eight, blue green orange red!
Hi Amy Jo!

Oh yeah, we're finally shaking off the cold and getting out on the road. Rotten Records has arranged for a handful of it's bands (Ideamen, Polkadot Cadaver, Vampire Mooose and Karen Page) to hit up a South By Southwest show in Austin Texas, and they booked a bunch of shows for us to play. But that just wasn't enough for us, so we booked some more! Here's the list thus far (we'll update this post as the TBA shows fall into place):

Mar 10 2010 8:00P
Tour Kick Off
w/ Zevious (NY), Casual Interruption (Indy) & Cesar Holiday (Indy)
Melody Inn
Indianapolis, Indiana

Mar 11 2010 8:00P
Columbia Street West
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Mar 12 2010 8:00P
Rotten Records Tour
The Breakfast Club (Hi-Fi)
Lakewood, Ohio

Mar 13 2010 9:00P
Rotten Records Tour
17+
Reggie’s Rock Club
Chicago, Illinois

Mar 14 2010 7:00P
Rotten Records Tour
Cicero’s
University City, Missouri

Mar 16 2010 8:00P
Rotten Records Tour
Jerry’s Bait Shop
Lee’s Summit, Missouri

Mar 17 2010 8:00P
Rotten Records Tour
Eagles Lodge
Wichita, Kansas

Mar 18 2010 7:00P
Rotten Records Tour
The Conservatory
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Mar 20 2010 4:00P
Rotten Records’ SXSW Party
Lucky Lounge
Austin, Texas

Mar 21 2010 8:00P
Rotten Records Tour
The Boiler Room
Denton, Texas

Mar 23 2010 8:00P
Rotten Records Tour
Vino’s
Little Rock, Arkansas

Mar 24 2010 8:00P
Rotten Records Tour
House Of Thor
Memphis, Tennessee

Mar 25 2010 8:00P
Rotten Records Tour
The Muse
Nashville, Tennessee

Mar 26 2010 8:00P
Rotten Records Tour
Bernies Distillery
Columbus, Ohio

Mar 27 2010 8:00P
Rotten Records Tour
Yesterday’s
Wheeling, West Virginia

Mar 28 2010 7:00P
w/ Now Soon Nowhere & TBA
Otto’s Shrunken Head
New York City, New York

Mar 30 2010 8:00P
w/ Now Soon Nowhere
TENTITVE
The Khyber
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Mar 31 2010 8:00P
Tentitive
TBA
Baltimore

Apr 1 2010 8:00P
Tentitive
TBA
Pittsburgh

Apr 2 2010 8:00P
w/ Rosedale (powerpop from Canada) & 12 Track Radio (Michigan acoustic pop)
Old Glory Studios
Canton, Ohio

Apr 3 2010 8:00P
w/ Downtown Brown, Against The Grain & Crotchetcatpause
Small’s Bar (Detroit)
Hamtramck, Michigan

Hey there kids! Thus far all of the posts tagged "News" have been posted through the Ideamen Admin account, but I'm going to make an exception this time because I just can't say this in the third person. The show at J.J. Kelley's could very well have been a disaster for us had it not been for the fans and friends that came out and saved the day. It started out just fine actually, Lights Over Bridgeport opened up with an awesome performance, followed energetically by The Alaya Conscious. It sounded as if one of the speakers was blown, really distorted for how quiet it actually was. Downtown Brown put on a superFunnyFantastic show - but was halted at the second to last song... The PA had simply up and quit. They shouted their way through and finished up with an instrumental.
Needless to say we were shaking in our boots at this point. We set up as the soundGuy fiddled with knobs and looked at wires. We debated doing a sort of 'unplugged' show. We knew we couldn't just not play - you folks were there, still there after a long but entertaining night of waiting. The time came and the only solution available was one microphone plugged directly into a teensy monitor dragged to the front of the stage. OK, let's do this.
We opened with Cavity. I ran around with the single mic and stuck it in the face of whoever I thought should be heard at any given moment. Timmy slammed his fists on the keys as he adjusted to the reality of what we'd just gotten ourselves into. You folks... sang along. If it weren't for that, in that moment where we realized that you understood what was going on up there and that you were ok with it, we may have just felt too silly to continue.
It was awful. Had to be one of the more awkward positions we'd ever been in; a band that pretty much thrives on having somewhere between 2 and 4 dudes singing at once playing for our friends with no PA, one microphone pumped through something no one could hear. But... you still cheered. And you continued to sing along. And we smiled.
We didn't really get the opportunity to thank you all for making us have fun despite the bizarre circumstances (actually I did, but I'm pretty sure no one could hear what I was saying), and I kind of passed out from sheer exhaustion at the end of the last song. So thank you, all of you for making it a night to remember and a story we can laugh about until the alzheimer's sets in.

You rock.
--D.G. Solar