....And so begins our journal inwards, our JOURNAL TO THE CENTER OF M'GIRTH.

CHAPTER ONE (April 17, 2013: Worcester, MA)
When they call this place “The Firehouse,” they mean a literal firehouse.

CHAPTER TWO (April 18, 2013: Purchase, NY)
College night. LVL UP release show! This was possibly Suns’ last show but we’re not sure. This dude who was running for president of some student government position came up to us and started campaigning with fliers n stuff.

CHAPTER THREE (April 19, 2013: Montreal, QB)
Off to Canada. We had all our ducks in a row, but not well enough to satisfy the scary Canadians who work at the border patrol. We were set to play four Canadian shows, but we only had three contracts. The officer made sure to put us in our place. “WHY NOT?!?!?” *Gulp* Our response was something along the lines of “ummm... uhhh...” Luckily, the power went out a moment later, affording us an opportunity to scurry away undetected. Who’s the bitch now?!

We met up with pink-haired Cas who sincerely made me wish I had pink hair. Cas used to play with Darl in the band Day Sleeper and set up the sick Montreal show for us.

We immediately noticed a friendly Canadian demeanor from nearly everyone. I kept hearing Darl and Matt getting all excited about a late-night drunk snack called “poutine.” It wasn’t long before I learned that poutine is basically french fries served in a styrofoam container with gravy and cheese curd dumped on top of it. We devoured a few buckets worth before falling asleep.


CHAPTER FOUR (April 20, 2013: Ottawa, QB)
For our longer drives, we burned data CDs of Billboard’s Hot 100 songs of 1993, 1994, 2005 and 2006. The two '90s mixes could have easily been titled “school bus soundtrack,” since the majority of the songs were engrained in the heads of millions of kids who rode the school bus at some point in their lives. We also noticed a poor representation of alt-rock staples. Anything that wasn’t released as a cassingle was forgotten. This explains why 1993 included “Hey Jealousy,” “Runaway Train” and “Three Little Pigs,” but neglected equally ubiquitous jams like “Heart Shaped Box,” “Creep” and “No Rain.” (Similarly, 1994 glaringly omitted ginormous hits like “Basket Case,” “Big Empty,” “Disarm,” “Black Hole Sun” and “Buddy Holly”, none of which were released as cassingles.)

(EDIT: Okay, we messed up because “Creep” definitely had a cassingle... The b-side was “Faithless the Wonder Boy.”)

The 2005 and 2006 mixes included tallies from digital sales and were a much more accurate representation of what the kids were actually listening to. Sadie got particularly pumped about Beyonce’s “Check on It,” and I’m pretty sure she’s posted the video on Facebook and Twitter 3 or 4 times since the end of tour.

The Ashleys took us to “Smoke’s Poutinerie” which was definitely an improvement from the previous night’s poutine mission.

CHAPTER FIVE (April 21, 2013: Toronto, ON)
Poutini’s was our final poutine stop, and was the finest out of the three we experienced.

Life In Vacuum fucked our faces pretty hard.

While looking for scotch tape, we tried Honest Ed’s Bargain Store, a messy shithole flooded with fluorescent lighting that takes up half-a-block and looks like it hasn’t been updated since the early 1950’s. Dumb jokes were written on the walls. It has an entrance, but no exit, except for tiny doors that are placed in front of the checkout lines, suggesting that you can’t leave unless you buy something. And it’s impossible to find anything quickly. They sold small tubes of Pringles for $1.50, smaller than the ones I can get at Walgreens for $0.99. Cool bargain. (Copy and paste this on Yelp! if you'd like.)


CHAPTER SIX (April 22, 2013: Hamilton, ON)
Everyone was sick by this point. But in Canada, people treat you rull good. So we got through it. We received a hugely positive response at this show, including a guy named Mike who said he learned about Speedy after hearing Sadie’s one-off project Dark Warble. He also said he was willing to fight people to convince them to get into Speedy Ortiz.

Our hospitable host Ryan (from SIANspheric) showed us the office of Sonic Unyon and the studio where Junior Boys recorded their most recent stuff.

CHAPTER SEVEN (April 23, 2013: Detriot, MI)
Returning to the United States is significantly easier than leaving. In Detroit, our friends from Trumbullplex came out to see us at a bar that baked pizzas and has a bowling alley. We saw White Lung play upstairs, then we played downstairs in the bar area, and then right after we were done we saw Mykki Blanco tear shit up in the room next to the bar.


Yet another hospitable host named Ryan (from Thunderbirds Are Now!) had a fun playplace ready for us. We all rolled around in the ballpit for a few hours before calling it a night.

The next day, Detroit was apparently the only spot in the entire country where it was gloomy and raining instead of beautiful, sunny and 70 degrees. We carry the clouds with us.

CHAPTER EIGHT (April 24, 2013: Chicago, IL)
A drunk gentleman approached us selling what he called “Ghetto Art.” Darl & I scored some desirable drawings. Mine is called “Tom Cruis Bluez” and it’s now on my fridge.

We spent the night with our pals (and Exploding in Sound label-mates) Geronimo! who are pretty much the nicest people ever.

I’m sure a lot of touring bands have said to themselves, “I wish there was a manual all about touring,” and Sadie actually found this book (at Quimby’s of course). There’s a chapter about Local H’s eBay shows.



CHAPTER NINE (April 25, 2013: Cincinnati, OH)


CHAPTER TEN (April 26, 2013: Pittsburgh, PA)


CHAPTER ELEVEN (April 27, 2013: New York, NY)
Things that happened:
#1 We played an afternoon set for the rich kids on the quad at Barnard College. Dik pix.
#2 We found an article by Sebastian Stirling analyzing Speedy’s reluctance to be incessantly shoved into the “retro” category. Personally, it’s my favorite thing anyone’s written about us. (If you have an hour to kill and you’re into Silkworm, check out his One Week One Band submission from last year.)
#3 Some obese lady punched Sadie in a McDonald's bathroom or something. It sounded like an intense altercation...
#4 The new 7-inches for “Ka-Prow!” have entered our lives and warmed our hearts. (The red picture below is now the only known photo of a stack of Sports next to a stack of "Ka-Prow!" As of 4/27/13, Sports is officially SOLD OUT!)
#5 In Brooklyn, I tried to talk backwards mid-set and received copious blank stares from a nearly packed Shea Stadium. Whoops. Sorry guys.




CHAPTER TWELVE: (April 28, 2013: Easthampton, MA)
Since high school, I’ve had recurring dreams about my instrument falling apart while playing at rock shows for a room full of people. I never actually thought this dream would become a reality, but this is what happened to us at Ladyfest. We only got to play 5 or 6 songs because all our stuff decided to malfunction or fall apart all at once – an apt closing to our tour’s final chapter. Luckily, the other acts had their shit together more than we did.

4/17 The Firehouse (Worcester, MA) w/ Banned Books, Savers, Secret Lover

4/18: SUNY Purchase (Purchase, NY) w/ LVL Up, Suns, Nude Dudes, Lawns

4/19: Il Motore (Montreal, QC) w/ The This Many Boyfriends Club

4/20: Pressed (Ottawa, ON) w/ Ashleys

4/21: The Shop under Parts & Labour (Toronto, ON) w/ The Bulletproof Tiger, Life In Vacuum

4/22: Homegrown Hamilton (Hamilton, ON)

4/23: The Garden Bowl (Detroit, MI) w/ Young Squares

4/24: Subterranean (Chicago, IL) w/ Geronimo!, Kangaroo, Henry Joseph

4/25: The Chameleon (Cincinnati, OH) w/ Weakness, Mardou

4/26: 222 Ormsby (Pittsburgh, PA) w/ Legs Like Tree Trunks, Gotobeds, Nic Lawless & His Yung Crinimales

4/27: WBARBQ (New York, NY) w/ Twin Sister, Roomrunner, Waxahatchee, Swearin', Scott and Charlene's Wedding, Chris Forsyth, Old Wounds, Kleenex Girl Wonder

4/27: Shea Stadium (Brooklyn, NY) -- 7" RELEASE PARTY -- w/ Aye Nako, Butter the Children, Advaeta

4/28: The Flywheel (Easthampton, MA)-- Pioneer Valley Zine Fest/Ladyfest --w/ Moms/Limbs Bin Duo, Rabbit Rabbit, Boytoy, Sad4Lyfe, OVAture (mems. Egg, Eggs)

sup moms? mad busy april thus far.

got nachos in philly 4/5 before jaill show and then the next day we celebrated mike's birthday at macrock in virginia with more nachos. roomrunner and dope body were real good as usual. hung out at the sex dungeon where we got to hear a super secret new fat history month song holy shit everyone's mind is gonna get blown.

last thursday we opened for marnie stern and talk normal at music hall of williamsburg. here's a pic of that, courtesy prefix magazine:


sunday we played w/ pissed jeans at the sinclair in cambridge. i assure you we drank a lot of bottled water. here's "hexxy" from that show:


we've put out the first song from our 7" single "ka-prow!" b/w "hexxy." it premiered on spin.com last week, who had this to say: "[W]ith a sound as striking as its lineage, 'Ka-Prow!' moves from off-kilter interplay and coolly intoned vocals to furious, foul-mouthed raucousness."

couple other folks have said nice things too:

Pitchfork: "[L]ike Mary Timony fronting Archers of Loaf in a studio whose walls were crumbling around them thanks to the earth-shattering guitar squall [...] caustic, clever and bitterly funny."

Brooklyn Vegan: "They do a lot of the loud-quiet-loud thing, and when it's loud, it's loud, with guitarist Matt Robidoux usually attacking his guitar or rubbing the fretboard against whatever he can find on stage. And from the little math rock tendencies they sometimes work in, it's clear that they're all great players too."

Allston Pudding: "a rumbling 2-minute quest that seems benign in its verses, but explodes in its choruses. The guitar sound that they’re getting on this recording (with the help of all-star producer Justin Pizzoferrato) is massive, and suits Speedy really well."

AwkwardSound: "“Ka-Prow!” also makes it obvious to anyone who’s been sleeping on this band for the past two years that the Northampton punk quartet has been fully formed from the start"

also did a brief interview with Luke O'Neil at MTV Buzzworthy about the writing of the song and how much we h8 getting compared to '90s cassingles



tomorrow we leave on tour for a few weeks--tomorrow i'll toss out all that info and a tour poster too. for now it's time to watch hours and hours of hayden panettiere's face on a flat screen television

for real, 'sports ep' is all gone... just shittin'. belated april punk'd-ing. did you believe me? nobody ever does. there are still ~60 kicking around and you can order all 60 of 'em here.

in other merchandising news, we are back in stock with Da Tapes. 2nd edition of 300. these ones are blue and white instead of green and yellow. i like blue better anyway. it's peaceful. calming. you can buy 'em at shows and should be able to get them online via hidden temple presently

thanks everyone who came to the new york shows last weekend. we had a nice time. we felt kinda like this:


some cool shows coming up this weekend. friday we're in philly at kung fu necktie w/ jaill (sub pop), dry feet, and residuels. then saturday we play the court square music showcase of macrock festival in harrisonburg, VA. we're at 9:30, but roomrunner and dope body play after us so don't all run away and go see waxahatchee or whatever.

a premiere of "ka-prow!" from our new 7" drops next week somewhere k00l on the intr4w3bz. you'll see. there's going to be a video as well. i'll leave you with a screenshot of it and our full april tour dates. see you somewhere?



APRIL SHOWZEN

4/5: kung fu necktie (philadelphia, pa) w/ jaill, dry feet, residuels
4/6: macrock festival (harrisonburg, va) w/ roomrunner, dope body, lvl up, pachangacha, many more
4/11: music hall of williamsburg (brooklyn, ny) w/ marnie stern, talk normal
4/14: the sinclair (cambridge, ma) w/ pissed jeans, cottaging
4/18: suny purchase (purchase, ny) w/ lvl up, suns, nude dudes, lawns
4/19: il motore (montreal, qc) w/ the this many boyfriends club
4/20: pressed (ottawa, on) w/ ashleys
4/21: the shop under parts & labour (toronto, on)
4/22: homegrown hamilton (hamilton, on)
4/23: the garden bowl (detroit, mi) w/ young squares
4/24: secret daytime bbq (lansing, il) w/ carbon leak, empty isle
4/24: subterranean (chicago, il) w/ geronimo!, kangaroo
4/25: the chameleon (cincinnati, oh) w/ weakness, tweens
4/26: 222 ormsby (pittsburgh, pa) w/ legs like tree trunks, ribbons
4/27: wbarbq @ barnard college (new york, ny)
4/27: shea stadium (brooklyn, ny) w/ aye nako, big ups
4/28: zinefest/ladyfest @ the flywheel (easthampton, ma) w/ potty mouth, starvation dance, boy toy

goin' to the gym, eatin' a healthy diet, updatin' a livejournal on the reg... tips for being a healthy man in the 22nd century.

what's up? here's what's up with us. do you guys like pizza? what is your favorite kind of pizza? omg! earlier this month we played BAR in new haven and ate this skinny lil skateboard of a pizza. if you wanna down a mean dough-and-sauce  i recommend you play a show at BAR.


[unclear whether this is actually pizza from BAR]

we played a free show at BAR with my sorta-high school buds FINS (snack rock brethren) and also pools are nice. thank you mark nussbaum for putting together this cool show--i wish i could remember your weird story about lobbing a teddy ruxpin at a girl's head in a moshpit.

we played a spring break show for UMass' radio station WMUA w/ krill and squarehead. i asked squarehead, "what's the name of your krautrock song?" and they were like "oh you mean the song 'krautrock'?" krill performed a real live cover of a speedy ortiz song in front of us and we all blushed. they also played songs from their v. good new album forthcoming in the near future if the universe contains humanity. the show basically looked like this:



we played in providence with radical dads and plates of cake on 3/22. the next night we were set to play a house show in allston w/ those two, as well as spelling bee (killer two piece from st louis RIYLLIFE), but cops had weird fake gmail and facebook accounts and were able to figure out the location of the show. fucked up correspondence below:


no worries, we were able to move the show to another house and all bands were rauwle gooed. couple pics of that by ellie miske:




mike is too perfect for this earth to be photographed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ok so what's up? what do we have comin' up?

- 3/29 at big snow buffalo lodge. lemme quote the new yorker on this one while also creaming my pleated corduroy vest suit (what?): "March 29: Schwervon!, a.k.a. Nan Turner and Matt Roth, is a guitar-and-drum boyfriend-and-girlfriend duo that practices an energetic brand of pop-punk. Speedy Ortiz uses complex and often dissonant electric-guitar parts in an engaging reinvention of the rock-song format. The Due Diligence’s garage rock results in plenty of high-spirited call-and-response audience participation. And Thomas Patrick Maguire has a true gift for crafting memorable, poignant pop songs."
-3/30 we play aputumpu festival at ran tea house, just after our friends EULA and just before the netherlands. and i think bambara is in their somewhere too. more info via aputumpu
- a bunch of shows in april and a tour (MORE ON THIS V SOON)

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last but not least, we have a 7" single coming out next month with inflated records. it's two old songs, "ka-prow!" and "hexxy," which we re-recorded fancy style with justin pizzoferrato while working on our upcoming full length. here's the artwork:

and speaking of the full length album, we promise promise we're gonna give give y'all y'all some new news about that release very very soonish. for now i can tell you that it's probably coming out in july, and its title is 'major arcana.'

hey y'all,

some cool stuff coming up:

- tomorrow 12/5 at tt the bear's we're playing with soccer mom, new highway hymnal, and infinity girl for the latter's EP release. you can hear their old album here, it is reall excellent: http://infinitygirl.bandcamp.com. we go on second, whatever that means in terms of time/space/continuum/john mayer.

- crashing the gates at [[CENSORED BOSTON ROCK RADIO STATION]] tomorrow 5 pm although [[CENSORED]] might not know it

- we're playing a few dates with thurston moore/john moloney caught on tape duo. as follows: 
- - - - december 11th at union pool (brooklyn) w/ lone wolf
- - - - december 12th at space 1026 (philly)
- - - - december 13th at ottobar (baltimore) w/ dope body
- - - - december 14th (mystery tba)


- we might have zine/homemade chapbook at some of these shows OR MAYBE NOT always a mystery

some cool stuff past:

we finished recording our first full length with justin pizzoferrato at sonelab and so far it sounds great. mixing in december. in keeping with the mystery theme of this post i can confirm no details other than that mike, matt, and sadie all play keyboards on it, and that it's 10 songs long (with four bonusxxx traxxx for good measure). i can also confirmed that i emerged from the studio with a serious addiction to dr macdougall's hot and sour ramen.



stay tuned for more info. meanwhile i'm gonna go get needles stuck in face to alleviate guitar-related wrist pain yo.

in that i forget it exists for months at a time†.



what the fuck have we been doing since tour? i can't even remember. i had to look at our group internet calendar. the band that techs together blechs together. some of the non-show entires include my mom's birthday (today!) and mike's shows with the eighties covers band he plays bass/makes bank in.

IN AUGUST we did a couple of shows. one was for our good bro jesse from grass is green's birthday on sept 24th at o'briens, and also featured mike joining ovlov for a nirvana cover. i distinctly remember matt altieri at this show for whatever reason. i had a drive like jehu t-shirt that wasn't mine. there was also a dirty dishes show at great scott on the 22nd (their last before jenny moved to L.A. and started writing amazing facebook diatribes about her new sweatsuit).



we also played at the black cat in d.c. with an excellent band called soccer mom that we met in kalamazoo michigan. as noted by our pal sam from two inch astronaut, members of beauty pill and, uh, ian mackaye were in attendance and we all got a lil celeb-struck. i have since taken to asking myself W.W.I.M.D. in times of corporate trouble which is probably exactly what ian mackaye doesn't want. the new evens stuff is real good tho. what up ian mackaye. 

IN SEPTEMBER we shot a cool little acoustic video on harvard's football field for a brand new song called "tiger tank." thanks to eye design for shooting that. thanks also to harvard's football team for not chasing us away when we sat on your field and abused your practice dummys. you can watch that video here. then there were some shows: sept 5 at tt the bear's (cambridge) w/ ribs, sept 6 at john doe jr (greenfield, ma) w/ egg eggs and our best pal miss olivia kennett, sept 15 at the paper box (brooklyn) w/ landlady, sept 30 at kapitalist haus w/ big mess (who have a very very awesome tape i have listened to in darl's car at least 8 times).

one really exciting part of september was getting to open for corin tucker band and versus at tt the bear's place. corin tucker has a pretty all-star band featuring members of circus lupus, the jicks (altho mike clark was absent for this show), and unwound drummer sara lund. i got her (lund) to sign my record, which prompted matt to call me a dweeb, which is i guess fair considering i went to an indie comics expo with my mom the next day.

like a million people took huggy fan pics w/ corin tucker and i tried to find one on photobucket, but barring that here is a picture of a fan with justin beiber:



fuck it, ok, here's a picture of fan me w/ conor oberst at a ripe livejournal age:



IN OCTOBER we went over to troy, ny to play a show at RPI. there were jokes about post-gender bands which you might expect from a college show. we played the middle east upstairs in cambridge on 10/12 w/ army navy. they are on a soundtrack or something. we played the elevens in noho on 10/14 w/ a baltimore band called witch hat who gave us cool comics. ringo deathstarr (!!) came thru town and we played w/ em at the flywheel on 10/18.

the next night, 10/19, we played with pile and fat history month for pile's 'dripping' release show. i got in a fight with bassist matt connery and this was the result: 



there was a long ass CMJ show curated by exploding in sound/gimme tinnitus. our pals ovlov, roomrunner, sleepies, mr dream, pile, fat history month, so many fucking other bands played i can't even begin to recap it. i made some sort of pact to never drink vodka again at this show and i ain't looking back. gimme tinnitus did a cool segmented recap and the portion we're in is here.  we played a halloween show at the flywheel on the 30th which is on our calendar as "flywheel cumdumpster."

also, it was national coming out day on october 12th but i forgot to come out. i am a panromantic demisexual in case anyone's keeping score at home.

IN NOVEMBER, cool show at sierra grille nov 8 with pachangacha and two bands on swerp records, johnny foreigner (birmingham uk) and nervous passenger (chicago). i guess when you tell people a band is from birmingham they assume you mean alabama. on nov 15 we played a show at big snow and everyone and their brother came, prolly cuz all the other bands were the sickest. thanks sleepies and mr dream and sea monsters and bambara, and especially thanks big snow for letting us put together such a nast33 bill.

oh my rockness featured that show and wrote a very nice profile of us, which you can read here. i feel undeserving and thankful for the chavez/slint reference points. 

we shot a weird live studio video of "tiger tank" in adrian grenier's house. i dunno when that's gonna be up but we might all look like doofuses. i do promise that they made us sound very good. darl claims to have found the 'entourage the movie' script in adrian grenier's house. adrian grenier had cool beer in his fridge. hostess had gone out of business earlier in the day. here is a picture of the cast of entourage:



i was trying to figure out which character of entourage every member of speedy ortiz might be but i don't know if anybody would wanna be drama. personally i identify most with turtle, because i very much enjoyed 'the sopranos' c. 1999. after that we played a show at umass for their radio station, wmua (we've time traveled as far as nov 16 at this point btw). we played 13 songs which i think is the longest we've ever played anything other than having to repeat "tiger tank" like 40 times for the studio video thing (TK TK TK). thank you umass for having us and giving us big soda cups we could fill with water.

last week on 11/21 we played with metz and pile at the middle east. nobody bled but somebody took their genitals out during pile's "prom song." believe the hype about metz, their live show is very very good. thanks to all of boston for buying me weird alcohols and making me hungover at the airport on thanksgiving. 


by the way guys, factory farming of turkeys is very fucked up and produces birds that can't reproduce naturally or fly and like ~30% of 'em die because they're so genetically fukt and some of the others cannibalize each other they are so bored and scared. it was nice to eat ethiopian food in new orleans for thanksgiving rather than eatin' one of these goofy turkeys. if you don't believe me about that shit you should read eating animals by jonathan safran foer. i totez respect everybody's right to individual dietary choices but at least make informed decisions by knowing what's going into yr meat (you owe it to yrselves jerks). </sadie health lecture> sorry bandmates don't kill me

UPCOMING:
- recording our first full length tomorrow thru friday with the inimitable justin pizzoferrato. wish us luck or something. songs are:
PIONEER SPINE
FUN
TIGER TANK
CASH CAB
NO BELOW
GARY
HITCH
CASPER
PLOUGH
MARK VI

- playing some fun shows in december, including one (?!) with thurston moore/john moloney. more on those very soon
- performing on public access television in december, mal felk has been looking at ween videos in preparation
- looks like we gonna make a colorful video for "curling" with you can be a wesley's very own p. nick curran
- hot ass new years eve jamshow
- touring w/ roomrunner in january

time to go get acupuncture guys, it's been cool eating nachos wit you
- sadie

†actually i updated livejournal 3-4 times a day when i was 16


oh p.s.

a year ago today was the first show mike and i ever played as "speedy ortiz" and it was at shea stadium and here is a picture from it

sup, this is mfalc journaling some emotions once again........

-UPCOMING SHOWS-
huge news: Speedy Ortiz will be appearing and playing full sets (!!@!) at the following locations throughout FALL 2012...

FRIDAY SEPT 28: Boston, Mass (at TT The Bear's with CORIN TUCKER BAND and VERSUS)
SUNDAY SEPT 30: Hatfield, Mass (at Kapitalist Haus with KAL MARKS, BIG MESS and BELLA'S BARTOK)
SATURDAY OCT 6: Troy, NY (at Ground Zero with LANDLADY)
FRIDAY OCT 12: Boston, Mass (at The Middle East with ARMY NAVY)
THURSDAY OCT 18: Easthampton, Mass (at The Flywheel with RINGO DEATHSTARR, POTTY MOUTH and OVLOV)
SATURDAY OCT 20: Brooklyn, NY (at The Paper Box, an all-day event for for CMJ2012 with YOUNG ADULTS, MR. DREAM, ROOMRUNNER, PILE, GERONIMO, OVLOV, SLEEPIES, SHE KEEPS BEES, EULA, HELIOTROPES, FAT HISTORY MONTH, SLOTHRUST, TRABAGO, FLAG and YVETTE!!)

Believe it or not, we have even more shenanigans and tomfoolery planned throughout Oct/Nov/Dec. Large announcements coming soon. (!@#!#)

EYE DESIGN TAKE AWAY
Our awesome friends at Eye Design taped us playing an acoustic version of "Tiger Tank" at the Harvard football stadium. Here's the soundcloud link: http://soundcloud.com/eyedesignma/speedy-ortiz-tiger-tank-a-take. And also check out their tumblr.. There's video of us being all wacky for your enjoyment (and/or for our embarrassment). http://eyedesignma.tumblr.com/

MORE SUMMER TOUR PICS & VIDS
The summer tour journal was completed. (See the entry posted below.)

For some moving images captured throughout the Speedy Ortiz tour, why not check out Darl's new tumblr page: DUMP FOOTAGE!

There's already videos of 5 of the bands we played with on tour (Two Inch Astronaut, Ice, Wild Moth, Dirt and Mellow Harsher) as well as the world premiere of Speedy Ortiz's new video for "Indoor Soccer" (and what appears to be a few student films Darl was working on... possibly...) Darl has assured us, "This is only the beginning," and lots more dumping is on its way.

Before forgetting, here's some more tour pics and stories...

EUGENE (July 15)
Here's the gang after being interviewed by Thor Slaughter on KWVA... (very tired...)


PORTLAND (July 16)
Tony Mowe gave us a few Hamm's and showed us Isaac Brock's house.


SEATTLE (July 17-18)


Dumped it out at the first Starbucks...


There was a coffee stand called "Coffee's On Broadway" and I wanted to ask if they named it after the Sir Mix-A-Lot song "Posse's On Broadway" but I was too timid.

And we saw Kurt's bench...


SPOKANE, WA (July 19)
Don't underestimate Spokane. This is where some real ass shit goes down... I'm pretty sure the place we played was called Marvin's Garden. (The people who live at this house have a cat named Marvin, and they grow a kickass garden in their front yard.) I suck at remembering names, but I have nothing but awesome memories of these kids... Some of the nicest, friendliest people we met throughout the whole trip. Your band should play at Marvin's Garden. No, really. Not joking here.


MISSOULA, MT (July 20)
We drank $2 beer and played a drunk show for 2 people at the VFW... Not long after this, we hightailed it about 5 minutes away and snuck onto the end of a houseshow.

SALT LAKE CITY (July 21)


The sister of Brian Bell from Weezer does a lot of artwork around Salt Lake City, and we were happy to learn that she was responsible for the Kilby Court poster... Thanks Jeff Bailey for showing us the SLC hot spots. We can't wait to play here again!


DENVER (July 22)
Big club festival... Atlas Sound played in the parking lot of a Goodwill, and some annoying 19-year-old couple spent the whole time making out in front of me. But at least it was free and awesome...


FORT COLLINS (July 23)
The show was held in an artspace, and next door was a room with at least 20 pinball machines and I really wanted to try out the Simpsons one but they closed early. GRR. (I recall "grrr" being a very common livejournal term from 10 years ago...)


OMAHA (July 24)
Dirt! We loved this show, and thanks to Ben and his pals for putting us up and showing us around town.


IOWA CITY (July 25)
Should this be discussed on our livejournal? By the time we left Iowa City, we had experienced...
A. A pile of blood on the kitchen floor
B. A catfighting riot grrl band
C. Shitting/pissing/puking/various-body-fluid
D. Some dude who might have been tripping balls who walked up to me twice to tell me the story about how Blues Traveler was his first concert
E. Iowa's first rainfall in over a month
F. All of the above a.k.a. straight-up magic


Just so there's no confusion, we left Iowa City unscathed and had a great time. And we understand this might not have been a typical show for this house, but thanks to Joe for putting everything together! Also, one of the dudes who lived in the Iowa house gave Matt a purple cassette titled something along the lines of "I'm Going To Fucking Kill You," and if the guy who made it happens to read this, I would gladly pay money to be sent a copy. Also if Negative Approach happens to read this, I've already been yelled at once by some old dude for wearing the "Time to get paid, blow up like the world trade" t-shirt.

MINNEAPOLIS (July 26)

This is actually not accurate... We skipped over some songs in the second half, and we didn't listen through the non-Super Cat version of "Fly."

Also, we would advise avoiding the Mall Of America.


MADISON (July 27)
No memory of this night at all.

CHICAGO (July 28)
Geronimo! I felt aligned with the spirit of Wesley Willis during our time in Chicago. We tried to locate a Wesley memorial, but no such place exists. (If you google "wesley willis memorial" a proposed idea comes up, but "Willis Tower" actually has nothing to do with Wesley Willis.) However, we saw outside The Metro, and the McDonalds near the Metro which possibly influenced "Rock N Roll McDonalds." We also experienced Quimby's and Reckless Records which are definitely worth all of their hype and more.

KALAMAZOO, MI (July 29)
People have been asking "what was the best show" and this is the one where the crowd, the space, the other bands, the general atmosphere, and everything else that makes a show awesome all came together at once. ICP might call it "pure mothafuckin magic." Here's links to all the bands from this night. We love all of them so much...
http://minutes.bandcamp.com/
http://crashcitysaints.bandcamp.com/
http://batcave.bandcamp.com/
http://anybodybutthecops.bandcamp.com/

DETROIT (July 30)
This was the only night I got wasted on tour. Reports have confirmed I turned into Red Foxx from Samford & Son.


CLEVELAND (July 31)
We had no show, but Jaxon (who's played in a few early line-ups of Speedy) decided to throw a party in his 5th floor apartment and had us play anyway. Po-po shut us down after 8 songs.



PITTSBURGH (Aug 1)
Darl took a picture of Legs Like Tree Trunks!


WASHINGTON D.C (Aug 2)</b>
Played with Hivebent and Two Inch Astronaut at a bar that kept asking us to turn down LMAO

BROOKLYN, NYC (Aug 3)
Back at Shea Stadium again... Impromptu/unplanned/drunk set from Red Dwarf was a happy surprise! whoa, familiar faces! Porches/Mail The Horse/Fiasco/Butter The Children Oh yeah, this was the show when my snare drum broke after the first song and I was bummed/pissed and people thought I was crazy. 7 weeks of travelling makes people act crazy, what can I say...

ALLSTON, BOSTON (Aug 4)
Back at some weirdo venue called Wacky Castle playing with a bunch of weirdo bands with weird names like Pile, Fat History Month and Grass Is Green who we've never heard before. (and VEGANS!) Steve Hartlett and Boner were there so it was definitely "the place to be."

PETERBOROUGH, NH (Aug 5)
Good book store. I read a self-help book because I need serious help LOL

Herrrre's Ice...


And here's Matt plowin' through the August edition of Valley Radar...


EASTHAMPTON, MASS (Aug 6)
I think I wore the wolf-mask for one song at the Flywheel show and no one cared.


Cool, I just relived tour. I'm so happy right now! Thanks for the continued support, and thanks to everyone who made this possible.