After Life.

As the band continues its well deserved slumber, MNS band members have gone on to create other distortion-scapes and continue to clear rooms.

Scott now lives in Portland, ORE, has continued to turn up too loud so he can't hear the crowd silence and plays in Sheenjek:



Corey still residing in Chicago, has continued his exploration into noise experimentation and plays in Galaxxu and Bob Genghis Khan who you can check out below:

Bust out those walkmans...

...cuz we got cassettes in today! They'll be available from Seventh Rule soon, but if you live in New York or Boston you can pick 'em up at our shows this weekend.

Also, we're doing a couple of shows with on homies FIGHT AMP in November

Nov 8: Chicago @ Ultra Lounge - https://www.facebook.com/events/451391428246351/
Nov 9: Indianapolis @ Piss Haus

FAILURE TACTICS IS OUT TODAY

We truly live in exciting times. Presidential elections, global warming, unrest in the middle east, over hyped smartphones, and today, our second album, FAILURE TACTICS, is finally out. You can buy it directly from Seventh Rule and  get a free 'beverage' coozie as a bonus. If you don't like physical media, head over to bandcamp, where you can name your own price for the next 24 hours.

Also, resident Millions chef, Corey, was interviewed in the Never Nervous blog recently too: http://never-nervous.blogspot.com/2012/09/interview-corey-lyons-talks-about.html

We have a couple of shows lined up on the east coast coming up too:
Brooklyn on October 5th at Matchless with Cobretti, Growler and Beef Wellington.

http://www.facebook.com/events/316285801802136/

And this show in Boston on October 6th at Starlab with Phantom Glue, Hero(n), and Jack Burton vs. David Lo Pan

http://www.facebook.com/events/362316997179416/

Scott Interview

Scott got interviewed by about.com for our new album Failure Tactics and about some Seventh Rule related biz as well.  You should go read it.  He gives away all of our deepest and darkest secrets.

http://heavymetal.about.com/od/interviews/a/Millions-Interview.htm

Shows in Brooklyn and Boston, and a Review

We're still recovering from the record release show for "Failure Tactics" that we played last Friday at Township.  It was awesome.  Thanks to everyone who came out, and thanks to Neverender, Today's Man and Electric Hawk.

We're also playing this show in Brooklyn on October 5th at Matchless with Cobretti, Growler and Beef Wellington.

http://www.facebook.com/events/316285801802136/

And this show in Boston on October 6th at Starlab with Phantom Glue, Hero(n), and Jack Burton vs. David Lo Pan

http://www.facebook.com/events/362316997179416/

Also....A review!

http://meatmeadmetal.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/seventh-rule-keeps-things-violent-with-new-albums-from-millions-stoneburner/

Living the Dream? More like Numbing it...

Get yr hands on all this junk at the release show - Sept 14 - Township/Chicago

FAILURE TACTICS Record Release Show - Sept 14

https://www.facebook.com/events/336139993147012/

FAILURE TACTICS

Our new album, FAILURE TACTICS, will be out September 25 on Seventh Rule.

The record was produced by Chicago’s Andrew Ragin (The Atlas Moth), mastered by Kyle Spence (Harvey Milk)

But if you live in Chicago, you can get your hands on it early at our record release show:
Sept 14 @ Township w/ Electric Hawk, Todays Man and Neverender

Until then, you can wet your whistle with the song "Pervert" here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yln0x2Je06A

Not to get all Emo McGee about it, but this is the most ambitious, personal and, well, craziest stuff we've done so far. We're split across the country, fueled by sleep deprivation and short circuits, and did our best to capture that via microphones and amplifiers. It's still the same old Millions, but more like if the same old Millions just came out of a two year coma and woke up in a world where a man with tax dodging off shore bank accounts who wears magic underwear was a serious contender for leader of the free world..... wait... fuck. 

TRACKLISTING

1. Shadow Copy
2. Shipwreck
3. Pervert
4. Siberian Angel
5. Slang For Upstanding Men
6. Tunnel Rat
7. Numbing The Dream
8. Suicide Artist

9. U.F.F.O

10. Darmok V

Some talking points for today:

We have a show this Thursday in Milwaukee at Cactus Club with Wizard Rifle, Sivini and Bicentennial Rub.
We have show this Friday in Chicago at Township with Wizard Rifle, Sivini and Harpoon.
Sunday we enter Wall2Wall Recording to begin work on our second full length, Failure Tactics.
Failure Tactics will be out this fall on Seventh Rule.

To tide you over, we've put together a little video for one of the new songs.... Enjoy.



http://www.youtube.com/embed/LtPlzoTelU8

https://vimeo.com/40421490

Back in the Saddle Again. Time to Ride.

Upcoming Shows:

March 28: with Git Some, Himalayan, In The Weeds @ Ultra Lounge | Chicago

April 19: with Wizard Rifle, Sivini, Bicentennial Rub @ Cactus Club | Milwaukee

April 20: with Wizard Rifle, Harpoon, Sivini @ Township | Chicago

Stay tuned for more news and tour dates...

Social Networking. Sure.....

Remember when bands used to print their Myspace URL on their records? Pretty soon, that'll be about as useful as writing to Slint regarding their "interested female vocalist" opening.

Anyway, if you're on twitter or facebook, you can add us there:

Millions on Twitter

Millions on Facebook

In Soviet Russia, Album Buys You!

Seventh Rule Recordings,the label that makes us rich, has started a bandcamp webpage. What does that mean for you? It means that our first LP, Gather Scatter, is available there for your downloading pleasure.

The album is free to download and to stream. There are all sorts of format choices and most of them are of much higher quality than the other internet choices. You probably knew that you could download it for free anyway via all sorts of nefarious sources. We're just cutting out the middle man and offering you better quality.

You can also pay for the release via Bandcamp by naming your price when you download. You have always had the option to get the album for free, and you still do. We're just giving you another option and letting you decide it's value.

If it was up to us, you'd just buy the vinyl anyway...

Millions - Gather Scatter

In other news, we're writing another album and getting ready to demo it. Yes, that album will likely be getting the bandcamp treatment too.

No, Panic Program is not on bandcamp and is not available digitally yet. You should really just buy the vinyl.

Here's a link to the Seventh Rule bandcamp page. Other releases are there too. Tear at it like hyenas....

http://seventhrule.bandcamp.com/

Playing a Show...Other Stuff

It's winter, which means that Chicago is cold. It also means that we have nothing better to do than to stay inside and write songs. At some point that gets boring though, so we've decided to brave the elements and play a show. Here are the details:

December 16

@ Pancho's in Chicago IL

w/ Hunters and Wizardcastle

We're playing a lot of new stuff at this show because it's Pancho's, and Pancho's is Logan Square's answer to Outback Steakhouse....No Rules, just right. Also, Pancho has been known to break out the sax from behind the bar and do his best Lost Boys impression. You've been warned.

The first 25 through the door will get a holiday grab bag of epic proportions. Millions vinyl, Hunters CDs, and Wizardcastle Dungeons and Dragons Dice. Why? Cause your ears need a saving throw, and we're the DM.

Saxual Healing

Scott Flaster : Age 13

Before Scott Flaster became "the muscle"/Millions skullcracker/Seventh Rule Overlord, he was a boy with a dream. That dream was to become the world's greatest saxophone player. Had he stuck with it, his dream gigs would have been as follows:

- Doobie

- Guy who played on "Careless Whisper"

- Guy who played on "You Belong to the City"

- Guy who played on "Heart of Rock n Roll"

- Guy who played the solo on "Never Tear Us Apart"

- Rocket From the Crypt sax tech

- Sonny Rollins understudy

Instead he switched to guitar and just whistles Yakety Sax to himself whenever tragedy strikes. Who knows what could have happened had he stuck with it....

East Coast Shows this Weekend + Scott's Birthday

In honor of Scott's birthday, and to play some great shows and see some of our favorite people, we'll be playing a series of shows on the east coast this weekend. Check the dates on the side for full details. Brooklyn on Friday will be first and it can't come soon enough. We always have a great time there. Saturday will be Baltimore. Sunday will be Philadelphia.

Please make sure Scott has a good time on his birthday. If everyone would gather around him at some point and give him a Bennigan's/Chili's style birthday song, that would probably be his ultimate birthday wish. Make it happen.

BRUTAL PANDA VS. CHRONIC YOUTH RAGER ANNOUNCED

We are looking forward to it! This day also happens to be Scott's birthday so please show up with NY Pizza, High Life, and shots of Jameson.

NIRVANA COVER UNVEILED FOR RECORD STORE DAY

It's no secret that here at Camp Millions, we are all fans of the vinyl format. Record Store Day is pretty cool to us and we hope you plan on leaving your parent's basement tomorrow and coming out to support your local record store. You might even see us hitting the Chicago stores getting the rare QOTSA, Soundgarden, Springsteen, and Pantera gems we feel we need.

This is our contribution to the Record Store Day celebration by doing what we enjoy.

We are all big fans of Nirvana's "In Utero" album so we chose the song that fit us best and recorded it during the Panic Program session.

Of course we had to play it faster than the original.

Enjoy.

TOURETTE'S (NIRVANA)

the song can also be downloaded here.

Livin' the Dream

Sometimes we find some pretty cool stuff on tour. Like this ape themed gas station in Connecticut. We're sure someone else has been there and has better pictures of it. Send us some pics!

And don't forget that we're playing shows this summer! Bring us some bologna and maybe Corey will fry you up a sandwich. Or maybe we'll split it with you.

More Contests! Show Dates Too!

We're throwing out so many contest posts lately, that you're gonna think this has turned into a spam blog. Next up will be Viagra offers, and emails from a Nigerian Prince.

Anyway, there is another contest. This one is pretty special. Basically, it's a drawing that you can enter to win a test pressing of our vinyl.

Enter here:

http://www.pluginmusic.com/contest.php?page=millions

There are only 5 of these in existence so owning one immediately puts you in an exclusive class of people. It's a class of people that still thinks farts and Weird Al are hilarious, but still....

Also, we put a few show dates up that we're doing with our fellow downstroke warlords, Fight Amp. Brooklyn, Philadelphia....More coming.

Next contest: Guess your weight!

Not Quite a Lotto Ticket...

Yo internet! It's been awhile since we talked to you. Let's get down to business....

Yes, the EP is still on schedule. You should go ahead and preorder it from Brutal Panda. It's only being released on vinyl for right now. Why you might ask? Well... CDs are clunky, dumb, and make for excellent backup/data transfer devices, but as a listening medium, they are antiques. In 1995, a CD made sense. In 2010, they're AOL....And even AOL quit sending out CDs! See...It's all coming together.

Yes, we have shows coming up. Details on those later.

The big news... Decibel Magazine is hosting a contest to win our new EP. If you know your useless Scott Flaster facts, you might just win the contest. And even if you don't know Scott Flaster from John Amos, you can probably just look on our last LP and get the answer.

Read the Decibel article on the release and enter the contest here.

NEW MILLIONS EP TO SEE RELEASE THIS MARCH!

We are proud to announce that Brutal Panda Records will be releasing our new EP, 'Panic Program'.

The EP will be available in 7" vinyl format and will feature 4 brand new tracks.

The tracks were recorded this past November at Bricktop Recording in Chicago, IL with Andy Nelson (Harpoon, Weekend Nachos) handling production duties, and mastering being taken care of by Carl Saff (Young Widows, The Atlas Moth).

The press will be limited to 500 copies with 300 on green and 200 on black.

You can hear the first track off the EP, "Kept Alive By Drugs And Magick" right here via MySpace.

'Panic Program' will see an early March vinyl-only release with pre-orders being taken via the official Brutal Panda site here.

The track listing is as follows:

1. KEPT ALIVE BY DRUGS AND MAGICK

2. OLD FASHIONED WAY

3. BLOODLUST

4. ENCAPSULATION

CRASHING THE TOP 40 PARTY

We are stoked to report that Millions "Gather Scatter" has made the Decibel Magazine "Top 40 Records of 2009" list.

Sure we could post all the details, but why not pick up a copy and check it out yourselves?

MILLIONS "VERY STRANGE" BRICKTOP SESSIONS

In what seemed like a genius idea, we booked studio time before we left for Europe. The idea being that we had new songs and after playing them every night for a month straight, what better time to record? We enlisted the engineering skills of Andy Nelson at Bricktop Recording. He had recorded the Harpoon and Weekend Nachos full lengths and those sounded stellar. Andy also does guitar / pick slides in Weekend Nachos, and their shows are worth a night leaving your couch.

So after being home for a couple weeks from our Euro binge, we awoke on a Saturday morning, went to the practice space to load up, then headed to the Pilsen neighborhood where Bricktop was located.

It was very strange doing anything post tour without Ralph, our European tour manager / driver, so these sessions are named in tribute to him.

We loaded into the studio and got situated in a room that could fit us all. The idea was to set up in the same room, mic us all up, and get an energetic live recording. Vocals would be tracked separately and of course the guitar feedback overdubs would be done later.

Some history about the building where Bricktop resides. It's basically an old warehouse full of rubber gloves, raincoats, furniture, coveralls, and a completely out of place Fender Rhodes. This place used to be right down the street from the Maxwell Street Market so it got a ton of foot traffic and people would come in from all over to buy their gear. Now the market has moved and the people have stopped coming. It feels sort of like a fossil from those Maxwell Street days. Needless to say, we felt very comfortable and were able to knock the songs out in a short amount of takes.

Corey weighs his options.

We walked out of there with four originals and a cover of Nirvana's "Tourette's". We will post the Nirvana cover here in the next couple weeks as soon as we finish mixing.

The new material is MILLIONS moving in a forward direction for sure.

Or perhaps we are moving sideways.

These four songs recorded... Are they to be an EP? Material for some seven inch splits with other bands? How bout our 2009 demo? The history is yet to be written. We're really happy with how they turned out and can't wait to unleash them on the unsuspecting public.

Dresden

Dresden - After spending most of the day in Prague, we left for Dresden in the late afternoon. Daylight savings had kicked in the night before, but darkness had fallen by the time we hit Dresden two hours later and we didn't get to see much scenery.

It was set in our minds that we would be travelling home the next day and we had started to sort through what needed to be done before we left town. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to think about these things after we had played the show!

The show was at Az Conni which was a very nice venue that Ralph our driver had been a part of for the last ten years and he made sure to get us plenty of beer and delicious food. The sleeping quarters were in a building next door, so with the crisp Fall air, the whole night had a "camp" feel to it.

We played with Framestar who sounded like a tasteful cross between Refused and Turbonegro and their set was flawless. Daniel who had given us shelter upon our initial arrival in Berlin was the vocalist and it was nice to see him again.

As the fairy tale goes, the last show of a tour is supposed to be the tightest, most energetic, and the last shot at redemption. Thinking back on all our past tours, this only happens 50% of the time and the other half can be filed as crash and burn. No fairy tale took place in Dresden.

Not feeling fully satisfied with the night, Scott and Mark set out to find one last döner kebab meal to bring back to camp and they were successful. We are sure the smell was still in the air at 5 am when we left for Berlin and our flight home.

And with that....Our tour of Europe was over.

90+ Hours in a Van in 26 Days: Millions Reading List

Staving off boredom in the van can be challenging when you're looking riding in the thing 26 days in a row. And for some reason we made it harder on ourselves this trip by trying to not listen to music on the stereo in the van. Personal iPods and whatnot were fine, but we opted to not subject everyone to our horrible individual tastes in music. Odd as it sounds, it was a nice change of pace. The only thing coming out of the front of the van that we could all hear were the soothing sounds of the German GPS and, when in Germany, Ralph listening to talk radio. That was actually kind of relaxing, something about talk radio that you can't understand a word of is perfect for lulling you to sleep.

Anyway, we read a lot of books, watched a fair amount of TV shows and listened to some sweet jams while whittling away the hours in the van for a month...

Corey:

Read: Watchmen, couple installments of Y: The Last Man, and the In The Court of King Crimson (King Crimson Biography). Yeah, I really wish I brought more books on tour

Watched: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 3 and some of 4

I fashioned a sweet home theater system in the van to optimize my Star Trekkin'

Listened: Converge: Axe to Fall, Aphex Twin: Select Ambient Works Vol II, His Hero Is Gone: Monuments to Thieves, Crain: Heater, Rodan: Rusty, Slint: Spiderland, Tyrannosaurus Rex: Beard of Stars & Unicorn, Kylesa: Static Tensions, Creedence Clearwater Revival: Green River, Krallice: s/t, Mahavishnu Orchestra: Inner Worlds, Miles Davis/Bill Laswell: Panthalassa, Yes: Relayer, Straight A's: 7", Rye Coalition: Lipstick Game

Mark:

Slept a lot. Listened to Iggy Pop "The Idiot", Swans "Filth", Soulsavers "Broken", James Brown "The Payback". Read British tabloid news, and Joe Matt "The Poor Bastard". Watched "Real Time With Bill Maher", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", and "Hells Kitchen"

Pat:

Read: Lolita, Nabokov; The Plague, Camus; Transition, Banks; To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee; and A Confederacy of Dunces, Toole.

Watched: Season 1 of The Wire, Season 1 of Eastbound and Down

Listened: Tons of 3D Thunderstorm environments to get through the snoring, Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Van Halen, a little King Crimson, a little Floyd and Keelhaul.

Scott:

Read: Children of Dune, Frank Herbert; Elric of Melniboné, Michael Moorcock; and Watchmen, Alan Moore/ Dave Gibbons.

Watched: Season 2 of Dexter and a whole lot of European scenery.

Listened: Fight Amp "Manners and Praise", Voivod "Killing Technology", Yes "Close To the Edge", Yuppicide "Dead Man Walking", Entombed "Wolverine Blues", Replacements "Let It Be", Einstürzende Neubauten "Halber Mensch", Front 242 "Front By Front", King Crimson "Lizard", Unsane "Lambhouse", Rodan "Rusty", and Charger "Fuzzbastard".

Ralph:

Spent a month listening to four American idiots who thought they were funny, but they weren't.

Prague

Prague - One of our favorite shows of the tour. It was about time that we played a show that we all felt good about. It was promoted as HC /NOISE, so people knew exactly what they were getting into.

We showed up at the club and it just felt different. First off, the guy running the parking lot was pretty sure that we all spoke Czech even though we were only talking to him in English. Ralph tried German too I think. Didn't matter....He was giving very lengthy descriptions in Czech. We were pretty lost.

The club is in the basement of a college dorm. It was cheap, and the sound was good. Goulash was provided for food and it ruled.

The first band that played was Transwaggon. It was the promoter, Kejmy's band. They were great and ended their set with a Husker Du cover dedicated to us. After Vicenza, it was nice to play with a band that fit with us.

Remember those roses stolen from Italy? We put them up on the stage and told people to take them during the set as a gift from us. They were gone before we were done. Gotta remember that trick.


Our set was probably one of our better ones. People were way into it. Double encore too!

After the show we went to the merch table and sold thousands of Czech crowns worth of merch. This was exciting! Then we realized what the exchange rate of Czech crowns to Euro was....Not as exciting (still pretty good though).

The next day we woke up and got to do some cool sightseeing in Prague. Some of the only sightseeing of the trip....We picked a pretty good place to do it.

Then it was on to Dresden to play Az Conni, a collective of which Ralph was part of. This would be our last show of the tour.

Vicenza

Vicenza - Seems like anything would have been a let down after waking up in one of the most beautiful places we've ever been. The drive here was pretty cool though cause we found a gas station that doubled as a full on meat pantry! Unfortunately some of the goods acquired out of haste and excitement didn't make it through US customs. D'oh!


The venue in Vicenza was very fancy and there was a band flat directly above the venue which was great. There were some issues with the toilet....Namely that it wouldn't flush. At first we blamed our dumb American-ness, but it turned out to be a legitimate issue. The promoter, Erico, helped us figure out the trouble after initially offering Mark a box to remove his leavings.

After that it was downstairs for soundcheck and free pizza! The pizza was insane and we each got a whole one to ourselves which came in handy later in the night. They also had Lagavulin behind the bar. It didn't last the night.


The show was well attended, but we're pretty sure nobody was there to see us. In fact, many people were probably a little bit shocked by what was happening. We may have stood a better chance with a spoken word set taking turns reading Steven Hawking's "A Brief History Of Time" to the crowd. So it goes. We were probably a little loud for the venue too. The other band, Cruel Boxes sounded like a cross between Thrice and Alexisonfire. Yes, we know what those bands sound like. Not sure they were a good fit for us, but a little variety never hurts. At least the bartenders and Erico seemed to like us!

After Cruel Boxes had ended their set, they had their beautiful Italian girlfriends occupy the merchandise table. This is always a great idea except these ladies took no shame in boxing us out of the area so we had no chance of selling anything! Sometime during the night, 4 roses were bought and given to these women. Now we aren't exactly sure how it happened or who was involved, but those roses left with us the next day on our 10 hour drive to Prague.

Lucca

Lucca - Leaving Schauffhausen around noon we continued on through the Alps into Italy. We were aiming for a 5pm rendezvous at Mike Persil's house just outside of Pisa. With Ralph at the wheel driving with determination, this only left time for fuel, bathroom, and smoke breaks.

Swiss Smoke Break.

The scenery was amazing overall, except a 17km tunnel through the mountain which tested everyone's underlying claustrophobia.

Mike Persil was the man who was behind booking this tour for us and it was a pleasure to meet him and he welcomed us with 1 lb of prosciutto and two bottles of excellent Chianti. What a generous host!

The show was at a upscale bar/restaurant and we can only describe our set as tiny daggers into the hearts of the Italian people which made them slowly run for cover.

Later that night we stayed at the promoters house, out in the Tuscan countryside. One of the cool things on tour is arriving to where you're sleeping at 1 AM and not really knowing where you're at, then waking up and discovering you're either in a shithole or paradise, or somewhere in between. Now we appreciate everyone who has given us a place to stay through the years as we have been on tour, but waking up in this countryside was quite memorable beyond everything.

Zipping Through Tuscany in a Van at 1AM

At 5 AM we were awoken by roosters, grabbed a few more hours asleep then discovered we were in the middle of some incredible scenic Tuscan hills. Pomegranate and olive trees and grapes growing on vines just beats the allure of dirty toilets and bathtubs with broken drains.

Us with Mike Persil

Schauffhausen

Schauffhausen - We drove through the Swiss Alps on this drive. It was just the start of it, and we'd get to see a whole lot more of them as the trip went on.

We got to the venue and it was another really professional place. It was probably a 300 capacity room which was one of the bigger places we've played on the tour. Good sound, decent crowd for a school night in a pretty small town (30,000?). We played pretty well.

After the show we walked the streets trying to find somewhere to eat. There was nothing. Massive bummer. We wound up splitting 2 snack packs of chips between 4 people. That didn't go so well.

Later in the night, Mark took his socks off for the first time in 4 days. It cleared the room out. Pat wound up sleeping somewhere else in the house just to get away from the smell. Foot powder and open windows wound up saving the day eventually.

The next day it was off to Italy, specifically Tuscany, to meet Mike Persil.

Munich

Munich -

Awesome sound system at this show and possibly the best food spread so far. Tasty ass olives, meats, salad... good stuff. Really took care of us here.


After the show we stayed at a complex called BACKSTAGE which had multiple venues and had hosted both an ARCHIVE and PETER MURPHY show that night. Both groups got wind we were staying there and left town before we even got there, leaving us with a sleeping place all to ourselves.

The next morning we woke up and were made breakfast as a fantasy metal tour package loaded in. Awesome.

Leipzig

Leipzig - I think we all agree the venue in Leipzig, Zoro, was one of the coolest of the trip so far. Another squat, converted from an old school, with a couple spaces for shows and a nice kitchen and accommodations for the many bands that come through here. We played with Teenage Cool Kids and Algernon Cadwallader, also American bands. It was good to shoot the shit and discuss our mutual experiences touring Europe. When we drove up the venue they were walking down the street menacingly eating ice cream cones...

Before Dinner with Teenage Cool Kids and Algernon Cadwallader

A couple people cooked us some really, really good vegan food - and this is Corey writing this, so you know it kinda hurts him to say that. Gonna steal that potato dumpling recipe,,,


Played a fun show in the downstairs show area, which had a cool, rusty, steampunk in Freddy Krueger's basement vibe going on. Good turnout and the other bands killed shit as well.

Cologne (Day Off)

Cologne (Day Off) – Not too much to say about this. We ate some tasty Lebanese food and walked down the Rhine River by the Cathedral. We got some rest. Corey was feeling much better. We watched some Curb Your Enthusiasm. Nice relaxing day off.

A pound of prosciutto, washed down with chianti and microbrew in Lucca, Italy has restored Corey to full health! Popeye has his spinach, Corey has cured meats.

Paris

Paris – The most well put together, professional show we’ve ever been a part of. Easily. We pull up in the van and standing there on the sidewalk is the promoter, a technical director, and about 20 stagehands waiting to unload all of our gear. We are in the right place right???

Everything is ready to go within minutes, they give us a dressing room (not kidding) with a TV and soundboard mix coming through the speakers so that we can keep an eye on how the shows going without going out there.

There is a full catering spread which they have people serving to us while we just sit there. Wine and beer is plentiful.

After sound check we walk around a bit and Mark buys some street sausage that winds up being the finest sausage he’s ever eaten. Corey, although he still can’t keep any food down, tries a bite and agrees, it’s the best.

Back at the show, we get our backstage passes and watch the other bands. Alpinist plays and completely kills it. Nice guys too. Probably one of our favorite bands that we've seen for the whole tour so far. They sound a lot like His Hero is Gone. Corey likes this.

We play and although Corey is weak from malnourishment, the show goes well, we might be a little lower energy than usual, but it’s tough when one person hasn’t eaten a meal in 48 hours. People are dancing and kind of going crazy while we play. It’s a pretty amazing thing to see. There is good banter with the crowd, and we get asked to do an encore….For some reason the French seem to get our music. It’s cool that someone does! The people there seem very appreciative, and we feel the same way.

Then comes the best part…..The people who put on the show got us three hotel rooms to stay at, which are about a five minute drive from the venue. Insane!

The next day, Scott and Mark woke up and went to a nearby Farmers Market, which was scrumtrulescent. Anything you can think of was there. Fresh seafood, the best cuts of meat, thousands of kinds of crazy cheeses you’d never see elsewhere, tons of different breads and rolls and croissants. Scott got some rotisserie cooked rabbit, a sausage, and a baguette. Mark got a rotisserie tenderloin kabob, a sausage and an apple raisin baguette. Awesome….

We drove by the Eiffel Tower.

Walking the Farmers Market