Puerto Rican Pride

It's a Great time to be back in Chicago!! Puerto Rican Pride Bitchez!

it's 29 degrees celsius and Ashleigh is drinking a hot London Fog - she's pretending she's cold..but really she's addicted to 5 dollar starbucks drinks

the cutest king and queen of the parade

check out this dudes hair - that's some fucking Pride

best part about living in Chicago in the summer - COCO!
Coconut flavored Italian (or in this case Puerto Rican) ice

Party in the Humboldt Park!

mmmmm coco

Bobby and I are on this ride in this photo - I was screaming so loud Ashleigh could hear me from the ground and she could tell it was me.

walk around the park - totally a rad day for this

Bobby hanging out at the lake

I don't even know - but I bet it tasted great

getting ready to see the 'parade' - you'll understand why I use this term loosely

the parade was just cars with flags out the window - some cars werent' even nice and some didn't even have flags..it was less like a parade and more like watching traffic

people were stoked on motorcycle burn outs - it smelled so fucking terrible

the motorcycle section of the parade

after we were all prided out we went to Atomix for ice coffees and Permanent to buy some records - yay new Double Daggers and Sunset Rubdown!

Ashleigh loves words

view of downtown from Augusta and Winchester

oh now we're downtown - Ash and I went on a date to see a documentary called "The Accidental Army"

the Vice Council for the Czech people in Chicago

the blue line of the train wasn't working for some reason so we had to take the bus....the people sitting at the back of the bus were some of the worst people on earth.

the cutest puppy ever!

Beak, the tiniest french bulldog

back in the neighbourhood, Party at Easton's!!

Tiny Vipers at the Empty Bottle - wish more than 5 people were actually interested in listening to her

O'Death - kinda the raddest thing I've seen in a while
Tim said they sounded like a New Orleans funeral procession playing rock n roll; which they did.
But it also sounded like Neil Young singing for Gogol Bordello - super cool

Totally long awesome day - soooo stoked for summer in Chicago!! There is no better place for the next 4 months :)

Karlsruhe, Germany

Last day of tour - 43 days, 40 shows (50 for Bobby), 12 countries and it's all ending tonight in Kalrsruhe, Germany

RATS!

Bobby and I walked around the city and found the 'castle'
(it's actually a palace) and the art museum and the modern art Horse sculpture but I took no photos. I just wasn't that stoked I guess, maybe a little sad that it was the last day - but then when I saw the rats I was totally stoked again!

I really love rats - if they weren't so smelly I would have probably had some as pets growing up

Shut Your FACE!@!
Arne, Dominik, and Flo from From Freiburg
I cannot describe how happy I was to see them

at the bar next to the venue - they brew their own beer here called Wolf Bräu...but I kept thinking it would taste a lot better if it were Skittle Bräu

Jan - playing some amazing piano
it sounded like Erik Satie

Arne and Julia
too fucking cute

final set list

these dudes LOVE smoking

Hilarious write up on the Kohi website found by James Barron:
Love of everthing is an American emo band from Chicago, Illinois." If you look at Emo black colored, stretched and asymmetric cut hair imagine, then I do not like the record so established. If you look at but the Fugazi quote reminds us, so that any emo music is - what should go because the music without emotion, but we are not robots - then again the name Emo authorization. Love Of Everything, especially the child of Bobby Burg. Anyone who ever met him is white, around him, that certainly will not be cut artery. On the contrary, it is difficult from the good mood of the lively, always on a raised Spässchen Bobby withdraw. Its hallmark is the baseball cap and along the small, fine writing songs that are not afraid of weird sounds, and often close to scrape past the derailment.
And when he sings "It's been a bad year" does not sound then the sad times.

After the show we had to pack and repack everything and it took like over an hour so we didn't get to hang out with anyone who actually came to the show but once everything was all closed up I brought in the bottle of Glenfidich left over from Scotland and we ended up having such a fantastic night
Thanks David for helping out with this show, Dinosaur Jr Shirt dude (I totally forgot your name I'm so sorry) thanks for the great dinner and Jan thank you for being the most adorable sound guy and for giving me the best compliment of the tour

2am listening to Cowtown & Kid Ikarus and reminiscing about an amazing 6 weeks together :)

we really should have gone to bed earlier seeing as we had to wake up to go to the airport at 430am...but we managed to make the most of the last night in Europe.
I'm actually home right now - and the night we got home I went to the Bottle to see Bloodiest and about a billion friends were there and it made me super happy to be home. Everyone here is really awesome and I missed them dearly.
Chicago is fantastic and I'm so lucky to call it home :)

Lucern, Switerzland

Prepare yourselves - this post is going to be epic

Bobby drinks more water than any other human on earth

Switzerland is a pretty small place - so we had a lot of time to go explore. First stop - breakfast in Zurich!

breakfast martinis!
Actually - I ordered an Iced Capp and got this and to be honest it was cheaper than a regular coffee at Starbucks!
Bobby got an iced espresso mixed with passion fruit juice and it was sooooo good

My friend Rebecca lives in Zurich but I didn't get to see her because she was in Germany that day :(

this swan wants that falafel and is not taking no for an answer

this cow is wearing an actual Cow Bell - how rad is that!

Now we're in Luzern for lunch!

According to Bobby this is the city that Disneyland is modeled after

quick tip for seeing a city fast: climb to the top of the tallest thing you can find!

hanging out in a watch tower

what we climbed to the top of - it was no 532 steps but it was still totally hard

awesome building

Swiss Pirates?

So we were trying to find the B-Sides festival, but there was no address, just basically like the name of a tiny city
so we drove up the one street
"go straight" were the directions.
this is us driving up a mountain thinking "what the fuck"?

pretty sure we're just playing to cows tonight

oh wait - we found it
Literally on the top of a mountain was an awesome little festival

backstage area - are you fucking kidding me?!

Musica Da Cucina - definitely my favorite part of the whole day

Coffee: it's in tents
hahahaha

Just when you thought no one could make an accordion totally bad ass - Gurzuf comes into your life. These dudes were from Belarus I think.
But really the best part about them was earlier in the day when I was chillin in the hammock, the dude was practicing his accordion and playing like traditional songs and it sounded like the soundtrack from Amelie and I was on top of a mountain..life is good

YES! Totally just got better - I got a piña colada delivered to me whilst I was playing
Note: everyone in the background walking away or being disinterested is because this photo was taken well after we were done playing :)

so when we got on stage I noticed the lights were mega hot and I told Bobby that it smelt like burning...Kinda thought that the stage was going to catch on fire or something because it was all made of wood
But it turned out that my kick drum case was ablaze - oops
Sorry fluffwheels - we're fucking this tour up for you

this is how people had to get from the city to the festival...because it was on the side of a MOUNTAIN! so crazy

I was going to put a comment along the lines of "the hills are alive with the sound of music" but then Bobby reminded me that The Sound of Music is actually set in Austria.

romantic dinner :)

this is definitely my happy place
I was really content with the night ending here for me - watched the sunset, hung out on a hammock, ate some great food and saw some awesome bands...but we decided to stay for just one more drink....

which turned into watching Aucan: this crazy dueling keyboard/guitar band that apparently was a major Don Cab rip off, whatever they were pretty sweet

then that turned into being hungry again and watching Bratwurts!

I am not exaggerating when I say this is the nicest staff of an event I've ever met or imagine to meet - thank you all for taking such good care of us and the fun hang outs!

oh god how I love the combination of Rum, coconut and pineapple juice

haha and Bobby loves FIRE! this night just keeps getting better

so one drink turned into a few more which kept us at the festival for a couple more hours and we got to see Antipop Consortium - YAY!

ok, we've been here for 9 hours now....sorry we didn't stay to see the whole set - but they were super rad!

So I've already bragged all about this day on facebook, but I'd like to brag a little bit more :)
After 42 days of being on tour and being sick for the past 10 days I was really feeling like going home - this festival really recharged me and now I'm totally ready to give'r
Thank you times a million to Patrick for making this whole day happen and everyone who was working. No one was stressed, everyone was having a good time...totally amazing!