To Pouzza And Back: Ex Friends Tour Diary: Part One

The Punk Archive is delighted to be bringing our readers a world exclusive tour diary, written by Joel Tannenbaum of punk heroes Ex Friends, as the band gig to Pouzza Festival and back...

Part One

Photo credit: Isaac Turner (isaacturnerphoto.com)

When I think back on this tour, years from now, the thing I will probably remember is that we are travelling in a giant yellow former DHL fleet van. It gets very dark inside, especially toward the back, but on the upside, the ceiling is high enough that even a relatively tall person can stand up and stretch occasionally, and there's this cool CB thing with an external speaker that you can use to talk to other motorists and pedestrians and, my favourite, other bands, when you are first pulling up outside the venue. 

We are on tour with another band from Philly, Retreevers, with whom we share a member, so there are seven of us total, and there is still room to spare inside this diesel whale that I'm going to be living in for most of the next two weeks. 

It's really, really hard to have a good show in Brooklyn, but when you do it's so good, and that typically happens because people who live in New York and are nice decided to make it happen, and that's what happened last night. Fid (Pity Party, The Measure) pointed us toward The Acheron, where he bartends. Craig from Eli Whitney and the Sound Machine promoted the show and made sure everything ran smoothly and MIkey Erg agreed to headline. I've seen MIkey play a ton of times, obviously, but there was something different about this one. This is his home base and there were a lot of people just screaming the songs back at him. His set, as always, was a mix of Ergs classics (Introducing Morrissey), solo songs (Key of C, Fix It) and the inexplicably awesome cover of Tom Petty's Two Room Apartment. But as with everything else last night, something just clicked into place. There were a ton of people there who clearly had more important things they could be doing on a Thursday night. 

Today we have to drive six hours to Plattsburgh, NY, to play at what sounds like a really cool space called ROTA. Then tomorrow we meet our old nemeses, the Canadian Border Patrol.

Keep checking The Punk Archive for more updates from Joel!