What comrades are talking about right now:

Our first (and last) marquee of this tour!
As I believe I mentioned in the last tour journal entry, I could have been fine with Seattle being the last show of the tour, and if Portland sucked it… well that would be fine, I would just remember it different in my mind. See, the NW fest, which is a big music festival was happening that weekend, which the Tonic is NOT a part of, and basically meant that we were competing with at least a dozen really good shows. Bummer!
However, I was very pleasantly surprised by the PDX, and. dun… dun… DAH the very last night of the tour.
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Hi everybody, i’m Conan Neutron, I play in the band Replicator from Oakland, CA. There are many tour diaries, but this one is mine. Thanks to the SSC gang for asking us to do it here.
At this point in the tour we really had hit the wall as far as homesickness goes, two kind of lackluster shows in a row was making us all feel a little road weary. Luckilly Seattle decided it was going to treat us right, and the spontaneous cheering that we sprang into when we saw Puget Sound (and by extension, the Pacific… meaning OUR coast), was definitely indicative of a larger feeling.
Luckilly we were in for a hell of a good time in the beautiful SeaTac area, and, as it turns out, one of the best shows of the tour.
Just ask James from Police Teeth/USS Horsewhip there, he’s so stoked on the show he is IN. BEN’S. FACE.

James from Police Teeth/USS Horsewhip messing with Professor Ben.
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Montana is big and wide, it’s why it’s called Big Sky Country. It’s also home to Wantage USA one hell of a rock label that puts out some amazing stuff (think: Fucking Champs, The Whip, Big Business, Federation-X), etc. Although we had only been to Missoula once, almost 5 years ago, we had a great time and were excited to return there.

Kum and Go!
a real chain of convienence stores/gas stations
After spending the better part of the day travelling through Montana, which again is very pretty, but also FREAKING HUGE, we finally roll into Missoula, where we stop by a local coffee shop for liquid libations for the caff-heads in the band, and delicious crepes for all. The numbers taken for orders were actually different countries, which led to endless jokes about Italy sitting with the German delegation, and France being lowest on the totem pole for food imports.
We also briefly stopped by the local army surplus store, looking at the paintball guns and butterfly knives, good times!
Missoula is a cool little town, I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly makes it different, but it is unique. It has a combination of college town, plus working class mentality and…Montana. It somehow seems to work in a way that it never has for me in say, Olympia. Everybody is very friendly and helpful and cool and the vibe is just pretty cool. I’m sure it has it’s dark side like everywhere else, but it just seems like a nice place to me.
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Leaving our tourmates the Hifi was rough, leaving all of our Wisconsin pals was rough, leaving our faithful mad servant M’ris was rough, getting up after a night of hard rockin’, drinkin’, and not nearly enough sleeping. VERY tough.
I didn’t expect the Twin Cities on a tuesday the day after a heavy drinking holiday to be that great, luckilly I wasn’t disappointed. 
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Shiny Gitarre
It’s official: Replicator is all about Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Ifihadahifi left Chicago after the show at the Bottle, since home wasn’t too far for them. We stayed with my friends Matt and Nat and their adorable Beagles. Being the perfect hosts, they provided us with cereal, delicious pound cake, fresh towels, coffee (for Chris and Todd), and anything else you could imagine. To say they are good hosts would be an understatement, they are fine people and assets to humanity for weary travellers such as ourselves.
With Ben staying with Amanda at Bear Claw’s place it was an excellent opportunity to sleep in. See here’s the thing, Ben from Replicator is a morning person, and early riser. I most definitely am not. CONFLICT! I can get up early, but I always prefer not to, and in “rock” mode it is exceptionally difficult. Granted, I do so without the stimulation of the drug known as caffeine, which makes me the major exception in the band, any which way you slice it though the sleep debt piles up, so sleeping in was absolutely heavenly!
As an aside, at one point on this tour after waking up pretty close to Ben time for the 4th or 5th time in a row, I completely chewed him out and probably mentioned something about committing murder if I didn’t get a good nights sleep for once.
hahaha.
What can I say, that’s how I roll?
Soon enough we left to pick up Ben and Amanda, catching the last 5 minutes of the excellent Alice Cooper fresh air interview on NPR, sadly our friend Bob is not able to come up to Milwaukee as he thought he might be since he’s really behind on studio work, however… with Amanda added to the crew the grand total of the Supernaut crew is 6 for a two hour drive. Therefore, we would have had to people share with Hifi anyway, the same Hifi who took off the night before, so perhaps it is for the best. Needless to say this is a WEE bit packed. I wisely took the helm and drove us to Milwaukee, heh heh. Sorry Chris, looks like you get the thumb.
Anyway, we were off to MKE WHERE, a labor day BBQ was being thrown in our honor.
YAY!
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Double flash Conan at the Empty Bottle in Chicago
Replicator played Chicago at the Empty Bottle and it was actually, for the first time for Replicator in Chicago, a pretty darn good show. Well attended by many internet styled personalities as well.
There was also this sign there:

100,000 Leagues Under my Nutsack
WOW! That cracked me up enough to be the pull title for this post. but first we left Detroit:

Ben and Lucy the dog, who lives at Rev. Scott’s place from the Amino Acids.
For some reason Ben started singing the William Tell Overture and made as if he was riding her.
She is such a sweet dog she totally let him do it. Adorable!
We bid Scott’s place and Detroit farewell, and started on our way to Chicago with the hifi in tow. On the drive we threw a banana peel at them in an act of escalating band prankery, Yale from Hifi swore revenge.
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