The boys, France, The Gossip, famous French women, and Kate Moss’s skinny ass. All in a day for Bob Husak.

All right, before I continue down the path of mind-numbing recaps, let me put down a few words about the bands we were touring with in France. The openers were a talented British pop/rock act called Pete and the Pirates who were great guys all, and I believe we felt a certain kinship with them since we were both new to this sort of tour. They tended to hang in there partying as long as possible. After us on the bill came The Kills, who had their own bus. They were both very nice and they tended to keep a relatively low profile. The headliners were none other than Olympia’s own The Gossip, who were very over in France. Beth Ditto was great and highly extroverted, and the other two plus crew were swell folks also. Their drummer was excellent and was quite a sight to behold at sound check. Anyway, the first show at Le Bikini in Toulouse was a thrill. The French fans are very loud and supportive. It was a great feeling walking out in front of 2,000 screaming fans every night and playing our set. One last word on Le Bikini: The owner and his staff are quite the cooks, and they provided us with an incredible steak dinner, along with non stop fine wine. We felt like royalty. I also want to note here that aside from Paris, every hotel room we stayed in was smaller than anything you’ll find in the States, with tiny cot-sized beds.

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Bob, and The Blakes, international excursion continues, right here, at Light In The Attic:

Our first order of business before France was a quick stop in Austin to play a SXSW pre-party at Emo’s on 3/11 with a never ending parade of other bands. SXSW always strikes me as something of a racket, and it was great to fly in for just one show and leave the next day before we burned out on the whole thing. We had some dinner early in the evening with Lars and Tara and briefly met up with Patrick and a few of his cronies from Monterey International. Lars did a video interview with Chris Hardwick about the trials of being a rock manager, then he smashed a TV set with a cricket bat. Or maybe not. We also ran into our old pal and Rick Rubin look-alike Scottie Diablo, who was representing all four acts he manages at the festival. Several LITA folks flew in and one of Pat’s crew from the UK, the lovely Giovanna, was also on hand. We ended up playing last on the inside stage immediately following the Von Bondies, who were great. I had a nice brief conversation about our respective music careers with their frontman, Jason, after their set. He seems like the nicest guy in the world, and it’s hard for me to believe he got punched by Jack White. There must have been whiskey involved. Anyway, the room was packed and the set went very well. We did an interview in the green room immediately following the show and were congratulated by the Monterey guys, who want to look into getting us on some good tours very soon. Sounds fine.
The next morning we made the long flight to gay Paris. By the way, we flew American this time instead of Delta, and I can’t say it was an upgrade. Frankly, American sucks real bad. We have to try Air France next time. Once we arrived at Charles de Gaulle, we were taxied to our hotel located in the same area as last time (basically right in the sex district near the Moulin Rouge) and we took in a few sights before getting to sleep early. Most notably we took a stroll throught this incredible cemetery filled with old mausoleums and Lars and I located the grave of Francois Truffaut, which was littered with old movie ticket stubs in tribute.

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Gee golly, we thought Mr. Bob Husak might’ve disappeared in to the hard partying world of the international rock star and forgotten little us in his dusty wake. BUT ALAS, Bob returns!

And oh what a story he tells. So without further ado, the man, the plan, the caravan: BOB!

You thought I was through? Heck no. I’m back from Europe with another irreverent recap of The Blakes’ never-ending musical journey, taking care as ever to respectfully omit the best parts so as not to incriminate or publicly humiliate any and all parties involved. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? We were still in the UK when I left off, so let’s take it from there, shall we?

The most prominent memory I have of the day off after the Nottingham show was a visit to Nottingham Castle, which has been transformed into a legend-of-Robin-Hood-exploiting tourist trap, albeit an interesting one. I also picked up some pretty fantastic records, including an original German printing of the first Stones LP (that Brian Jones was so handsome). We had a show the next day at a club called Faversham in the Northern city of Leeds. It took us forever to find the place as usual.

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Well, it’s official, The Blakes have gone international. Jumped the pond, as they might say, and Bob, oh Bob, has all the juicy deets.

To Europe and beyond.

My good pal Ashley Graham scored me a free hotel room downtown for the next couple nights while we waited to leave for Paris. Our flight to Europe went smoothly, although I have trouble sleeping on airplanes and it was a looonnng trip. Lars was with us and he had our entire schedule planned out, so we essentially just had to show up. Our first day in Paris–after a taxi hired by our French label took us to our charming hotel downtown–was spent seeing some of the great sights the City of Lights has to offer, including the Louvre and Notre Dame.

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Good old Bob sent us an absolute novel of a blog, so in terms of suspense building, we’ve decided to cut this bad boy in half. This time around The Blakes are finishing up their Southwest endeavors in preparation for their first jump across the pond.

For your enjoyment, one Bob Husak.

Life has certainly been eventful for The Blakes since my last post. Let me first briefly recap the rest of the last tour:

After ABQ we played the Bunkhouse in Vegas again, where some brawling went down onstage between the brothers Keimozov. We had the next day off and we watched the Super Bowl with The Magic Bullets at the Jackpot Casino. We drank many Buds, ate cheap hot dogs and nachos and reveled in the Giants’ unlikely victory. Tom Petty was also impressive. We played a blues bar called Moe’s Alley in Santa Cruz next. Not much to report from this show but we got to relax during the day in a nearby town on the water. We drank margaritas and I ate some oysters and deep fried artichokes. We played Sacto the next day and we got a chance to hang out with our good friend Sydney, although she couldn’t come into the show at the Blue Lamp because she’s not quite twenty-one yet. The next day we had a very long drive to Portland where we were playing Dante’s again. The room was very full for a Thursday. Our constant touring must be starting to pay off. Lars came to this show and had a meeting with us, and I also went with him to world-renowned Voodoo Donut where I stayed away from the bacon maple bar this time around and went with the donut that had Froot Loops on it.

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Bob and the boys face off (i.e. run) from a truckload of men with pit-bulls.

We are not kidding.

Man, I’m trying to keep up with the blog but it’s just not easy what with all the happenings and goings-on in the world of the Blakes. Let’s see, we had two days off after LA and we spent them driving to Albuquerque. Actually we pulled over early on the first day outside of Needles, CA, but we were creeped out by the fundamentalists who ran the desert travel center where we’d stopped, so we fired up the RV and attempted to seek out the nightlife in Needles. There isn’t one. So we found a deserted field off the freeway outside of town and hunkered down in the RV to drink and play poker. When B. Brown went outside to take a piss, however, he rushed back in and said he just saw a couple of guys in hoodies pull up in a car full of pitbulls. He jumped behind the wheel and high-tailed it out of Dodge. We were all pretty skeptical about this sighting at first, thinking that Brown may have been smoking a few too many of those funny cigarettes, but in reality there are some scary folk residing out in the high desert, so who knows? We eventually found a satisfactory, well-lit place to get sleep.

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John Denver’s secret sexual messages, dire warnings about certain promoters, and a whole lot of drinking - all in a day’s work for one Bob Husak.

Maestro.

We made the drive up to Santa Barbara fairly early the next day. We parked the RV downtown and I stopped at a nearby Salvation Army and picked up some LPs–mostly baby boomer staples–for fifty cents apiece (brief aside here: On the inside cover of Rocky Mountain High, John Denver’s wearing a shirt that reads, “Be kind to animals, kiss a beaver.” Is it just me, or does this clash drastically with the white bread, more wholesome than wholesome image Denver was always running with? OR, is it possible that he was so naive he didn’t get the double entendre?). I later met up with Garnet and Snow for some happy hour margaritas at El Torito on the waterfront and we hashed out…something. Can’t remember what. It was productive and fun though, that I’m sure of. We afterwards parked near the venue, Muddy Waters, and B. Brown cooked up some serious ginger chicken with mashed potatoes (stay tuned for The Blakes tour recipes) while I was given non stop free beer inside. Muddy Waters is a very small, artsy coffee shop that also serves beer and wine. There’s no stage and the promoter brought in the PA. No worries; the room was packed by the beginning of The Magic Bullets’ set (after two solid locals whose names escape me opened up) and Phil, the singer, was so excited he kissed me on the cheek. Apparently, this is a common practice.

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Another one from Mr. Bob Husak. Boozin’, Reno, and Garnet’s attempts to pick up some “plus-sized” ladies.

So we made our triumphant return to the Satellite in Reno on Saturday. Same shit: Small space, very bad stage sound. It’s run by nice enough folks though, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. There was a better turnout this time around since it was a weekend night and all, and yet another Keim cousin turned up. Snow was a little tipsy during the set and he almost came to blows with a heckler; afterwards, he walked up to the guy and said, “anytime you wanna go, man….” Meanwhile, our trailer got paintballed with pink pellets. At least they spared the RV. Reno apparently contains an unsavory element that just wants to cause trouble. The Magic Bullets put on a solid show and I retired to the RV directly after their set. The Bullets ended up coming on board along with Steve Keim plus lady friends, even though we made a strict rule about not having guests in the RV since we all need our privacy. It’s all right though. Later on in the evening Garnet came back from a nearby bar and started screaming at Snow at the top of his lungs about something or other. Looks like we’ll need to reign in the drinking once again.

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Bob is back.  Do we need to say anymore?

Sorry about the hiatus, loyal readers.  I swear I’ll stay up on the blogging this time.

Well, we’ve been pretty darned busy since my last post.  We finished out our last tour with three shows in mid-December, including an appearance at the Media Club in Vancouver, an opening slot for Blue October at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland (which was sold out), and a homecoming performance of sorts at a mostly empty Old Firehouse in Redmond, WA.  We took a short break over the holidays and I spent some time with my mom in Spokane and my dad on Whidbey Island, where I blissed out on Perry Como’s Christmas album.  Our big New Year’s show in Tukwila fell through at the last minute due to a dispute between the venue owners and the promoter, but we still got paid.  We recorded a new song at Chroma Sound in Seattle for a very special [ed. removed at the behest of Matt Sullivan] which I’m not at liberty to speak about any further at this time.  Our commercial radio campaign is in full effect and attendees of music meetings at alternative stations all over the country seem to “not hate” our single.  Our music video was disseminated across the internet and MTV2 has approved it for their Subterranean show.  We played a tour warm-up set at Sirens in Port Townsend–a venue we’ve played a million times and where we’re now treated like family.  We have big performances booked in France and England which I’m also not able to elaborate on at current, but needless to say we’re all very excited to be making our first trips across the pond in the coming months.  Meanwhile, we’ve rented a comfy 24-foot RV in Portland and we’re in the midst of the opening leg of a month-long tour of the western US, with tour manager/sound guy/extra player B. Brown and merch lady/Garnet’s girlfriend Heather back on duty.  The RV was a last minute decision and it’s thus far turned out to be a great one.  We actually have some room to move around and sleep and we have full kitchen and bathroom facilities.  In short, we can now live like human beings on the road.

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Bob Husak, renowned drummer of Light In The Attic’s famed signees The Blakes, wanted us to inform you that this blog was written in the time between The Blake’s Denver and Spokane shows. He also wanted us to inform you that a “thrilling conclusion” to this Dickensian saga was forthcoming.Thank you Bob. Always a gentlemen.

The next day, after checking out of the hotel, stopping at a bank and battling Denver rush hour traffic, we made our way to the Larimer Lounge and did a sound check. We’d played the Larimer before and it was much the same as last time we were through. They have a carpet that’s so caked with filth, at first glance it looks like a concrete floor. Free High Life was provided, as well as some barbeque they give out to customers on Thursdays. The first band was the headliner from the day before, the Nicotine Fits, who put on a high-energy rock show and who I believe have a lot of potential. Local band The Knew played second with some high-powered Johnny Cash-like numbers. Very solid stuff. A few KEXP listeners turned up and we played a fun, somewhat short set for them. This hopelessly inebriated maniac kept harassing the fans, the band and B. Brown, stating that he was a journalist who just wanted a story. It seemed like he really only wanted to talk endlessly and incoherently. We eventually had to tear ourselves away from some girls and begin the treacherous journey to Salt Lake City, where we’d be doing an interview the next day in the afternoon before the show. B. Brown took the helm and we drove straight into a snow storm. It got so bad that we had to pull over in the mountains and wait out before crossing into Wyoming.

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