Surfin' Sandy Tour - Day 9: St. Louis, MO @ The Crack Fox: 11/09/12

St. Louis has been a growing market of ours for almost two years now. We have never encountered foul people here, but this is based on the few kind souls we have collided with during our travels. This time around we had a much better/denser crowd and still the sweetness was in the air.

The Crack Fox is a really hip joint with some of the sweetest staff you'll ever find in downtown St. Louis. Remarkable still shots cover the walls; any pictures I could have taken would not do them justice. All the stills are in a burlesque-vain with beautiful women in beautiful poses; creates a great atmosphere for Rock n' Roll... and rock we did.

We were the last of 3 bands and seemed to capture the crowd quite well (Where's The Chief? and Living Room Lava were the first two)... but to be completely honest I did not notice the crowd while we were playing. It was just one of those majestic nights where I could feel the music through my bones and the band was all on the same page; speaking through our instruments and completely one with what we were producing. Stephen had a great solo during, "Balance" and we shared a great push-pull momentum during that outro. Kevin and I were a completely synced rhythm-section laying the ground work for the set which consisted of a lot of our darker, Stranger, tunes. It seems we pour our souls into every set we play, this one was just plain evidence of that concept.

-VinSauce

Surfin’ Sandy Tour – Day 8: Indianapolis, IN @ The Rock House – 11/8

Indianapolis is our home away from Chicago.  Lazy Hawk Promotions has done so much for us there and we cannot thank them enough.  This was another show that Will and Bebe from LHP helped us out with since the venue doesn’t typically have bands on Thursday nights.  We’ve played at The Rock House before and they treat us very well.  This show was no different except we played a longer set than our fans are used to seeing there so they got to hear some deeper cuts as well as covers that we got to pull out for fun.  After catching up with some fans as well as making new ones and selling some merchandise we loaded out and took off.  Will and Bebe let us crash at their place so we got a good night’s rest and had some lunch with their family before heading off to St. Louis.  

Surfin' Sandy Tour - Day 7: Lousiville, KY @ Hideaway Saloon 11/07/12

Of all the cities we hit during the Surfin' Sandy tour Louisville is the one I could most see myself relocating to. In my opinion, it is the Austin of Kentucky. They have everything I need: music, bourbon, good food and a lot of weird. On par for us, we hit another brewery before load-in, Bluegrass Brewing Company. The best part of the brewery for me... Vegan BBQ wings, flippin' delicious.

This was our second trip through Louisville and our reception was superb. The staff and patrons of The Hideaway Saloon were beyond kind our first time through and more than exceeded our expectations this second pass. It is very easy to play music and feel at-ease when you are playing to a room filled with music lovers whom love to dance... Simply awesome. The club has a great bohemian vibe with the crowd to match.

My favorite part of the evening was sharing the stage with The Pranksters. We have shared the stage with a lot of acts, however, these guys in particular were a VERY talented bunch and couldn't have been any sweeter. Tom Browning, their guitarist, was a phenomenal player and was the one kind enough to let us share the evening with them. He has played with the likes of Bo Diddly, players of The Grateful Dead, Stevie Winder and many more (it was obvious after seeing them play); Grade-A awesome.

Hideaway gives the touring bands a house to stay at; so we microwaved ourselves some grilled cheeses and got a good nights rest. The day after the show we had some time to kill so we wandered over to our favorite local leather shop, Leatherheads. This is a slice of heaven for me; kickass cowboy boots, belts, cowboy shirts and custom guitar straps. Nick, the master leather worker there, has a patented design for a guitar strap that takes the stress off of guitar players' back and trapezoid muscles.

He has sold these straps to many folks including: Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys), My Morning Jacket, The Rolling Stones, Johnny Depp and more. We saw this spectacular strap our last trip through Louisville and Stephen was even fitted for one. This time through we pulled the trigger and bought Stephen and Kevin an early birthday/Christmas gift. Nick, then had me draw our Model Stranger logo next to Kevin and Stephen signature on his own personal straps that he keeps in the shop. It's cool to see their names surrounded with some of our idols... I dig it.

All-in-all, Louisville will always have a piece of my heart and I can't wait to get back.

-Vinny The Dominator 

Surfin’ Sandy Tour – Day 3: Frederick, MD @ Guido’s Speakeasy – 11/3

This was a last minute fill in which we were lucky enough to get.  Our friends in Vinny Vegas hooked us up with their friend John who runs his own promotion company.  This was our first time through Frederick so we didn’t know what to expect.  We were greeted quite kindly by John and his wife and they accommodated us in any way that they could which included great beer (the Flying Dog Brewery is in Frederick) and tasty food.  Before our set we were approached by a gentleman who was a diehard Local H fan and after seeing we have opened for them a couple of times he decided to come check us out.   We hit the stage around 11:30 and played a set of pretty much nothing but straight rockers.  The crowd really enjoyed us and bought us some rounds of shots after picking up some Model Stranger gear.  We got to talk with John before we left and he assured us we will be booked again in Frederick as well as Baltimore so we look forward to heading through again.