before the Unity tour….

‘…the bird would cease and be like other birds
but that he knows in singing not to sing
the question that he frames in all but words
in what to make of a diminishing thing.’
- Frost

Sunday morning at eight thirty a.m. we left to meet up with tour. It had been a late Saturday night and the wind in Regina was burly…made loading backpacks and piling into the van happen in record time. Todd drove us from Regina to Providence college in Otterburne Mb, an hour into nowhere south of Winnipeg….the location of our first show back from the break.
We passed towns along the way to Winnipeg that we had played over the years. Moosemin, Sk with the Reception and the Fortunate,….. when we toilet papered the Receptions van, and to this day they blamed it on drunk kids…Brandon, MB where we played countless goth shows…Brandon has a reputation with us as being the worst place to be for more than a couple hours. (am I wrong?)…Mcgregor .. where we played a drop in center a couple times and had many laughs...Portage,Mb where we played in the church hall basement (we rocked material from ‘more than watchmen’…I shredded the full stack….ha) Rivers, MB…where Todd played his second show with us…..we shared the stage with Anew and The Fortunate in a bingo hall…that show was just days before our first tour together as a four piece…in support of Rosesdead.
We pulled up the venue in Otterburne on a series of dirt roads…where the hell are we?....someone said…we made a joke that the venue was going to be refered to as ‘the superdome’ for the remainder of time. (the billy ray cyrus superdome!??!) It turned out we were playing in a large chapel named after Ben Affleck.. (not actually…but gotta give cred where its due)…I remembered a show we played in a chapel years ago and I had made a crack about covering an Aerosmith tune..(we actually didn’t)…..apparently after that joke the promoter got shit from staff for having a band perform with questionable influences….too good to be true!
We hung out upstairs at the superdome.....it had been a long drive and a short night before. We chatted with some friends…but for the most part worked on our guitars and chatted about set list ditties…typical first day of tour stuff…nerves…when I get nervous I just walk around the venue aimlessly....trying on every shirt in my backpack.
We got on stage a little after nine and immediately I felt like the show was going to be something special. The room had gotten pretty packed…I was recognizing many of the first few rows from the past 6 years of playing Winnipeg area shows. (Harper was stage driving immediately). When the chorus of the third song hit…the crowd was singing so loud I had to fight back a bit of emotion…we dance pretty hard... it was such a fun show.
Thanks to everyone who came out to the show at Prov….many Winnipeg people came out…and made it a great show to kick off this final tour. It was really neat for each of to play that show. Special thanks to Blair for coming to the show… Hailey for your kind words after the show….the guys for having us in the dorm and playing poker with us, and for your act in helping the family of your fallen friend.
We drove from Winnipeg to Chicago last night….all we had on our minds was watersliding!!! We haven’t gotten to it yet….but believe me… we will!! (unity tour…if your reading this…get your watersliding faces on!) Regarding watersliding: ‘A loaded gun can only sit so long before it goes off.’
We have a couple nights in Chicago area with family and friends until we head up to Guelph to join the Unity tour. (Lifestory monologue and Farewell to freeway…we want to see you!!!) We have done some shows with KTO…. And are looking forward to the tour…. We are super excited to meet and hang out with the Artists Life… I fully support you Dean!!…. and we are finally going to be tourists together buddy.
On the drive last night we pulled out some old letters that friends have given us on past tours for encouragement… we read them out loud….Avery K. (ex: The Fortunate…currently in LIFE IN HAND) took the cake for most hilarious note..! It was soooo funny dude…love you lots man…
That reminds me…..If you are coming out to any of these shows…. Bring notes..!!!!!.... We love them…. and we keep them and read them every once in awhile in the van…. Its hard to talk to everyone after these shows… and it would great to have a few mementos from you..
Ok…talk more later…
…looking over everything.
together,
matty means

Eastern Canada rules. Plain and Simple.

The pre-tour blog... Eastern Canada rules. Plain and simple. The drives are much better too. I swear to god you can be driving through Ontario for the better part of 30 hours and STILL BE IN ONTARIO! So it's safe to say The East Coast is my most favorite place to tour in Canada. We are so stoked about everything that has been going on these past few months with the Underground Operations family and we're even MORE stoked to share a bunch of new songs and a brand spankin' new ep with all of you. We will also be selling a whole new whack load of merch on this tour so be sure to check out all the new stuff! Chuck unfortunately will not be joining us this tour on Bass guitar duty as he is taking on a duty of his own; getting married and going on a honeymoon. We'll miss you Chuck, don't get too sunburned you pasty bastard! We've asked friends and fellow label mates Hostage Life if we could borrow their bass player Mr. Shamus Mathers. You might know his brother Pat Mathers, also known as The Flatliners fill in guitarist! It's kinda funny actually, it's like you can rent members of Hostage Life... I think I'd rent Colin if I needed someone to yell at a landlord... or at anyone for that matter. Anyhow, we've rented Shamus and we couldn't more happy to have him fill in for this tour! Underground Operations has set up this tour blog site for all of you to check out while we're on the Unity Tour, and I believe Dan Hand of U.O. himself will be updating it every day with all sorts of videos and news. So make sure you keep checking back everyday after the tour kick-off. Someone is bound to make an ass of themselves.

All for now because we haven't left yet and I've run out of things to say. Stoked to Start A Riot with you Eastern Canada. See you in two weeks.

love and rock
ian - T*A*L

pre tour thoughts

I've been in edmonton since the beginning of august. It's now mid-october. That's abnormally long for me to be in one place. I picked up a job washing windows to fill the time, not feel like i'm wasting away, and hopefully offset the inevitable state of being broke on tour. i've actually gotten pretty good at cleaning windows too. One lady told me she had been depressed for a month, and then i cleaned her windows and she was happy again. She's crazy but i got a can of sprite and a 10 dollar tip out of it.

Now that the weather is getting cold and dipping into the negatives, we had to start using antifreeze to wash windows because the water would freeze before i could squeegee it off. I guess that's how you know it's time to get the hell out of town.

We had a chance to party with KTO one fateful night at the dungeon in oshawa in the summer, i don't think anything that happened after the show is legal to talk about, but i'm ready for round 2 with those boys. also, i got to see a bit of the artist life's set at scenefest. it was difficult because the room was 14 times fuller when they played than when we did, needless to say they killed it. it's been a year since we've been all the way to the east coast, we're lucky to get to do it one last time with those bands.

todd.means.

UNITY TOUR 2008

featuring: MEANS, KATHLEEN TURNER OVERDRIVE & THE ARTIST LIFE

10.30- Guelph, ON- The Shadow*

10.31- Milton, ON- St. Paul's United Church

11.04- Charlottetown, PEI- Winslow Lions Club

11.05- Glace Bay, NS- St Annes Hall

11.06- Halifax, NS- The Pavilion

11.07- Saint John, NB- Dennis Morris Community Centre

11.08- Sherbrooke, QC- Le Magog

11.10- Montreal, QC- Underworld

11.11- Ottawa, ON- Cafe Dekcuf

11.12- Belleville, ON- The Bohemian

11.13- Toronto, ON- The Kathedral

11.14- Kitchener, ON- The Schwaben Club

11.15- Whitby, ON- Johnny B's

*=no The Artist Life

www.undergroundoperations.com
www.myspace.com/means_music
www.myspace.com/shittykto
www.myspace.com/theartistlife