endless summer '08

sorry josh hartnett

2008-03-24T17:48:00.001-07:00

here's a video of us in shinjuku with our good friend Hiro (our driver from japan tour '06) playing bass and j. hartnett on the mic. sorry ash...

it's a maaaaalfunction.

2008-03-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

as you may have noticed, i've been pretty slack at updating this thing. the first reason being that my camera imploded just before i left australia. the second reason is lack of internet. the third and final reason is just sheer laziness.
we have been in japan just over a week now and i never want to leave. today is a day off, so we're going to disneyland. it is nice and cold and everything is great, apart from colin sleeptalking all night every night and scaring the absolute shit out of us. thanks mate.
anyway, the reason for this blog is to direct you to ash's tour blog which gets updated alot more because he has a laptop and better camera than everyone else. just click on the hot ash link to the right hand side, or visit http://www.thedesignthreat.com/blog
sayonara!

come to the end (au)

2008-03-09T08:13:00.000-07:00

Well, the "down under" leg of the endless summer is now officially over. It's kind of a sad day, even sadder that i had to spend the evening re-packing rather than hanging out with friends. I realised last night at the amplifier show how much i'm going to miss lots of people back home.
Four months doesn't really seem like much, but even after two weeks away it feels alot different being home. Just don't rage too hard without me ok?
I forgot how good Fast Eddys is at 5am also, man. It's ok though because i'm sure i'll eat another 5000 egg sandwiches from 7-11 in Japan anyway.

All of the shows over east surpassed our expectations. It felt good to do a "smaller" (not that we do BIG tours) tour again with a bunch of sweet dudes and supports from some bands we really like and are good friends with. FC Five seemed to have a really fun time, and finally got to check out some stoned koalas and kangaroos. Kim has learnt some new english phrases that haven't really gone down too well...ha!

The "secret" show in Bondi ended up being one of the most insane shows ever.

Huge props to Rick and his housemates for offering up his apartment to 50+ sweaty men and women. And also to Pat & Homewrecker for helping organise the whole thing and lending their gear (sorry about the drumkit dan).

Tommy.

Just Ash.

Best 3 Frif.

Homewrecker.

Blkout!

Shirts Off.

The Bloke Skate Mosh.

All the good photos are from Willy. My waterproof camera malfunctioned on a big day at Maroubra with a moviestar (half Italian half Australian mate) so i don't know how many more photos this blog is going to have. Other cool shit to happen is our first tyre blow out in five years on the way to Adelaide with "Freak Out" driving and having 13 guys try to fix it, Positive Robert hanging with junkies, Monty finally going on a Ferris(sp?) Wheel and of course Aqua Golf.

Alright. Monday morning airport. Stay Safe....

week one

2008-03-02T16:59:00.000-08:00

Even though it was grey and raining 90% (the first day was an epic sunny 40c) of the time Crowey and I spent on the Gold Coast, we had a blast. Doing un-muso things like entering pub quizes (for the meat tray obviously), swimming every day,

"boogie-boarding" and exploring the jungle. It was a nice rest before the actual tour began.

We witnessed a wedding at Tallebudgera Beach, where the bride arrived by speedboat, which by the way is where they filmed the camp scenes of LOST...

...i promise.

Then Scott took us deep into the forrests of Currumbin to a rock pool/waterfall he had found since moving there. Best place ever, full stop.

The water was freezing but so refreshing. Apparently people slide down the waterfall into the rock pool from higher up, but when we were there there was too much water with all the recent flooding and rainfall lately in QLD, so if we had gone from higher up the rapid then we would have overshot the pool (around 8ft long but real deep) completely and landed on the rocks haha.

Shortly after this tandem slide, i was crossing the rapid to get to the slide when i lost my footing and slipped down the cliff ending up next to the rockpool. Oops. No broken bones though, yet.

Later in the week we said goodbye to Kel and Scott (thanks for the matresses!) and picked up our Japanese friends FC Five from the Brisbane Airport. When i say friends, i mean friends that we had met twice on our last tour of Japan and hung out for a few hours. But the time we did spend with those guys over there and after playing with their band play i knew that we would get along well and that we wanted to bring them over here so other people could see what an incredible band they are.

The Brisbane show turned out to be really good. Blkout! & FC Five killed it, even though they were tired as fuck. It was awesome to see our old friend Kevin (CBK) at the show too, good luck in Australia buddy!

When we rocked up at the Byron Bay show, well about 15 minutes out of Byron in Broken Head we were a bit skeptical as to how the show would go. It was in this really ancient white wooden hall in the middle of nowhere. But after watching the first band STREET YOUTH i knew it was going to be an amazing night. This was SY's first show and to say all of us Perth dudes were blown away is an understatement. Their song Mega Town could just be the best song ever in the history of the world. FC Five ended up getting another great response too. Even though alot of people have never heard of the band, and the language barrier making it all the much harder, everytime the audience seems blown away and everyone is left smiling. It makes a difference for a hardcore show, smiling you know? Maybe people can just see they are genuine dudes and that they are one of the tightest live bands out....

Enough muso stuff. Anyway, we took everyone back to the waterfalls and they loved it...

F'n CRZY KIM!

Now we are in Sydney with a couple days rest before we hit Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide. Then home sweet home for two days to play shows and repack for the international jaunt. Kim has taught me some new drinking games so watch out if you think i'll still be playing Zippo Bong when i get home.
There are thirteen dudes to find beds for so we are currently all over the place. Thanks to Pat, Jimmy and Dan for their hospitality! Suprisingly the vans are relatively comfortable.
Tonight we are playing a show in Rick's apartment in Bondi Beach. It's a secret, i guess. Rick has a half pipe in his living room. It will be fun. Losing Streak and Homewrecker are also playing, so it will be even more fun. check it out...

House shows = short sets & covers.

'til next time,
nh.

ps.

HOT ASH!

It begins...

2008-02-22T03:26:00.000-08:00

So i guess this will be my/our journal of sorts for the next four months or so. I always head out on tour with a notebook and a pen with the intention of documenting every funny/stupid/ridiculous/devastating thing that happens, but after around day four i start getting lazy/sleepy/grumpy and giving up on the whole thing. When i read back on some of the tour journals i've started and not finished it makes me wish i'd put in the effort to write just a little bit each day and take more photos of the interesting and funny things that happen on the road. Extremely funny and interesting to everyone in the whole entire world i'm sure, or maybe just me and my friends, but either way my memory gets worse as the years fly by and the drinks keep flowing, so this is this.

This week was spent tying up loose ends for the tour, moving house and packing. Packing sucks. Packing for four months is a nightmare. We would have gone to the WAMI Awards, but come on thursday night is Lost night...

Either way, The Homicides took home the lamington for best hardcore/punk which wasn't all that suprising, though i thought Project Mayhem were odds on. Ouch. It all worked out for the best because now i can put a face to another of the "Oceanic Six" and we can sneak away on tour while those bands keep the Hydey alive whilst we're gone.

Crowey and have just under a week of lounging around on the Gold Coast before proper tour begins a.k.a. "gig mode". We'll be staying on the beach with our one time scab member Scott Pears a.k.a. Scott Ruins a.k.a. Scotty Doesn't Know and hopefully getting some waves.

Then our friends from Japan, FC Five will arrive and the party will begin. They don't speak much english but that will make it even more fun. Look out for party boy(jp version) as he likes to get naked, and well come to think of it, last time we were in Japan we noticed that alot of people like to get naked and mosh. Some kind of "advanced gig mode" we have yet achieve over here yet i suppose. We'll also be joined by BLKOUT!, who will have "Sorry" shirts available at all the "concerts".

Anyway, i gotta go to the airport. So hopefully i'll update this in a few days with some stories. Guarens. Probs. Defs Maybs...