We took a short trip away from Chicago a few weekends back down to Kentucky and back up through Terre Haute before returning home to be Nirvana for Halloween. It was our first time in Kentucky, we visited both in Covington and Louisville.

Wednesday night we ended up back at our sound guys house discussing records and listening to music. This was followed by a 3:30 am collaboration of cooking Pork Chops, Spanish Rice and Sautéed Vegetables.

Thursday afternoon we drove over to Louisville and did some shopping for our improvised Halloween costumes.

Terrible Cell Phone Pic of KFC's "Yum Center"

We stopped at Caulfield’s, a local costume shop and decided we needed to get to the Thrift Store to make this happen. In one fell swoop we put together our costumes that later became this glorious interpretation of “The Little Red Riding Hood”. Knowing I’d have to shave off my moustache the following day and much to the request of others around.. I left it on.

 



Ghoul in the window

 

Louisville's own Costume and Novelty Shop



 

Thursday night performed at “The Hideaway Saloon” for a decent Thursday night crowd but decided to leave our costumes for Friday. This was our first time through Louisville. In addition to being quite awesome people they were also an excellent crowd. This set was a mixture of originals and covers.. with a few new songs thrown in. Everyone was very kind and the night was highlighted when we were gifted a key to a house so we could crash and have a shower. There was also a microwave so Vinny zapped us some grilled cheese.Here is a picture of our digs here:

Accomodations at the "Band House"

After a few hours of sleep we went back to the Highlands neighborhood and shopped for vinyl, spent some time in the Guitar Emporium and stopped into Leathernecks so Vince could shop for some Snakeskin boots. I managed to get fit for a custom guitar strap and Vince and I both landed some sweet records. Kevin was sleeping in the van.

Vincent tries on some hot snakeskin boots.

On Friday we headed over to Terre Haute to meet up with our friends in Polar Island. We were connected with these guys through a mutual friend in Chicago. From the get go these guys have been super sweet to us and they know their shit too, which never hurts. We had a chance to play their first show ever with them and it was nice to see what they have been doing. I’m really looking forward to their record.



At first it seemed like we were the only ones dressed up but soon enough the crowd filled in and there were a lot of costumes. It was kind of odd performing with a hood on but I kind of liked it. However.. it did look ridiculous. The set was fun and we got to play some new songs that we have only played in "acoustic" sets. This was our first time adding these numbers to our regular set.

Our Little Red Riding Hood tribute.

Saturday we were a little late getting started but got back to Chicago in time to take a good shower and change into our costumes. The Elbo Room was packed and we had a lot of fun doing our tribute to Nirvana. We had filmed the show but the video guy lost his camera later that night in a cab. Here is a picture of me as Kurt Cobain upstairs at the Elbo Room. Also pretty ridiculous but FUN!

Stephen Francis as Kurt Cobain. Halloween 2011.

All in all it was a nice short run and a much needed fall playcation. Definitely looking forward to heading back to Kentucky in 2012.



Thanks for Reading!

Stephen Francis

Last night we completed our tee shirts for this weeks Halloween show. Only silkscreened 12! This was quite a daunting task as we are still relatively new to silk-screening but with a few Google searches we were able to knock off some of the rust since we hadn’t done anything since this time last year. These tees will never be printed again! As we will be Nirvana for this years Halloween performance we only saw it fit to ditch our Model Stranger font and use the classic Nirvana font. DIG IT!

Thanks for reading!



Model Stranger

Vince's First Blog Entry. Yay!

So as the freshest ingredient in the cocktail that is Model Stranger, I see it fitting to share my first encounters and recent experiences with the band from 'Strange-land.'

Oddly enough, when we connected for our first rehearsal, it was actually our second encounter with one-another; something we did not realize until a week later. All three of us had forgotten a moment that we shared together in a little town called Austin, TX.  Stephen and I contemplated the philosophies of life while Kevin nursed a $2 Corona and combed his beard with a boar-hair brush. All I remember is walking away from our encounter saying, "Those are good humans..."  Fast forward 9 months and here I am :)

Ending 2009 with a show at the Metro, a sold-out show at The Cubby Bear with Our Lady Peace and headlining the Elbo Room on NYE seemed like a nice introduction into the band. A new record and tour seems like the perfect place to pick up in 2010.

I am now somewhere that I belong and I am happy to be; part of the Model-Stranger-machine. As this new decade begins, I look forward to seeing what the future holds with us. There is already so much in the works for 2010 and it has only just begun!

`Vincent

HELP MODEL STRANGER
If everything (or anything) that you read on our site excites you, we want you to know that you play a large role in Model Stranger getting further down this path. For it is only through the constant support of families, friends, and fans that we have been able to accomplish what we have - and only with the continued support from you can we reach the goals we've set before us. You have all been WONDERFUL in offering all sorts support such as kinds words, attending our shows and just being there in general. As of now we have a few very specific ways you can help us out using the fantastic resources the Internet provides. Sound good? Okay!

Here's what we need:

FACEBOOK
Invite your own family, friends and coworkers to become a fan of us on Facebook. Follow up! Let them know why you like us and why you think they should know all about us as well. Listen to our tunes on the "MyBand" tab on our fan page or our personal profiles. This is important in helping us gain exposure on the site that we'll explain next!

REVERBNATION
This site might be the most useful tool out there for artists like ourselves! It has TONS of tools that allow us to not only create a cool profile but to help us promote. Of those tools are these nifty little thing called "widgets". We have a few of them on THIS SITE along the side bar (the music player, show schedule and fan collector, etc) and our current music player on our MySpace page is a ReverbNation widget. How these work is that they provide cool ways to share information about us very easily. For all of you with blogs it's incredibly easy to add them and ReverbNation tracks our reach. The more widgets we have posted in more places viewed by more unique people - the better for us (both in general and in the rankings on the site)! Below we've placed a very easy tool that you can take these widgets from and post them on your MySpace pages, blogs, websites, etc! If you're viewing this on Facebook or MySpace CLICK HERE to see the original post and what we're talking about.