Robots, Samuel L. Jackson and Fear & Loathing On The 401

And we're back. After playing a really fun show at ZB's on Wednesday night (featuring the debut of the theremin), we packed up and started driving to Toronto on Thursday. We'd heard weather reports of a snow storm coming, but we figured that there wasn't much we could do about it anyway, and if we left early enough then maybe we could make it there before it really hit hard.

We hit the storm around 3:30pm. At this point, we had made it to the other side of Belleville, so we were more than half-way there. But it took us until sometime around 8:30 before we pulled up outside of Sneaky Dees. (This includes about an hour and a half sitting on the DVP, going practically nowhere.) We loaded in our gear, and sat down, then got the call that our drummer & his brother (who had also rented a car to drive down) had been in a bit of a bender on the 401. Everyone was okay, but they weren't going to get to Toronto, hence no show. So we just hung out with our friends who had come out (in the miserable weather, no less) to see us, and tried to stay positive for the following night in Oshawa.

Friday, the general mood was a little tense. So rather than meandering aimlessly around Toronto all afternoon without any real purpose, we decided that we would head out to Oshawa a bit early (avoiding any other possible weather complications) and just catch a movie. Since we were a little pressed for time, we only had a few options, and because our respective GF's would kill us for watching Pan's Labyrinth without them, we decided on Black Snake Moan. SLJ was fantastic playing an old southern farmer/bluesman. And since I really don't want this to turn into a movie review, here's a link to the movie/trailer site. Good enough for me.

After that, we headed to the Velvet Elvis for the gig. Such a fun place! It's actually a converted house with two levels, with a small stage at the front of the ground floor. Seriously, why are there cool places like this in cities like Oshawa, Guelph and Kitchener, but nothing in Ottawa? I digress; the show was a lot of fun, and we got to play with a fantastic Oshawa surf band called The Robots. These guys had a more traditional rock-out kind of surf sound than we have, and they were really good.

So there you have it. A bit of an intense trip. Sunday was far more relaxing, and I'll get to writing about that when I get some pictures together.