This was our 4th time playing at Schubas since May and it sure does feel like home. So much so that we keep on (Matt keeps on) having very silly moments in the green room. I’m sure you remember the Cake Incident of May 2009, and last night we had some more silliness while hanging out pre-show with the whole gang. Video soon to come…

Also, here are some great pics from Pamela Yasuko Photography:

More acoustic and electric video LIVE from BROOKLYN via the Brooklyn Rocks Blog! We had such an awesome time playing on that rooftop, and we were so pumped when the Brooklyn Rocks team cancelled plans and showed up at Union Hall!  Read what they have to say about us, and enjoy the live footage below – (Union Hall footage is great visually, but we’re a bit too loud for the mic

“You Left Your Sweater…” & “Boston and Alone” rooftop acoustic in Crown Heights, Brooklyn

“Wreckage” and “You Left Your Sweater…” electric at Union Hall in Park Slope, Brooklyn

I am also pretty pumped that The Clash “I Fought the Law” is a top related video on YouTube

Wednesday, July 15th in Philladelphia @ Pubb Webb
So where did we leave off? Philladelphia, right? We rolled in early enough to get Ethiopian food with an old friend. And we had long enough for the meal to settle before we had to head to the club. We dropped our stuff off at another friends house and headed to the club.

Pubb Webb is located right next to Temple University- it’s an interesting neighborhood. The venue was up a narrow staircase, which is perfect when you’re hauling 90 pound amps in flight cases. Downstairs there was a DJ spinning hip hop records. We played with Bayshore Drive who were both really good and super friendly. They fit into pop-punk pretty nicely and it was great when they stuck around for our set afterwards.

The stage was pretty tight, and they were short some mics, but the sound guys were really nice and did everything they could for us.

I love it when old friends that you haven’t seen in years roll in with like 5 friends. It’s heartwarming.
(Timeout- we’ve got the windows open on the highway and we just drove through a patch that smelled like barbeque. Ok time in.)

So we finished up and carried everything downstairs and rolled. We dropped jesse off in west philli (we split up that night). Then Mike, Matt and I all went and got late night pizza at ______. We walked there and then went home and crashed. And by home I mean the place we were staying that night.

Thursday, July 16 in Clementon, NJ @ The Cherrywood
I had to wake up early to move the van. That sucked. But I found a nice little outdoor place called the bean cafe on south street. It was a nice way to wake up- some tea, some coffee, and a bagel. Read the free local paper.

We only had to drive to clementon, nj that night so it was like a day off- or at least it wasn’t hectic.
Then Bayshore Drive called us up. The night before we found their guitar and kick pedal and called them to make sure they got it back. So they called to return the favor- they got us booked on a show @ the Fire in Philli for the 24th. So that makes 3 shows in philli this tour. Awesome.

We swung by Repo Records and dropped off a few records for consignment and left some promo stuff for our two remaining shows there. Mikey got a couple pairs of sweet shoes. And a haircut. I got brunch with a friend from highschool before she had to go catch a plane. It was really hot that day.
That’s also when I wrote blog 2.

Clementon wasn’t very far, but I napped on the way there. The bar is called The Cherrywood and it was right next to the fire station, and a Kmart- a strip mall type thing- big parking lot.
But they had a nice sized stage and Pat the sound guy had just finished putting in the front of house console. He also made a sweet wall mounted rack for the instruments.
And the locals CAME OUT. Lots of them. Some to drink, some to dance but it was a pretty good time all around.

Friday, July 17th in DC @ The Velvet Lounge
We woke up early for the drive to DC. Jesse grew up there, so we always stay with his folks. Who we love. And his english cocker spaniel, Willy. Jesse’s folks are awesome. I love staying there. His dad has amazing bikes. And the most amazing collection of records. Also, the entire basement is “Simpsons” themed. The animated TV show, not OJ, not Ashley, not Nikki. He gave me those ridiculous pink sunglasses I keep on insisting on wearing. People try to steal them more often than you’d expect.

But we did laundry and showered- matt napped. Jesse’s folks had ordered barbeque delivered, so that was amazing. I love barbeque so much. It’s not health food but that’s what sit ups are for. And someday I’ll do a few.

We hopped back in the durango and drove the ten minutes to the club. The Velvet Lounge…let me see…how do I say this tactfully? Um, there isn’t velvet anywhere.
It was just super unorganized. They never confirmed the lineup, they listed it differently in different places- the person who advanced us wasn’t around- none of that is really a big deal, it happens all the time, we work through it. Usually without conflict. But none of them were particularly friendly, and the sound guy was late. *(It should be noted that the other bands, however, were very cool. Which mattered a lot.) Which barely matters since there was no sound check or line check for anyone, despite the fact that When he arrived he was rude. His name is Sam. If you play at the Velvet Lounge, make sure he’s not your sound person. To call him that insults all the friendly, nice, professional sound people we’ve worked with on the road. He didn’t have enough equipment and he left thre board during every band’s set. By the time we took the stage, he was drunk. At the end of the night they didn’t honor the deal they had offered us and stiffed us out of a few hundred bucks. That goes a long way for us. So that’s too bad. But you know what? I felt EXULTANT after the show. Let me tell you why.

Are you ready for the good part? ‘Cause this is the good part.
The show was incredible. Turnout was huge. It was basically Jesse’s entire high school class having a reunion. But all of our people came. Larry (our bassist for the school year while Mike goes to grad school) came out and brought all his friends. I had left after we loaded in- walked to a friend’s house a few blocks away, only to find a party organized and mobilized to come to the show, and they basically all came. The front of the stage was packed and overcrowded- and it was probably 90 degrees in there by the time we took the stage. The dancers in front were mesmerizing and inspiring. (You know who you are. Thanks, we owe you.)

It was one of those shows where you play better because of how wild things get. Where nothing, not even all that shitty stuff from earlier, brings you down. It was the show that reminded me just what I love so much about touring.

We finished our set and the crowd started screaming “Encore! Encore!” But we figured we were done. Then they literally started chanting “JESSE! JESSE!” So we turned our amps back on, plugged back in and gave ‘em one more song.

I may have ended up at an absinthe bar with certain other members of the band, who shall remain nameless here.

So we may or may not have rocked DC, but they rocked our faces off FOR SURE.

Saturday, July 18th in Boston @ The Middle East

The next morning we woke up early and headed out for Boston. Have you ever driven from DC to Boston? It’s horrible. It’s like 9 hours. But the merrit parkway is really pretty.

We got into Boston later than expected and loaded right in. They were REALLY pro at the Middle East. People came out and danced. There were a few really good surprises in the crowd. Dan, the sound guy, was awesome. We shared a moment. Really hoping we see more of him.

Somewhere along the was I tore my favorite jeans AND my favorite shirt. They’re good tears though. They add character.

The rest of the band stayed in JP, I stayed with some family in Newton. They went to brunch, I watched the Sandlot.

Sunday, July 19th in Northampton, MA @ The Elevens

Short drive up to Northampton to play the Eleven’s. We had friends that missed the Boston show drive up. The crowd dug it, the other bands were solid. The manager of Steven Kellog & the Sixers put us up at her place even though she’s out of town. Amazing.

We caught brunch with Kit of the Sixers. He’s so great. We hit the Green Bean in Northampton. Highly recommend it if you’re in town.

Now we’re driving to philli for our show at Kildare’s. And we’re all caught up. I’ll talk to you soon. Thanks for sharing this moment in my life. If you’ve read all this, you know me better. Over and out.

A day off is a complete must. I never want there to be one while we’re booking the tour, but then once you’re out….I mean- I got 4 hours of sleep the first night. Not my fault. I blame the hot tub. But I thank the cops for making sure I remembered what time it is. Right around 3:45. But that’s Akron. That’s not what I came here to talk to you about.

I’m listening to The Hold Steady’s live disc “A Positive Rage” recorded @ Metro in Chicago by our good friend Chris Shepard of the Illustrious Chicago Recording Company. These were the first two Hold Steady shows I saw, and they were amazing. There’s a DVD too- I’m gonna wait to watch it on a real TV with speakers.

Sorry, I keep getting sidetracked. Aaaaaaanyways…last Sunday (7/12/09) we spent rolling around Brooklyn. Well, the first part was laundry and making breakfast and getting up slowly and doing band work. A lot of time in front of a screen, repacking the trailer….wearing cargo shorts and sandals…that sort of thing. Real rockstar stuff.

Then we rolled out on the 3 train to brooklyn. Well- first we swung by a sneaker store. I got two pairs of shoes. If you follow us on twitter (@cobaltandthehgs) there will be pictures at some point. I may even take one for this post. A first pair of Jordans is a thing to be celebrated.

One of two: first pair of Jordans. Shot of the other to follow later.

Garden State Parkway on Monday 7/13/09

We got in a bit early so we went and ordered Tortas at a Mexican restaurant. They weren’t half bad, but the Horchata was boring.
For a rock band, we’re pretty patient about partying. It’s not that we don’t. We do. We most certainly do. It’s just that we’d rather rock you than rock ourselves. That’s me anyway. Some people are built differently, and I envy them. But then I’m kind of the jealous type about that sort of stuff.
The Saint though- holy fuck. So many great acts have played there- Josh Ritter way back in the day…Incubus when they weren’t all huge…so that’s encouraging. We’ve never been to Asbury Park, we didn’t know anyone there, and that was scary. But the opener- Lost in Society- an underage punk band had a bit of a draw and some of them stuck around, a few of our people showed up. They were a lot of fun and put on a great show. There are pictures on twitter.
They have a great stage. And Billy, the soundguy, was AMAZING. Seriously. Superduper sound. He was great. and funny and easygoing. but mostly just cause he made us sound amazing. and SECRETLY they recorded video of the show. And audio. but we’ll get to that.
I want to thank Drew, the lights guy- he was attentive in a way a small band from Chicago that doesn’t have a huge draw or songs on the radio could never expect. He blew us away. Next time we’ll send him advance copies of the disc and bring a cake. Also- Randy the Hot Dog guy outside is a real charmer. He’s a good dude. Scott and Meg took really good care of us. Scott runs the place. He’s just a really good dude. If you’re in a band, and you read this- go to Asbury Park and play the Saint. Then go back, and play there again. And when you get huge and sell out some monstrous venue, invite the vips to an after-party there.
The video is layered, giving it an 80′s/90′s look which is suuuuper hot. I fucking loved it. And they have quite the sound and lights system there. Basically it was one of the best nights so far and it was more than we expected in every way.
Check out the video of the Wreckage from the show. It’s one of our new tunes.
http://www.youtube.com/cobaltandthehgs#play/all/uploads-all/0/J3G60gVsfQ0
That’s basically what it was like. Most of Lost in Society came up and joined us when we covered Ruby Soho…I could go on…but I feel like you get the idea.
and then we drank some and hung out. then we packed up and drove back to Brooklyn to sleep that night. That house in Brooklyn may be our New York City home base from now on. If they’ll have us. We need to get them something nice. Any ideas? Seriously- post about it.

The Seaside Tavern in Stamford, CT on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Stamford is another one of those places where we have a killer place to stay. They have a trampoline and TWO DOGS. (we all love dogs.) It was kinda traffic-y on the way up. But not too bad, all things considered.
The Seaside Tavern has an old pro at the sound board. His name is Jay and he toured with B.B. King for 14 years. Hotmazing. He was way on top of stuff and laid back, but didn’t fuck around. It was too bad that it was 21 and over- we had some dissapointed fans up there, but the crowd was enthusiastic and a lot of fun.
But crazy thing: Jay works at the Carraige House, where Brian Humphrey used to work. So he knows Brian, which is awesome.
We also debuted (debut’d? i’m not what you’d call a “speller”) a new song called Lazarus. It’s hard as hell for me to sing, but it’s coming along. So if you ACTUALLY request it, we may play it for you on this tour. But it’s still fledgling.
But the show went well, what can I say?

Anyway, they’re telling me we gotta pack up and head out to the Clementon, NJ show we have tonight. We’re playing the Cherrywood. I haven’t told you about last night’s show in Philli, but it’ll have to wait, sorry. You probably got done reading like 3 paragraphs ago anyway. I’ll get to it.

And there there was the afterparty. Oh my god. We drove back to the Akron area- there was a hot tub and pbr talls…lots of swimsuits. Our hosts and their son, and a friend of ours that lives in the area all stayed up till 4 playing in the hot tub getting drunk and dehydrated (awesome idea for the first night of the tour, no?) Jack, the resident 4 year old of the house has more energy than all of us put together. Apparently we weren’t exactly mousy quiet ’cause first the neighbors showed up to warn us that that cops were coming (we’re pretty sure they are the ones who called them) and right after they left the cops showed up and told us to keep it down. not sorry.

Driving to Pittsburgh from Akron isn’t as bad as one might think. Thank god Pennsylvania is so picturesque ’cause it is long as FUCK.

I’ll let Mike tell you about our show at Club Cafe.

Driving from Pittsburgh to New York: they tell you it’s gonna be 6 and a half hours. But they don’t warn you about the fucking EPIC thunder & lightiing & rain and basically blind out the windshield storm you’ll have to drive through going like 20 miles an hour. most of the other cars were just straight up pulled over. we soldiered on. We’re like Patton’s Army. Only really nice.

So first we went to Flatbush in Brooklyn. Which is lovely. Trafficy, but lovely. And the place we’re staying is AMAZING. We walked in and they had dinner on the table. Dinner included steak, buttery mashed potatos. And guacamole and salad and some kind of fratata/quiche type thing that was delicious. We ate in like 10 minutes and jetted to the venue on the Lower East Side. Just as we pulled up, it started pouring- there was that rain storm that had been chasing us all day. So we got soaked but it was worth it. Matt and I found street parking. yessssssss. It’s almost as difficult as the search for the holy grail in Manhattan.

The show: ok, the show itself was fucking incredible. Tour is starting to do it’s thing- all the parts are starting to feel greased and slick and like they’re running at top performance. And it’s only the 3rd show. The sound guy (Harold? dammit, now I forget) was realy nice, but it was odd when 3 songs in he made us move one of our amps to the other side of the stage. But whatever, the hurdle didn’t even make us break stride. And it was wonderful to see all our friends- thanks for coming out to support and rock out with us. We’ll see you all again in two week at Union Hall in Brooklyn on the 25th.

Today’s a day off. We’re relaxing, repacking, doing laundry, that sort of thing. There will probably be a video blog that happens later in the day, hopefully. I think there may be a barbeque in the works for later. Tomorrow is Asbury Park, New Jersey. It kicks of 9 days of shows in a row. That will be a new record. Can’t party too hard or our voices will fall off. But good god damn we love being on tour.

Stay Tuned, next up I’ll tell you about Asbury Park, NJ [but here's some video from that show: http://bit.ly/kuU4E] and the Seaside Tavern in Stamford, CT.
Also, photos should be goin’ up on Flickr soon.

Cobalt & the Hired Guns having a PRETTY good time.

pretty sure we’re actively tickling each other at the moment of this photograph.

[photos credited to barry brecheisin. bbphoto.com]

Jesse also managed to get some choice video footage of us hanging out below Schubas in the green room after the show. It’s very important. It involves cake and Sesame Street.

First of all, a big thank you to everyone who helped us with the Metromix Rock’n'Vote competition, you got us into the final four, and helped us get prominently featured in the RedEye three times in here Chicago. That’s huge for us, you rock. You are all dedicated and we owe you a debt of gratitude. There are a bunch of amazing photos that were taken at the follow up show we played at LaSalle Power Co. (Which, by the way, is the old Michael Jordan Restaurant. So that’s basically the coolest thing ever.)
At the end of April we played for the first time at the Empty Bottle - thanks to everyone who came out and supported us. We were there with our good friends the Dirty Rooks, and it was a great show. The next day we played with Goodbye Home and Heather Styka at the Lakeshore Theater for Chicago Acoustic Underground. That sentence has 4 of our favorite things about Chicago in it. Special thanks to those of you that came up on stage with us and rocked out. You know who you are.

We’ve been super busy lately – in April we wrapped up our Double Door Acoustic Residency a week early on April 13th. We’re really sorry that we had to cancel that last show – apparently Double Door had some plumbing problems, but thanks to everyone that played those shows with us. We really had a good time both times we played it and we’ll be back there again soon. They promised.

Oh man it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Most of you probably don’t know about that UU Youth Conference we played down in St. Louis. That was a fun homecoming for Matt and I – it was the first place we ever played on stage together, years ago. It was different being back and being older, but the crowd still gave it up. There isn’t really much of a difference between the “stage” and the “audience” at those shows. Thanks for singing with us and dancing with us and generally losing your shit.

We’ve been super busy preparing for the tour, and the full tour routing should be coming out soon. As part of that, we’ve finally gotten on the bandwagon and created a twitter account. Now every time we run out of gas, have a flat tire, play an amazing show or pull and all nighter, you’ll know about it. You can find us at : www.twitter.com/cobaltandthehgs. Yeah, we were skeptical too at first, but really, it’s not as bad as all that. Sometimes it’s even actually fun.

We had a blast out in Highland Park at the Trek Store where we played a benefit for the Active Transportation Alliance. They had a bike that hooked up to a margarita maker. It was pretty exciting, and pretty delicious. I’m not gonna say “we were drunk” but we were kinda drunk. Well, Jesse was anyways. And we won a bunch of t-shirts and other fancy stuff. Rod, the owner, is a sweet dude. You should check out his shop: http://mytrekstore.com/

Last weekend we played the Climate Cycle Festival outside of Soldier Field. And it was about 34 degrees. Thanks, Chicago in May. But we still ended up with like 20 kids on stage with us, and they helped keep us warm. Hopefully they post that video they took to youtube. Later that night we played Robbie Ventura’s poker party for his friends. Yes, that Robbie Ventura, the one that is a former pro kick-ass bicycle racer. The food was delicious, the beer flowed like wine and his friends were all really nice. What excellent hosts.

Also, we recently created a Flickr account, and we’ll get a group for fan pics up soon, so all those old Cobalt photos you’ve been sitting on, or haven’t tagged us in, or haven’t already put on facebook already, you can share them with the world. And more importantly, wth us. Especially if we look good.
we love you all!