| DATE | VENUE | BANDS | COMMENTS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 13 2006 | Southpaw Brooklyn NY | Professor Murder Tunnel of Love | This ended up being Joe's last show with us. It was a good time and the set seemed to go well. It was the first time in awhile that we'd played with our friends Tunnel of Love, and their rock assault inspired us as ever. |
| May 18 2006 | Black Cat Washington DC | Liars | A momentous occasion. Our first show with our third and hopefully final singer Breck Brunson (and the accompanying all-new songs), and our first show in years with one of the bands we practically started out with, Liars. We were rough around the edges but it felt good. People seemed to be into it. |
| May 19 2006 | Jefferson Theater Charlottesville VA | Liars | This was a very cool space: An old movie theater (that had just finished showing King Kong when we arrived). We were a bit rushed, having had van trouble on the way down and the movie having run long, so we pretty much had to load on stage and play right away. After a slow start things picked up thanks to some enthusiastic people up front. It ended up being a great time. Oddly, this was our first time playing Charlottesville, even though it is only a little more than two hours from home and we have friends there. |
| May 20 2006 | Cat's Cradle Carborro NC | Liars Deerhunter | This show cemented our belief that we are incapable of having a good show in Chapel Hill. There was a decent crowd, but almost without exception they resembled mourners more than show-goers. It didn't help that Erick's bass kept going out. We thin we're going to stick with Winston-Salem from now on. Deerhunter were amazing, by the way. |
| May 21 2006 | Pilot Light Knoxville TN | Liars Deerhunter | Another good time at the Pilot Light. Lots of nice folk and some enthusiasm that was welcome after Carborro the day before. |
| May 22 2006 | Drunken Unicorn Atlanta GA | Liars Deerhunter | Decent show; our 7th show in Atlanta but our first not at the Earl. |
| May 23 2006 | The Cell Block Mobile AL | Deerhunter The Press | Our second Mobile experience ended up being significantly better than the first. Not only did the club actually open up for business, and not only did none of us get drugged, but people actually showed up and had a good time. |
| May 24 2006 | Spanish Moon Baton Rouge LA | Liars Deerhunter | Really nice club with a nice staff and great sound. We had our best on-stage sound of the tour so far and played better because of it. |
| May 25 2006 | Walter's Houston TX | Liars Deerhunter | Not one of our more memorable shows, but decent enough. |
| May 26 2006 | Emo's Austin TX | Liars Deerhunter | After dreading the suffocating heat we thought we'd have to endure, we were relieved and delighted to find Emo's has installed air conditioning since our last show there. As always for Austin, the show was a really good time and people seemed to enjoy it (and unlike most other places, they showed it). |
| May 27 2006 | Gypsy Tea Room Dallas TX | Liars Deerhunter | Very fancy club with excellent sound and a great backstage area. Fun show with a good response from the crowd. |
| May 28 2006 | The Opolis Norman OK | Liars Deerhunter | Small club, about the size of the Warehouse in DC, but with a much bigger and louder PA. Fun show aside from the crushing heat under the lights. |
| May 30 2006 | Launchpad Albuquerque NM | Liars | Show was kind of ho-hum, but we met some cool people and I got to set the high score on Tron. |
| May 31 2006 | Clubhouse Tempe AZ | Liars | Extremely nice (and very big) club with really friendly staff and great sound. Lots of cool people, and we played pretty well. A fun night. |
| Jun 01 2006 | Plush Tucson AZ | Liars | Very nice bar with a small-ish room to see the bands. Not a great turn-out at the time we went on, but we ended up having a good time with our set. |
| Jun 02 2006 | Casbah San Diego CA | Liars Rabbits | After the crowd was suitably deafened by Rabbits, we did our thing. My only problems with this club are that there is no band room and they make you load out into the street the second you're finished playing. |
| Jun 03 2006 | Troubadour Los Angeles CA | Liars Rabbits | Sold-out show at a nice venue with fantastic sound, but the night still sucked. Again, instead of relaxing for a minute and having a drink or selling merch after finishing your set, you're forced to load out immediately into the alley and pack up all your gear on the spot. They then wouldn't let Breck out the back to join us so he could get the van, but made him go out the front and go around the block. Then, because of LA parking, you are strongly advised not to pull the van around (losing your spot), but instead to haul everything piece-by-piece to the van a block and a half away. This is also another club that takes a percentage of your merch sales, which I find utterly ridiculous. Luckily, we sold so little they didn't bother taking a cut from us. |
| Jun 04 2006 | Glass House Pomona CA | Liars Rabbits | Enormous all-ages club (no alcohol). Stage was huge, sound was great, staff were nice. The band room was actually a whole band suite, with bathroom/shower, two rooms full of sofas, two refrigerators, and a pool table. We didn't play very well, apparently. |
| Jun 05 2006 | Bottom of the Hill San Francisco CA | Liars Rabbits | Really fun show in a club packed to the gills. Sold-out + many of our friends in attendance + bottle of Jim Beam in the dressing room = good times. |
| Jun 06 2006 | Synapsis Eureka CA | Rabbits Eureka Garbage Co. | House show in the weird town of Eureka. It was a great time until the PA dropped out. By the time we got a guitar amp set up to run the vocals through, the momentum was gone. |
| Jun 07 2006 | W.O.W. Hall Eugene OR | Liars Rabbits | Huge venue in the strange-as-Eureka town of Eugene. Way too big a room, as it turned out; neither Liars nor Apes ended up being paid a cent. |
| Jun 08 2006 | Dante's Portland OR | Liars Rabbits | It took us five years and five shows, but we finally had a good time in Portland. In fact, it was the best show of the tour so far and one of our best shows ever. Fantastic crowd who actually seemed to enjoy the music. The only downside was that the stage seems deliberately designed to make the drums slide all over the place while playing (tiled and seemingly waxed). |
| Jun 09 2006 | Richard's on Richard's Vancouver BC | Liars | Very nice venue -- cool layout with balconies curving all the way around almost to the back of the stage. I played on a comically pompous drum riser that had me four feet above the rest of the band. Decent but not especially memorable performance, and the same goes for the crowd response. Unfortunately, Rabbits had van trouble and didn't make the show. |
| Jun 10 2006 | El Corazon Seattle WA | Liars Rabbits | Fun show at what was formerly called Graceland, though marred by some technical difficulties early on that forced us to cut out a song. The real head-scratcher was that the bands weren't even allowed to drink or have any alcohol in their own dressing rooms. Luckily the evening was saved by the presence of our friends Garrett and Erik from Alta May and Press Corps, who took us to see the mighty Mudhoney after our own show ended. |
| Jun 12 2006 | In the Venue Salt Lake City UT | Liars | Big, nice club with another drum riser. For some reason, this time my drums kept sliding off the front of the riser despite being on the drum rug with accompanying wood block. The crowd was awesome -- really enthusiastic and happy-seeming -- making for a fun show. We broke Erick's rule of never playing while the sun is up -- it was still coming in through the window behind me when we went on at 9.15pm. |
| Jun 13 2006 | Hi-Dive Denver CO | Liars | Packed house, but the crowd didn't seem especially animated. After we played, though, we got a lot of great feedback from people, so I guess it went better than we thought. Lots of cool folk. |
| Jun 14 2006 | RecordBar Kansas City MO | Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk | Kansas City is always fun. Great on-stage sound (the best so far) made it easy to get into it. |
| Jun 15 2006 | Gabe's Oasis Iowa City IA | The Tanks | Okay show. The Tanks brought em in and we drove em out. More accurately, most left before we went on. |
| Jun 16 2006 | Mode Arts Davenport IA | Driver of the Year Humans Leon | Nice art gallery space, though definitely not the best acoustics for live bands (though my drums sounded nice and big). We tried to play third, before Driver of the Year, who were supposedly a big draw (though the 30 people that showed up on this Friday made me wonder). Unfortunately, they insisted on our playing last so their bassist could take off after they played. What we expected to be one of those shows you just write off ended up being pretty fun, thanks to a few enthusiastic fans and the aforementioned big drum sound. |
| Jun 17 2006 | 7th Street Entry Minneapolis MN | The Conformists Noise Quean Ant | Our third strike in Minneapolis. The club is cool, but in three shows in this city, we have yet to see more than a dozen people in the audience. |
| Jun 18 2006 | Logan Square Auditorium Chicago IL | Liars | We reunite with Liars in front of a good-sized crowd (the crowd size being vital to getting a good sound out of this huge, echoing room.) |
| Jun 19 2006 | Magic Stick Detroit MI | Liars Mark Morgan | Erick's bass went out for half a song and it took a long time to get it working again. One of those things it's hard to recover from, momentum-wise. |
| Jun 20 2006 | Bug Jar Rochester NY | Emersons Flour City Knuckleheads | I'm not sure the crowd numbered in the double digits when we went on. Not only did half the people leave after Flour City Knuckleheads' set (they played first), but the Knuckleheads themselves did as well. |
| Jun 21 2006 | Lee's Palace Toronto ON | Liars | This was the highest stage we've ever played on, maybe five feet tall. Show was okay but forgettable. The highlight for me was making Aaron laugh during their set and causing him to flub a line. |
| Jun 22 2006 | Cabaret Music Hall Montreal QC | Liars | Decent show, but again, unremarkable. |
| Jun 23 2006 | The Paradise Boston MA | Liars | Nice room, but it seemed like the stage took up 70% of the space with the other 30% being available to the audience. Sound was good. |
| Jun 24 2006 | Warsaw Brooklyn NY | Liars | Great, fun show. Lots of our friends were there, set went well, smiles all around. |
| Jun 25 2006 | Sonar Baltimore MD | Liars Celebration | Decent show despite early sound problems and really amazing heat/humidity in the room. |
| Jun 26 2006 | Avalon Manhattan NY | Liars The Competition | This show was kind of anti-climactic because everyone pretty much felt like the Warsaw was the end of the tour. Still, it was decent. The club itself was really cool, a converted gothic church formerly known (and infamous) as The Limelight. |
| Aug 01 2006 | Warehouse Next Door Washington DC | Oneida Awesome Colors | Fun show. Shahin of Ex Models did double duty, playing guitar on an Awesome Colors song and with Oneida. |
| Oct 21 2006 | Spinning Plate Gallery Pittsburgh PA | Don Caballero Zombi Black Moth Super Rainbow | Our 400th show came and went with a whimper. We were rushed on and off the stage due to time constraints, nothing was mic'd, and our playing was not stellar. Whoops! |
| Oct 25 2006 | First Unitarian Church Philadelphia PA | The Slits Genghis Tron Bad News Bats | A bit of a rough start to the beginning of our tour with The Slits; playing new songs combined with amp problems meant a less-than-stellar set. |
| Oct 26 2006 | Bard College Annandale-on-Hudson NY | The Slits Shellshag Lungs | Much better than the night before. Fun crowd, interesting room (super-high ceilings), and a set that went a lot better than Philly's. |
| Oct 30 2006 | Great Scott Boston MA | The Slits Life Partners Squids Thanksgiving | Decent show to a good crowd. Only bummer was that the venue doesn't give the band drinks (they give $1 off the regular bar prices or something like that). |
| Nov 01 2006 | Knitting Factory NYC | The Slits The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower Genghis Tron Made in Mexico | Great show. Great sound (on-stage and in the house), we played well, the crowd was into it -- thumbs up all around. |
| Nov 02 2006 | Maxwell's Hoboken NJ | The Slits Genghis Tron | It took us seven years, but we finally had a good show at Maxwell's. The sound was great (as it usually is, there), and the crowd was fun. Slits were great. |
| Nov 03 2006 | some warehouse Brooklyn NY | The Slits many others | This was a warehouse show that apparently was not legal, as it was shut down by the police almost immediately after we played. There were still like ten bands left to play, including the Slits whom were presumably the big draw. Bummer for everybody else, but we had a good time playing a short, loud set. |
| Nov 05 2006 | Black Cat Washington DC | The Slits Eyes of the Killer Robot | Good show, if nothing really special. |
| Nov 06 2006 | Satellite Ballroom Charlottesville VA | The Slits Rah Bras | Fun show in a very nice room. The crowd, while not quite as crazy as last time we played Charlottesville, was still more lively and enthusiastic than the stiff bunch that come out to shows in most other cities. Lots of cool people and good curry from the place next door. |
| Nov 07 2006 | Art Garage Columbia SC | The Slits The Dubber | Very fun show in a very cool place. This was basically a little room like a converted Knights of Columbus room or something, but the sound was excellent and the crowd was fun. There are band quarters in the back, with bunk beds, kitchen, and clean shower, so it's one of the very few places in the U.S. where you get the euro-style experience of being able to leave all your gear on stage and just walk two feet to take a shower and go to bed. Food was also excellent, catered by Susie at El Burrito in town (organic Mexican food). One of our best start-to-finish show experiences. |
| Nov 08 2006 | Drunken Unicorn Atlanta GA | The Slits SIDS | Breck's mom and friend V came to this show and were treated to some douchebag screaming "bitch" at Amanda and swatting at Breck with a stolen cowboy hat until security threw him out. This show had kind of a bad vibe. |
| Nov 09 2006 | Bottletree Birmingham AL | The Slits | Only two days after Art Garage, this night sets a new high-water mark for the Apes. Awesome club, with great design and decor; nice stage, with its own drum rug and wood block, outlets all over the place, and lots of monitors; great sound; big band lounge area with sofas, magazines, etc; a band trailer with beds and tv with dvds; and a fantastic, friendly, helpful staff. And the crowd was great, too. We played well and had a great time. Every band must play here. |
| Nov 10 2006 | Spanish Moon Baton Rouge LA | The Slits Hello Stranger | Our second time at this nice, spacious club. Our set was plagued by some vocal feedback issues and overall we were pretty lackluster. We had a few fans there (Lee from Jackson MS and our hostess on both occasions, Carly), but the crowd in general was pretty weird -- a mix of the people you'd expect to find at Buffalo Billiards and some seemingly high-school age kids dancing around. |
| Nov 11 2006 | Emo's Austin TX | The Slits Signal Lost | We've never had anything less than a great time playing at Emo's, and this was no exception. Sound was great, crowd was great, we played well. Very nice ending to our tour with the Slits; the only bummer was that we had to get up early to begin our two-day drive home and couldn't party as much as we'd have liked (and as much as Emo's six-drink-tickets-per-person would have allowed). |
| Nov 18 2006 | Comet Pizza & Ping Pong | - | That's right, a bill consisting entirely of Apes (and DJs). Fun homecoming show with back-to-basics vocals-only sound system. |