It seems that a lot of people thought we had moved to Toronto for good, but we’re back in Vancouver for the whole summer now! Our tour back across from Toronto was quick and dirty but we had some great shows along the way.

We played a benefit show in Sudbury on June 5th for the River and Sky Festival and it was a super fun party. The festival takes place this summer with bands like obijou and our friends Yukon Blonde, so if you’re in the Toronto area I recommend you check it out and go for the weekend. I met the organizer and hopefully we can come out next summer to play the festival. We played Winnipeg on the following Monday after the grueling 2 day drive across Northern Ontario.

We pulled an all-nighter from Sudbury and just as the sun rose in the morning and I finished my shift and traded off to fall asleep, our muffler fell off. We were in the middle of nowhere so Joseph had to drive the next 3 hours til Marathon, Ontario with our van sounding louder then a Harley motorcycle the whole time. To our dismay the local Canadian Tire’s service department was closed, but luckily an old rocker tow truck driver saw us in distress and helped fix the muffler at his own shop. We were on our way a few hours later and made it to Dryden before crashing for the night.

It was only an easy 4 hour drive to Winnipeg the next day before our Monday night show at the Pyramid, which was actually better then expected, playing with a Weakerthans/Waking Eyes side project band called Imaginary Cities, who were great. We met up the next night with fellow Vancouverites the Buffaloswans for a solid Tuesday night Saskatoon show at Amigos, and the next day we were very excited to head to our friend Marc Greibel’s farm in Alberta for a day off and some tasty food. Unfortunately, as we were leaving Saskatoon, the van started to back fire like crazy and we thought our muffler had gone again. We took the van into the shop and 6 hours and $500 later we were again on our way after some sparkplug/engine block repairs. After a short stint getting lost without maps and relying to much on iPhone 3G actually getting reception, we made it to Marc’s farm at 11 at night. We hung out all the next day with a variety of farm animals before heading to Calgary for a show opening for Australian duo An Horse. The crowd was amazing and we sold record amounts of merch, especially our new EP.

  

The following night topped Calgary, however, when we played an almost sold-out Starlite Room in Edmonton opening for Young Rival and Born Ruffians. Both bands were great guys and good times, but we had to leave early to drive through the night back to Vancouver. I needed to get to Kelowna early to make a friends afternoon wedding and we pulled into Kelowna around 11am. I had just enough time for a quick nap before heading to the wedding. I had planned to spend the next week with my parents up at our family cabin but the day after the wedding I came down with a brutal stomach flu and was stuck to the toilet for the next 5 days. We still made it up to the cabin for a few nights but I couldn’t really eat or do much of anything. Anyway a somewhat sad end, but I’ll get over it, and I just flew into Vancouver three days ago.

  

Now we are going to start writing our new album and we have two shows left this weekend in Victoria and Vancouver opening for Minus The Bear which we are pretty excited about. After that I’ll keep you posted on any more shows, but we are going to lay pretty low and try to make a bit of money to get back on the road in September. It does feel good to be home sweet home though, and know that I am going to be hitting the beaches hard!

dan