Saturday, June 2, 2012

The Explosive Nature of Life on the Road

QUINCY - May 11th

Picture this, you are in a nice-peaceful sleep enjoying dreams of fresh fruit and a magical minotaur when you are abruptly awaken by the sound of cannons. No, this is not a bad hangover-wakeup in the parking lot of Medieval Times, it was Model Stranger’s Saturday morning in Quincy, IL.

We made the voyage to play at Johnny Bang Bangs (an absolutely great club with the staff to match) a couple Fridays back. As we rolled into this pleasant place of about 40,000 residents I was delighted by the active & quaint river-town; Johnny Bang Bangs turned out to be a beautiful venue and made way for a nice evening.

Nice projector behind the stage at Johnny Bang Bangs!


Post show we shot the breeze on the riverbed with some expired Fosters (which I do not recommend) and decided to crash in the trusty van. Little did we know in a few short hours Quincy’s big half marathon/Fest would be taking place.


See our van on the right? This is the view of the club from the Mississippi.

My last memory had been finishing my beer next to the Mississippi, crawling in the van and putting on my sleep mask. The next thing I know there are cannons firing and the pitter-patter of hundreds of feet; I had to ask if we were accidentally sleeping in Bill & Ted’s phone booth after a time travel. Nope, just three guys sleeping in a hotbox-of-a-van in the middle of a half-marathon on the Mississippi River, a normal wakeup in Strangeland. We followed this wakeup call with a drive into Burlington, IA and a hearty breakfast.


BURLINGTON - May 12th
Burlington is another town that tickles my pickle. It's a great little place with old architecture and places like The Buffalo, Weird Harold’s and Mr. Motos that can consume a free soul for hours. Anywho, we continued to The Crazy Coyote; we love this place and the owner, Jason, is doing great things. For instance, this show was in correlation with a Special Olympics fundraiser (in which we also donated a percentage of our merch sales to).


As we pulled into town and made our way towards KQ92 for an interview, we dialed into station and were surprised to hear "Dreams and Bones" on air. Very exciting! The interview went quick and we headed to the venue.

The show at the Coyote was a racous one ending with a foot stompin’ and wild dancin’ crowd; much to our liking and overwhelming approval. So I’ll just say it; Burlington, we love you. It is scenes like this (and others like ndianapolis, Macomb, etc.) that plant seeds of sincerity which will hopefully spread like wildfire through the masses and revive the dying conscious of local, and more importantly, sincere music... Sometimes autographs too.

Who is Brandi?


There is a video of the show somewhere - hopefully we can get it in here shortly!

I will be honest, I love our travels and I love the people that enjoy what we are doing. I look forward to continuing the recording process and more importantly, completing a project in order to help the wildfire accelerate.

As Model Stranger carry’s our own torch I plan on enjoying the scenery along the journey… and waking to alarm clocks rather than cannons.

Sexual.
 
VJ.

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