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.

There was a nice little blurb in the Portland Mercury that had the headline WOW!, which cracked us all up.
I grabbed a copy, but forgot about it, it was very complimentary even though it:
A) picked a random picture from the Replicator myspace account instead of an approved Promo picture or promo live shot easilly available on the real site or Murdoch’s page. (grrr!)
B) Mentioned something, which was supposed to be a compliment I guess, about focusing on rock instead of chops.

I agree that we put on a great show, but that kind of makes us sound like an unrehearsed punk band or Pavement instead of the well oiled killing machine that is Replicator. Speaking as an ex-music writer there is a way to say that without it sounding backhanded.

I’m not sure how there is this perception of Replicator sounding “loose”, but I can’t say I care for it. Even in parts with weird chaotic things, it’s not just randomness, it’s randomness with purpose… if that makes sense.

But hey! They spelled the name right, and i’m thankful for that, and for the press.

I’m sure I could find something to nitpick about anything.

Candid shot of Todd and Chris

Yeah this pretty much about sums up the tiredness we felt at this point.

Turns out that marquee worked in our favor as our pal Lela knew we were coming up, but didn’t know when or where, she spied on the way looking for someplace to eat. Nice!

We were tired and ate delicious food at Tonic rather then try to go absolutely anywhere.

Bad at Math couldn’t play, one of the dudes had an emergency of some kind to deal with, so one of the Bad at Math guys dude did an Ambient soundscapey thing with enough pedals and neat noisemakery things to make his own music store. I had something very descriptive and cool written up about that, but lost it… so there you go. He would have done well on a bill with Rahdunes.

Then it was time for Replicator, and the final show of this jaunt.
setlist:

Frank Lloyd Wrong
Fashionably Latent
Delicious Fornicake
Happy Loyalty Day
Baby, I Want to Terraform Your Planet
the Tiny Machines are (Still) out for Revenge
Login With My Fist

Since we space cadeted about saying something like “this is our first song” people were just confused at Frank Lloyd Wrong, which didn’t really matter as we just launched straight into Fashionably Latent anyway. Oops!

Again, another show with rabid “Epoch” requests, again the explanation that “sorry, it didn’t sound good the last time we tried to play it.” honestly folks, it didn’t… we’ll do it better next time and play it next visit, I promise. I wanted to do it this time, but we have RepiQuality control you know?

Portland and Seattle, we’ll at least see YOU pretty soon.

Somebody challenged us to take our pants off (Ben did!), I didn’t want to take off my shoes, so I comprimised by pulling a Chris Cornell and taking my shirt off.

We played a very strong set that was at once both rocking and problem free.
The awesome sound guy went apeshit with the lights at the end which kind of ruled it and added to the chaos.
It was a small but very, very enthusiastic crowd that bought a hell of a lot of merch… yay!

Especially since Tonic didn’t really cover door and sound costs off of the cover.
ow!

We still walked away with $160 and a bunch of new fans though, not freaking bad. Thanks a lot for putting the show on Dave, we had a real blast.

x’s for I’s brought it next, who, hilariously enough (to me anyway) kept saying:
“We’re Replicator from Oakland, CA”

hahaha, funny stuff, especially when you’ve been saying it yourself for the better part of a month.

Man, the difference between playing with them now and in May is marked! They have really upped the live ante, becoming a lot more of a tornado of energy and knocking down the wall between band and audience. They sound really tight too, can’t wait to hear that record boys.

I was thinking more Hoover then Chavez this time, which is still a great thing, as there aren’t many bands these days that add to that style. Definitely a band to watch!

Ck from X’s for I’s rocking it!

Tom from X’s for I’s also rocking it.

I’m pretty unhappy with most of these pictures, but I like the ghostliness in this one.

And there you go, Das ist alles!
Last show of the tour, finito, the end.

We dropped off my friend Joe Lemur from Columbus at the place he was staying, and went to a late night dinner that had pretty good food that was full of freaks, nerds, and weirdos and very hard to escape the gravitational force from. Then we went to CK from X’s for I’s place and PDFO’d….
for about… oh… 3 hours!

–
I woke up in X’s for I’s basement with the disco light on, Chris had put it on so that he wouldn’t wake up thinking he was in a serial killer’s lair.

Ben asked me a question about it, but between absolute confusion, lack of sleep, and what not, I couldn’t really process what he was saying.
We left the “break in case of emergency” whiskey that was left at CK’s place
The drive home consisted of eagerly anticipating all of the things that i’ve missed while being on tour.
It was pretty good.

I picked up a “freedom isn’t free” keychain at a rural convienence store for the van gascap.
And now, we are home, where the heart is!

Favorite/Best Shows(in no order at all!):

Milwaukee
Boston
Phoenix
Seattle
Chicago
Portland

Best Candidate for a Do-over show:

Cincinatti

Best Villian:

Douchebag soundpeople with chips on their shoulders and usually… Sandals.

RepiMVP:

Deb Adrian

Special RepliShout out:

M’ris

Most Awesome New (to us) Band Award:

Screaming Cyn Cyn and the Pons

The, man, I love touring with those guys award:

Ifihadahifi

Thrang ‘em High ass kicking live show award:

Ifihadahifi
The Ruby Doe
Madraso

Scariest Venue:

Mojo 13 - Delaware (that clown face freaked me out: yikes!)

Best Sound:

Empty Bottle-Chicago
Tonic Lounge-Portland

Most improved band to watch your back for:

X’s for I’s

In a large way this tour was a “getting back in the swing of things” tour for us. For a lot of these non west coast places we hadn’t been back in 5 years… which in the world of rock and roll is several generations. In some cases people remembered us and heralded us as returning heroes, in others we were completely forgotten or ignored. Still others were places we hadn’t been to at all.
It was the first big tour we’ve ever done as a 4-piece, after being a “power trio” for 7 or so years.

Touring when you are pushing (in my case) or over (everybody else) 30, is a different story then touring when you are in your mid-20s. To quote the peace corps recruiting slogan: It’s the toughest job you’ll ever love.

As a band we are in a completely different place then we were the last time we came out so long ago, we’ve watched old bands and contemporaries break up or become irrelevant, we’ve watched new bands sprout up and, in some cases collapse back down again. We become one of the centers of a very strong local community that expanded, contracted, expanded, contracted and is back to expanding again.

Through it all though, we’ve never lost sight of who or what we are.

We exist somewhere between so called “heavy” music, indie rock, arty noise, big rock, and whatever the hell else.
My tag phrase for this has been:
There are many tour diaries, but this one is mine.

And it’s partly facetious and partly not. There really aren’t that many tour diaries these days, it almost seems to be a lost art in the world of twitter blogging and myspace bullitens. There are, however, a hell of a lot of bands, and most of them are mediocre to bad.

I feel comfortable that we bring something to the table to give back musically. The ass kicking that we have received, we do our best to give back, one big communal experience you know?

The problem is signal to noise, signal to noise.
I joke that I wanted to call MACHINES WILL ALWAYS LET YOU DOWN “,Fuck you, still here.” but the sentiment is definitely true. The BABYLAND idea of outliving your enemies becomes more enticing the more you do this crazy thing.

In a way we are somewhat known in our smallish subsect of a small subsect of the underground, but let’s be fair here.
You don’t hear Replicator on commercial radio or see us on TV, and you are very unlikely to.
That’s also not our end goal, we make music that we love and that drives us forward, and put on the kind of shows that we would like to (but rarely do) see.

We throw it out there and play as hard and as pure as we can, even if it feels like ramming your head against the wall.
I think that makes the difference.

No, I think that makes all the difference.

Sometimes, most times hopefully, we bring the Awexome, sometimes we bring the Bummer, sometimes it’s somewhere in between.
It’s always a work in progress, and a state of constant improvement.

the 14 hour drives, the stomach turning road food, the rough sleeping situations, wait… sleep?
oh yeah, the total lack of any restful sleep, the asshole sound guys, the loneliness and seperation from home and those you love, the people who are at shows and don’t even seem to be interested in music, the venues who look at bands heaving their very soul out there as something to add value to their local drunks, all of it…

It’s all completely worth it for that one bright and shining moment when you go somewhere else and truly achieve something on higher plane of existence for however brief of a time that is.

Then you get in the van and do it all again.

Thank you to Joie and the whole Superstarcastic crew for asking us to do this lil’ thing here, I had a blast doing it, even if it was the bane of my existence at time, trying to type in a bumpy van under less then ideal conditions. Thank you to everybody that put us up for the night, let us use their shower, booked a show, rocked with us, came out to one (or more!) shows, bought a cd or t-shirt, fed us, or was just generally kind to our band of surly, sarcastic Oakland noiserock types in whatever way possible.

Aaaaand, thank YOU for reading.
Until next time:

<<END COMMUNICATION>>

-Conan Neutron
Replicator
9/12/2007
Replicator
Replicator MurdochSpace
Radio Is Down
Radio is Down store
Replicator shameless Commerce zone

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