Parethetical Girls

And we all made it out, unsniped and unraped.

I've never really been to California until this tour. Unless you count Anaheim at the age of 8, where all I saw were the walls of my Grandma's motor home in transit, Roto-bot pirates, and throngs of peeling shoulders. Do you think that everybody sings that Phantom Planet song when they cross the California border, now? If so, we were no exception. Over and over again.

Our first stop in San Diego was dinner at the home of Matt's half-brother Daniel, who lives in a very affluent, hilltop climbing neighborhood overlooking the bay. Upon our arrival we were generously dosed with white wine, Limoncella (all the rage in Italy), and penne pasta prepared by Daniel's culinary schooled wife Karen. And this is what the Parenthetical Girls did before their show at the Che Cafe. (Only fueling recent allegations of Zac being the most pretentious man in America.)

Only the finest Aquafina will do for this guy.

Che Cafe felt a bit like a compound to me- the kids hang out on ruined couches in the woods, and a girl tried to run Zac, Brenna and I off the grounds via table-sized wooden spool. This audience was perhaps our most engaged.

Kids on the couch.

San Diego also marked our last show with Lucky Dragons and BARR, sadly. I wish it could have been longer.

That night I swam for the first time on California shores. I knew the water would be warm, but it was eerily warm. Every body looked silver, and while Matt and Zac kept venturing out too far, Brenna and I kept closer to the shore, intermittently yelping "come back". This is where my camera broke. This must have been where my immune system broke, as well.

I woke up to flu signs the next morning after a surprisingly sound slumber on Ty's garage floor. They rapidly progressed into straight up symptoms, and I spent the drive to Flagstaff in the throes. Our car called in sick as well, overheating in the middle of nowhere desert, AZ. We pulled over to cool down, and within 15 minutes were assailed roadside by two men driving a personal tow truck, offering their services as what is essentially human vulture to broken down human roadkill. "It'll take a towing company 4 hrs. to find you out here...." And did I mention they were wearing surgical gloves?

Matt and a friendly Flagstaff native he met at the movie theater.

We united with our last leg tour mates, Reindeer/Tiger Team, for our show at the Hotel Monte Vista in Flagstaff. And if I hadn't been so ill, I might have enjoyed my surroundings a bit more. Only in retrospect can I appreciate the bunk lodgings we were provided, and the fancy tinsel-backed stage.

We felt like Kings.

A fellow in the audience told Zac that our show "changed no less than 5 lives that evening" (I think he must have taken a poll?). And aside from the over-priced tap water, Hotel Monte Vista treated us very kindly. I gave it a 3.5 out of 5 on Hotels.com.

"3.5"

We had a bit of time to kill the next day, so we went to see an obscenely long and awful film about an alien in a red cape named Jesus. Later, we stopped by Arcosanti--one architect's self-sustaining community wet-dream. It was really surreal, especially for a person hepped up on every conceivable over the counter flu medicine. Zac and Sam played a show in Arcosanti once, to much acclaim, but their contact has since moved out. If anybody in Arcosanti reads this, please give us a key to your city and a tour of your wind chime factory. Thank you.

In the face of looming threats of sniping/brutal rape, then murder (or vice-versa), we proceeded onto Phoenix. The Trunk Space was pretty legit, community based and seemingly professional. I accidentally left my overnight case and bag of medicine at the venue that night--and I'm pretty nervous, because Zac tells me that my penchant for leaving necessary possessions behind at venues has left me in peril of falling out of the "Triple Threat". Please pray for me--or if that's not your way, you can cast a vote below to help me gain a position in the top 3.

Theoretical "Top 3".

We retired that night to Eddy (from Reindeer/Tiger Team) parent's home (yet another plush pad). Night swimming, toast eating, laundry doing, M. Night Shamaylan joke making, wireless partying. My sick had a finale that night in the form of a raging fever, but I woke up in the morning a virtual new woman with nothing but a raw throat as evidence.

Next up: Tucson.

Posted by Zac at 9:55 PM

Tour two: Hemlock and Silverlake.

The last I spoke on the matter, we were drinking from shells. We stopped doing that a long time ago.
The morning after, we woke up and hung out in Oakland for a bit. Jamie took us to the hippie grocery, that wasn't really a hippie grocery I decided, considering the Cheese Nips and 7up (though, 7up is all natural now, if you haven't heard). We all got coffee with David, and I caught up on what Seventeen magazine has been up to in the last six years since I was a member of their demographic. The answer is: not much.

That day we drove to San Francisco, allowing enough time to get our AC "recharged" at the local Jiffy Lube, and attempting and failing to eat in China Town. San Francisco, why is your street cleaning schedule so complicated? Good Lord, you were taxing our gig. But you were pretty to look at.
While parking in the alley behind the Hemlock, I have to mention that we rolled through a pile of human feces. Pretty foreboding, as well as totally disgusting. We have photos, but I'll spare all of us, and offer you, in lieu, this nice photo of Luke playing his penny whistle.

Pre-show, Matt shocked and amazed with his "Caveman laptop band". You wouldn't believe the sounds this man can produce. Out of a brick.

Anyhow, the Hemlock was and still is my personal favorite of this tour. It's not as if we had a particularly outstanding performance, but it felt really good. I was slightly tipsy, and fell into thinking about my Dad, and being alone in my bedroom the whole time we were playing. Also, it was rumored that M. Night Shyamalan (HUGE Barr fan) was in the audience, so we were all on our best, most civilized behaviour.

Barr's set was especially nice, we all danced.

That night, Zac and I went back to Jamie's while Matt and Brenna stayed with friends in SF. At Jamie's we found ourselves covered in mud.

That's REAL Dead Sea mud, from David's recent journey to Israel.

Thank you to Jamie, for being a gentleman and putting up with us for double the expectancy.

Anyhow, the Silverlake Lounge- we couldn't tell if it was divey in a "cool" way, or just "divey". Either way. We played with a band called "Foot Foot", who were incredibly nice people. My internet friends M. B. and K. H. came to the show, which was v. exciting for me. Internet friends, am I right? They were really cool.

"Foot Foot."

And oh yeah, despite the fact that friends and attendees were charged 7 dollars per head, we were not to be paid for our services that evening. Guess we should have signed a contract. Thanks Silverlake Lounge.

Later that night, we retired to David's plush San Pedro home. I took a lux. bath in an oversized tub- overall, we've been really lucky with our lodgings. I was prepared to "rough it", but haven't even had the chance yet. Not that I'm complaining. The next day, David took us to Sunken Beach, and almost took us to Cat Beach. Are those their proper names?

It's sunken.

I have to speak for all of us while thanking David 10 x's, who watched us play three times in a row, and skipped work to hang out with us, but who may or may not be a compulsive liar.

"David Horvitz and Brendan Fowler, being cool."

God, I am so behind and I apologize. I've been sick.

Seattle and Oakland.

Hello. In an attempt to bring a new voice, perspective, to the Parenthetical Girls web log, I, (Rachael), will be updating while we are on our West Coast Tour. A tour which we have dubbed "Triple Threat:" after a meandering sidewalk discussion on this oft-used mostly Hollywood term. What is a triple threat anyways? Sing, dance, act... Solder, bird-watch, babysit? Who knows. We're it, though. (It's funny, because there are 4 of us, remember.)

Anyhow, our tour started yesterday, essentially. We left Portland around 10:30 AM, early enough for Brenna to conduct an internet biology experiment at her childhood Bothell home, and Zac to get a haircut from the infamous J. Tsiakals before the show. Upon our arrival in Seattle, we were offered the opportunity to hop a free ride up the spine of the space needle, by virtue of my old friend Rachel H working at the cafe up there. We lost our steam, though, when we realized that something had gone awry in will-call, and our names had not been "listed". It turned out alright though, because that gave us a chance to browse in the gift shop, and stop at the Seattle coffee shop Starbucks. If you're wondering, the haircut was a total success, and the biology experiment's outcome is yet to be determined.

So, our Seattle show was at a bar called the Sunset Lounge, opening for the bands Racetrack and Tullycraft. It had been touted in the Seattle press as our "CD Release show," and although this was not the case, we went with it. "Our second CD Release show." A lot of people showed up, actually. I assume this was to see the much beloved Tullycraft, but still, it was nice. At the beginning of the set, Zac asked that the audience "hold their applause until after the show." We didn't think that they would actually do it. We played well, though, I thought. The next day in the Slog, the audience was described as "awestruck". What? Were you guys awestruck? Ryan, Cori, Rachel, lady who bought an album sight seen after having "totally missed the set," all of you people were nice. No drink tickets, but a cooler full of Miller High Life and Rockstar energy drinks. Zac pounded like, 9 of them for the impending after show drive back to Portland for a last night in our own beds before the onset of tour. We missed Tullycraft, sadly.

Eating Pho backstage at the Sunset.

Anyhow, like I said, we drove all night,. After approx. 3 hours of sleep, and gathering up last minute items that we had a day to remember forgetting, we met at Matt and Brenna's for an 11 hour drive to Oakland.

I suppose it was a fairly uneventful 11 hours. Watched "Live Forever" and 2 episodes of "Entourage" on Zac's computer, tried to repair a purse, stopped in Weed, CA (which we found out later you're NEVER supposed to do), had some trouble with the van overheating. Weed, did you give us car troubles?

Our Oakland show was at an art space called "21 Grand" with the bands "BARR," "Lucky Dragons," and "Snowsuit*." We'll be playing a few more shows with Luke and Brendan, and we couldn't really ask for better acts to have to watch for a handful of consecutive nights. David from LA, and Jamie were there. A lot of cute young people were there. We ate Monster pizza slices for dinner. Lucky Dragons played a cool set- he has this coil wrapped in yarn, infused with theremin-y bits that respond to touching the arm or hand of the person holding the coil. I guess it may as well be magic for all I know how to explain it properly. Then we played. A not so long story made shorter: we performed poorly. Due in part to technical difficulties, due in part to stopping in Weed*, we’ll say. Regardless, the audience was kind...one young boy told me as he was leaving that our errors were "refreshing." Well, thank you young man, thank you.

That night we stayed at Jamie's and drowned our post show woes in Saparro quaffed from the mouth of a conch shell a la Matthew Barney's latest. Very ritualistic, we had to wipe the piece our mouth touched exactly three times after each turn. Turns out I become freak folk with a conch shell in my hand, and Zac appears to be summoning Hell's legions.

Anyhow, all's well. I'll be updating two shows at a time, ideally. Soon: San Francisco and LA @ Silverlake Lounge. We're on our way to LA right now, van full with hitchhiker Fishbeck and technology pieces. We've got a lot of technology in our van.

(UPDATE: MORE TOUR DATES!) The Long List of Shit That Fucks Up My Face.

From the hopelessly myopic POV of the Parenthetical Girls, it's sometimes difficult to see that things are coming together with surprisingly more regularity than they are coming apart these days. It's hard to say how long this luck is going to hold out, so now is the time to dig deep within that well of humility so throughly beaten into us at every turn--the last thing we need is a prideful fall. Where was I going with this? Oh, right: the Parenthetical Girls are about to leave for tour. For those of you who live within a few hundred miles of interstate five, you're in luck:

July:
Sat 8 - Seattle @ Sunset Tavern (with Tullycraft, Racetrack
Sun 9 - Oakland @ 21 Grand (with BARR, Lucky Dragons, Snowsuit*)
Mon 10 - San Francisco @ Hemlock (with BARR, Lucky Dragons, Snowsuit*) EARLY SHOW! For REAL!
Tues 11 - Los Angeles @ Silverlake Lounge (with Lucky Dragons, Foot Foot)
Wed 12 - San Diego @ Che Cafe (with BARR and Lucky Dragons)
Thurs 13 - Flagstaff, AZ @ Hotel Monte Vista*
Fri 14 - Phoenix @ Trunkspace*
Sat 15 - Tucson @ 36 Chambers*
Sun 16 - Pomona @ TBD*
Mon 17 - Los Angeles @ Il Corral*
Tues 18 - Merced @ Mainzer Theater
Wed 19 - Davis @ Delta of Venus*
Thurs 20 - Boise @ House Show at 920 Pueblo*
Fri 21 - Seattle, WA @ The Paradox*
Su 23 - Vancouver, BC @ Maslianski's Parking Lot

*with Reindeer/Tiger Team

We're all very excited to see you, believe me.

In other news: Safe As Houses is officially in stores starting... NOW! If your local record store doesn't have any (and let's face it, they probably don't), you can certainly order it direct, or better yet, bother some powerfully overpaid clerk about it.

The band played our record release show on Thursday, and despite the fact that three-fourths of our membership walked off of the stage in a great deal of shame, we were assured many times over that "it wasn't that bad." Oh, and the local press machine were kind enough to finally return the favor. Big Ups.

I can't read in cars. It makes me nauseous. Like heat does. Like most things do.

The next week will be spent washing sleeping bags, making badges, pirating entertainment of all kinds, and forgetting everything we've spent so much of our free time putting to memory. What are the words to that song, anyway?

Cordially,
zac.