Tour Splits. Only a 28 Hour Bus Ride to Austin for DMLH and Caustic

ARIZONA
NEW MEXICO
NEW MEXICO

TEXAS


INVOLVING:

12 Cups of Coffee
11 Hundred Miles Traveled
10 Stories of Meth Addiction
9 Hours of Waiting
8 Witnessed Sex Offers for Money
7 Pieces of Luggage
6 Children Crying
5 Cities to Transfer
4 Stops at McDonalds (Greyhound must have some deal with them, I kept to the stale bagels from Flagstaff)
3 Hours of Sleeping
2 Ladies fighting
and 1 Junkie ODing in the Dallas Bus Station!!

Flagstaff, AZ: Finding Peace in the Canyon and Getting Joosed at a House Party

On Friday, we took a day trip out to the Grand Canyon to collect our thoughts and enjoy the beautiful desert. We hiked about a mile and a half in to a spot called "Ooh-Aah Point" on the Kaibab Trail. The name speaks for itself as the point takes you about 40 feet away from the canyon wall, giving you an almost 360 degree view of the canyon.
It was incredible and no picture we took did the canyon justice. I hope anyone who reads this gets the opportunity to see this place sometime in their life because it will blow you away.




The next day, Dan had the opportunity to play at a house party by the NAU. Everyone was getting "JOOSED" leading to an insane high energy dance party that went on until the early morning.
College Parties. Wow.

Flagstaff, AZ: Marcia and Dre Find Friendship over Karaoke

I'm sure Marcia and Dre will be the first to admit that they haven't always seen eye to eye on this trip. They both come from very different places and have very different ways of looking at the world, which at many times had led to frustrating arguments between all of us. They had never met before we left for this trip, but I feel like by the time we made it Flagstaff they had really started to form a unique friendship.


Don't just stand there....




This whole trip Marcia had wanted to go out to karaoke since she had only been once in her life. You wouldn't have thought that though by her amazing confidence and personality on the karaoke stage!
We decided to surprise her with a birthday cake to make up for the fact that she spent her 21st birthday on a farm and in a car on the way to San Francisco. In the video below, she goes up to sing "Gloria" with Kyler while we get the cake ready. After the song, the whole bar sings happy birthday to the "Queen of Karaoke"!


And the award for Drunkest Person to Eat Shit goes to.....




*Note* I wrote this blog post when I was waaaaaaaaasted.

Think we had our car fixed? Think again!

We made it up to Flagstaff only after our car broke down AGAIN! It died while barreling down the mountain into Camp Verde and Marcia had to hang out the window with a flashlight so we could see the road in front of us. We took the first exit we could onto General Crook road, a small dark road with no cars in site. We tried flagging down the few cars that did go by but no one would stop for us. Our friend Dana eventually had to drive down from Flagstaff and use AAA to have our car towed all the way to her house as we slept in the back of her car exhausted and hungry.


We knew by now the problem was the alternator, but we weren't quite sure how much it would cost to have fixed or that we could afford. Luckily though, the next day Dana's friend Kyler showed up in the morning and offered to help replace our alternator. What we thought would only take an hour or so became an all day project. We were so thankful to Kyler and offered him money/food/beer, none of which he would take.


Thanks to Kyler we saved money and got the Green Machine up and running with no problems. We saw him here and there all week, forcing drinks and clove cigarettes on him as thanks for saving our trip and reminding us that there are still good people out there willing to help you when you need it.

Highway 8 out of Yuma: Car Troubles and Border Patrol

After reuniting with Dre in San Diego, we left late in the evening of the 27th for Phoenix. We decided to take Highway 8 most of the way, not realizing how close it really got to the Mexican border. About 30 miles outside of Yuma, the headlights started to dim and we realized our battery was dying. Nothing was around us except for desert and suspicious 4 wheelers on the hill shining huge spotlights( I later found out about all the problems happening along the Mexican border and am convinced those 4 wheelers were Minutemen). We found a gas station a few miles down to buy a new battery which Dan and Marcia installed with no problems.




Relieved to have a fresh new battery in the old Green Machine, we headed back out on the road straight for Phoenix, or so we thought. Before we even hit Yuma, the car started to die again and we realized this problem was bigger than just the battery. We pulled into a gas station in Yuma where Berl, the cashier who was obviously high on speed, told us of a 24 hour diner where we could drink coffee until the morning came and the auto shop opened.

We spent hours at the diner playing dominoes as the cook told us about all the good drugs he's had that came from Oregon. At dawn, we returned to the car and got it to start. Instead of waiting around Yuma for a mechanic, we decided again to get back on highway and head for Phoenix where we could deal with the problem and have time to make it to the show.
...
If the pictures below aren't obvious enough, the car died again, and we spent the night sleeping at a rest stop.

The desert sun came beaming through the windshield around 8 in the morning, waking Dan and I up in the front seat. We started the car again, but weren't on the highway long before seeing a sign on the side of the road that said something like "Border Patrol 1 mile, be prepared to stop".
I dont want to get into the details of this story seeing as how some of us havent even gone to court yet, but our car was searched and some of us were detained in the van below.




All I can say is that we did make it to Phoenix that day, but the first 12 hours spent in Arizona were tiring. After all the jokes we made in the car about "finding our dreams in Yuma" before we even left California, it is Yuma that gets the last laugh as we spend this next month figuring out how to make it to back there for court.

San Francisco, CA

We had a beautiful drive through the Redwood Highway 101 to bring us to San Francisco, giving us a view of some badass trees as well as a chance to leave a friendly mark on an abandoned building on the side of the road.

A few hours later we crossed the bridge.

San Francsico is such a great time, every time. We were celebrated Marcia's birthday on Monday, and Ethan Clarke's on Wednesday. In between we scoped the local scene, checked out the museum and cooked meals with our friends. With no official shows to play, we spent the last days with our portland homies celebrating the joy of our friendship. For both thrashley and I this meant leaving our best friends, who at the right time in their life would have just stayed on tour, but at this point had to head home. From here on out our caravan of seven turned into a jeep full of four. Onward to LA!

Orleans, CA

We left Eugene in the late morning after breakfast and map viewing at this coffeeshop across from Redundant Cartridge on 13th near U of O. I wish I could remember the name, because they had great italian coffee.

We had a good six hours of driving ahead of us, through southeren oregon on the 5 and then northeren cali on the Klamath River highway, CA-96. This river winds through the Siskiyou Mountains and following it starts to feel like guided meditation after an hour or so. The terrain is rocky with more trees and vegetation as you get closer to the river. We finally arrived to visit our friends Karis and Justin who intern at the Rolling River Nursery, a family-run permaculture farm. These folks are for-real modern homesteaders who live and work with the land, utilizing all resources and working toward being entirely off-grid. Their hot water is heated by a wood stove, the outdoor toilets are composting, and the animals and plants are all selected to work together in abundant synergy. We made pizza with fresh goat cheese, goat meat (on one for the meat eaters) and veggies from the garden. After dinner we did a living-room performance of new Start Fires material including the classic standby "Genocide Tactics"

7 of us slept on the floor of a one-room cabin, and woke up to tour the land before heading to san francisco. Alex got to feed a goat, we walked to the rivers edge and snacked on fresh-picked citrus along the way. We also took a few branches from a felled eucalyptus tree to freshen the air in the green machine.

It was inspiring to see this family living well off the land and making it work financially. They work for themselves and create their level of comfort and enjoyment through the effort. Their dedication to living low-impact and sustainably is activley paying off by reducing their living cost, keeping them healthy and productive, while giving back to the world through the sale of organic tree and plant starts. We left feeling renewed and set off on the journey through the peaks of the Siskiyous to head south on the Redwood Highway 101.

Eugene, OR

I met this guy at the Tour Kick off party who gave me this letter addressed to someone at The New Orange in Eugene. It is part of an anti mailing service where you write someone a letter and hand it off, person to person, in hopes that it eventually makes it to its rightful recipient. He heard we were headed to Eugene the next day and gave it to me to hand off to someone else when i got to town.

I made sure to add my own little present to the letter before giving it to Devin who was convinced it was some girl that worked down the street at a juice bar. Hopefully the letter makes its way to Christy in some way or another.

Tour Kickoff Party at the Hush - Friday, Feb 13th

We kicked off our tour at our favorite show spot in Portland, The Hush, a chill spot that is community run and all ages. We were also celebrating the release of the Start Fires album "Dedicate Your Growth To The World", which was available in a limited edition hand-packaged version, with a double sided full-color poster insert collaged by DMLH and Shermstixx. We displayed Caustic's art around the room, including painted vinyls, her TV installation piece, and her 3X5 fencing stenciled with a bust of Emma Goldman on stage.

Caustic's TV installation piece

We were joined by several friends performing that night, including garage blues from Orange Jam, and pdx hip hop from Nightcrawlers and Gepetto, with DJ zone keeping the beats live all night.


the first half of the show

Andreas brought a half hour of dope jams that were entirely new to the Portland audience. His topics range between spiritual relationship with the world to getting crunk with fly party people. He really impressed, bringing high energy delivery with crowd-pleasing demeanor. Check out the shirt he collaborated with Caustic on in the beginning of the video!



Andreas live at the Hush

Finally Start Fires took the stage for their last show in Portland for a few months. We tore through a 45 minute set with the energy of a punk band, dancing like disco acid freaks and laughing the whole time.



Start Fires!

We had a great time, sold some albums, and said farewell to our friends to pack up and get ready to head out the next morning! Thanks to everyone who came out to send us off, all the artists who performed, Everyone at the Hush for creating the space for us and everyone who helped us bring all our crazay speakers and art down there so we could get it together in time.

Hello Olympia, Farewell Zebulon

This past friday we made our journey to Olympia with a crew of six to check it all out and rock a party for our friend Zeb (VT crew) who is going to live in the wilderness of Montana for a while. Olympia is a sweet town. I have always heard good things about it, but had yet to make the 2 hour drive North to find out for myself. After figuring out where the house was (actually in Tumwater, which is SouthWest of the city center) we headed into town to find some food. The exit we took spit us out at at the base of the capital building, which is a fairly impressive way to enter a city even if it seems to represent the elite power structure. It makes me wonder what the country would feel like if we built freeform abstract sculptures to represent our progress. Anyway we parked along the park and walked down to fifth or sixth st. While scoping coffeeshops and bars we found a flyer wall, and I took some notes on who had the dopest looking flyers. First place went to a spot called Le Voyeur, which looked like it could have been someone's house show based on the flyer.

After some more walking we decided to eat in a funky looking place with blacklights and flowers painted on the windows...turns out this was Le Voyeur. The food was way nice, big portions and dank sauces, with every plate vegan and omnivore adjustable. We ate our fill and I checked out the stage area - low blue lights, no actual stage and some grungy booths on the side - exactly what Start Fires likes. Thrashley left a gift for everyone who doesn't finish their plate and we headed back to the house for the party. Zeb is a sick drummer and we got a chance to see him jam out with some of his homies - I got some video, check out the drum hanging from the ceiling.

It was a small party but we got a chance to rock with Dre which hasnt happened in over a year, so we got a good practice night in. Dre was killing it on the mic.

We stayed and partied with Zeb into the night, then headed back to Portland in the early morning. It was great to get out and do our thing in another town, and to get an idea of what its going to be like for the next 3 months.