Hey, look what I found!

We're not dead yet!

Ok. Yes we are. Zombie Dog was always meant to be a one-time thing, so don't hold your breath for a reunion tour anytime soon. (And if you have been holding your breath for the last two years, congratulations. You're some kind of awesome for pulling that off!)

Anyway, here's some other stuff that we recorded in or around that summer:

We visited my buddy Gregory Tanacea at Into the Hill Studios in Dubuque, IA. (Now also defunct.) We recorded a sweet high-def video of us rocking a couple of our songs. But since it was a free thing, and ItH studios was already just about to close up shop anyway, the videos never got edited.

Eventually, I got Gregory to send me the raw audio recordings. I turned them into these mp3s!

Adventures of Crisobal Pt. 2 - I forgot how much I hate typing that!
Happiness - My current nerd punk band doesn't play that one. I kind of miss it!
It's a Good Thing - Minimalist Mix - We did two takes, so I did two mixes.
It's a Good Thing - Maximal Mix - I layered the two takes together to try to get a more-full sound.

There's also this thing that I made shortly after the summer finished.

What? New content now?

That's right, suckas! One last post from Steve.

During the middle of the tour, we paused to record some demos. We frantically laid down tracks for 5 songs over the course of about a day. We then spent three months mixing and mastering the tracks. (Mostly 'cause we're lazy.)

But we finally finished them! Now you can enjoy all your favorite ZD songs in crisp, studio-quality (...ish we were a little rushed for time during the actual recording) demo EP format!

It's a Good Thing
The Adventures of Cristobal Pt. 2
Fat Kid Emo Pants
Happiness - By the time we reached this part of the recording process, the bass had slipped out of tune. I (Steve) couldn't get it to sound good with both bass and guitar, so there are two versions.
Happiness with bass
Carpedium - And with that exhortation of our greatness, I now take my leave.

Until next time, Zombie Dog out!

One Last Quote Post

Hey folks, I'm more or less through my backlog of blog posts, so I think this will be my last. Sad!

The music stops. A car passes us on the right.
Me: What do you think?
Steve: I think that guy's kids had better be on fire.
Me: Mind if I just pick something?
Steve: Sure, just as long as it doesn't suck.

Gene: Here, in case you want to keep in contact with your fiddle player. (he hands me a flier for her band)
Laura: Don't do it! She won't shut up!
Me: She was a talker, wasn't she.
Laura: Jesus, I could have stolen her identity!

Me: I think Amelia likes me.
awkward silence.
Me: I think you like me.
Steve: Your mom likes you.

Steve: That's why I hate you.
Me: Haha! Wait... are you serious?
Steve: No, you're just high, and it's fun to mess with you.

Steve: They say you lose most of your heat through your head. Specifically, on a strip down the middle, more-so in the back.

Steve: You'd think it's a lot of fun visiting new cities and meeting people, but mostly it's just being irritable, lost, and smelly.

Steve: Please don't download porn onto my minivan.

We enter Idaho. 5 minutes later:
Gene: They're just tearing away at that mountain. I wonder what's in there?
Steve: Precious potatoes. My grandpappy worked in a potato mine until it closed.
Gene: Until he died from spud-lung, right?

Steve: Sometimes I wake up in the morning and say to myself 'where the fuck am I?!?' Then I'm pleasantly surprised to find out that it's a couch instead of the van.

Backstory: We're at a grocery store with a fellow couch surfer trying to purchase beer for the pants party in Bismark.
Surfer: This'll be debit.
Cashier: We only do credit. Want me to charge credit on your debit card?
Surfer: Why don't I just use my credit card?
Cashier: Well, you might want to use your debit card for the interest rate. Plus it comes out immediately.
Surfer: ...
Me: I don't see what's so difficult about this. I use my debit card pin with my credit card to make debit purchases on my credit card for tax purposes. Obviously.

Everyone but the cashier thought it was funny.

Last show

So we played our last show on the first. It was a show at the Quays, and we did a shoddy version of recording it, thus the band has come full circle!

Commotion - This was Gene's set, so you can still kind of hear the vocals.
Company -
Bean and Joe - Gene and I keep getting each other's songs in each other's heads. What jerks.
Some Blues Song - I have no idea what this song is called.
Chelsea Hotel - actually played in New York. Whoo!
Carpedium - And now you can't hear lyrics...
It's a Good Thing - If I'd put the mic in the right place, it might be a good thing.
Total Eclipse of the Heart - Turn around one last time, bright eyes.
Karate - And finally, we are most certainly not Jackie Chang in that movie where he pretends to be Jackie Chan and teams up with a Bruce Lee look-alike.
thE32nd - (19), so we didn't quite hit 32.
Happiness - we were pretty happy to be playing this show.
TAoCP2 - This was the worst possible song on the tour to break a bass string. So of course, we did.
Fat Kid Emo Pants - Woah, indeed.

We Talk To a Racist Cop

Steve posted about the great Philladelphia open mic. Well, the adventure continued.

Back outside, a white cop pulls up behind the van parked just outside the venue. Good naturedly, he says, "Texas huh? You guys are lost! You are REALLY LOST!" We have Texas plates you see, as that's where Steve came from. Gene starts chatting with him and explains, "We're in a band on tour."

"Oh? What kind of music?"
"Rock."
"Rock music in the ghetto! I guess this place is coming up."
This amuses me as the area felt like Brooklyn in the sense that it could once have been dangerous, but now it was exactly the kind of place I'd want to spend a Saturday night.

"My niece is on an air force base in Te..."
He stops dead, mid-sentence, turns, and oggles a pair of black girls walking by.
"You know, rookie cops say, 'I could never get into that,' but I guess after you're out here for a while you develop a taste."

"Alright, well, uh, I guess we're going to get going." Gene had caught word of a dance party at another place. We get directions from the officer and head out.

I lost my shoes earlier in the tour, and the place had a no-flip-flops dress code, so we ended up just going out to get a couple of drinks and calling it a night.

In the morning, Gene gets up to feed the meter. We head downstairs to meet him, and I start bitching about something or another, as I often do when I'm hungry. He starts to take off. Steve starts yelling, "whoah whoah whoah!" I look over and see that Steve's only half in the van. I chime in, "Whoah whoah whoah! You're running over Steve!" Nobody was hurt, so I can say in retrospect that Steve had the funniest terrified expression on his face. We picked up a couple of cheesesteaks to make it all good. On the way, Steve was navigating.

Steve: Turn right here on Syndor.
Gene: It's pronounced Snydor.
Steve: Ah, well, you say potato, I say fuck you.
Me: (Laughing for 5 minutes)

Cleveland and Pittsburgh

Day 2 in Cleveland represented for me everything that's great about this tour. I woke up at noon in the Akron house, and spent the next six hours hanging out on the porch with everyone and their dogs drinking coffee and beer. Gene made a great dinner for everyone, and we all hit on the cute girl. We rocked extra hard at a really fun open mic night in Cleveland, and stayed pretty late. Finally we headed home, unwound, and called it a night around 4.

Well, there was a bit of a misadventure. Gene is a tortured sleeper, so between two nights of no sleep, a couple of beers, and a couple of joints, he passed out in the van on the way home. I take a sleeping-dogs-lie approach to that dude when he finally gets some sleep, so we just left him in the van. Around 3:30 our friend George got up to go to work, came back in, and said, "Gene's sleeping in the street." I thought that meant he grabbed a sleeping bag and was sleeping in the grass beside the van or something, but nope. He'd left the door open, walked around the van, and passed out in the street. Luckily he woke up enough that he could walk himself back to the house as he's a very large man. Nobody got hurt, so now it's hilarious.

Day 2 in Pittsburg was fun in a laid back way. We slept in, got the local famous sandwich, checked out a museum, Gene cooked dinner, and we hung out with our couch surfing hostess. She's into roller derby, and she and her friend were describing how they don't bruise any more, super hero style. We played an open mic at a bar with a great vibe, except for the longest time we were the only non-employees there. Gene and I joined the host for a while on some of his songs. He's a pretty soulful dude, and I'm a hack rock drummer. I was cracking him up. It was fun and ridiculous.

Super Secret Practice Session

July 31, a day of rest and practice before our final show on August 1.

Here's some stuff we recorded while jamming:

Something in Between - Where do you get off calling Gene a crazy super-villain, huh?
Catch Me - Complete with Steve trying to frantically play along with his computerized synths.

More to come.