GPS 2003 MID-SOUTH MICRO-TOUR DIARY

Mid-South Micro-Tour Day 1- MONITOR SHOCK! ... Wednesday, October 22nd 8pm Gravity Propulsion System w/ Drayton Sawyer Gang & Pengo at the Conservatory 8911 N. Western OKC, OK.

My brain is all fuzted up from the pa feedback madness. How that's any different from our feedback madness I'll never know. It just is. Strings died, my finger bled, a kid got locked in a car, Pengo gave me an album (thnx), the police showed up 3 times, and 3 people from New York I've never met before (AKA The Drayton Sawyer Gang) hung out, drank beer, & slept on my floor. Good times. 1 down, 3 to go. -b

All of our crap	Dead strings

Mid-South Micro-Tour Day 2 - GO PANTHERS!......
Thursday, October 23, 7 p.m.
Gravity Propulsion System w/ Rizzudo & Drayton Sawyer Gang at Next Door Music, 1951 Church Ave. Harrah, OK

Early show. Arrive at 6:30. Get all the shit set up and we start playing at 7:45. I didn't really think people would show up for this show, considering Harrah's location and the fact that no one there has probably ever heard of us or either of the other bands, but I was dead wrong. The Harrah Panthers showed up in full force and made this one of the most fun shows we've played in a long time.

Rizzudo fucking rocked. I have no idea how to explain their sound, so you'll just have to see it for yourself. The bass player was all over the place, playing bass (duh), two keyboards, singing, and even running the door at one point during their set. Sometimes a little confrontation is good.

9:30 Drayton Sawyer Gang finally finds Next Door Music and the rawk is thrown down yet again. Have fun on your trip back to New York, guys.

Worst part of the night: Lance making us listen to Radio Disney on the way to the show.

Hands down, the funniest part of the night is when one of the kids comes in and gives Lance his friends Mom's phone number because she thought he was hot. Total rock and roll.

Bonus info: Mark grew up in Harrah , so we were going to play "Home Sweet Home" by Motley Crue (Marks favorite band in highschool) but I forgot my little pink keyboard.

All in all, a pretty crazy night in a small town. Thanks to all the people who showed up and made this show such a blast. Also, thanks to Mason and Next Door music for having us. Hopefully we'll be wrecking more eardrums in Harrah soon.

Big shout out to our homies at Sew Awesome. Go Panthers! -b

Mid-South Micro-Tour Day 3 - TULSA SPELLED BACKWARDS
Friday, October 24th
Gravity Propulsion System w/ Necronomitron & Traindodge at Rockstar Trends 4306 E 11th St in Tulsa, OK

6:30 - Traindodge met up w/us at Hoffman HQ and we hit the road. We're supposed to show up in Tulsa around 8:00, so we're averaging 90-95. We show up at Rockstar Trends about 8:15 and find out the gig's not going to start until 10:30. So as usual, we're early. Sorry about the gas, t-dodgers.

We all go get food and watch a lady get thrown out of the restaurant for doing weird things w/ her food. You know, the normal stuff, like dumping all your food on the table before you eat it and yelling randomly at other people around you.

We get back and Traindodge loads in. A group of about 30 people show up right on schedule at 10:30, and the rock begins. Traindodge plays the best set I've ever seen any band play in a clothing store. The wall behind where the bands set up is the absolute best! It's the most un-macho backdrop for a show I've ever seen. It was a pink and teal wall covered w/a variety of purses and belts. It was awesome.

We set up and get going without too many problems. Tulsa is a pretty cool place to play. During our set up, we talk with the crowd and decide our name for the night is going to be The Black Plague from Hastings, England. I don't have much of an English accent, but we go for it anyway. Usually we're so loud we clear rooms this size, but tonight the people rocked out during the songs and then in between they would ask questions or start
conversations with us. It was really cool. The only not-cool part is that I broke a string on my Bean again.

After we're done, Necronomitron borrows Lance's amp and rocks so hard they have the kids rolling around on the ground in one big pile.

The best part of the night was when I was outside saying goodbye to the Traindodge kids (they had a 12 hour drive ahead of them and had to leave early). Necronomitron was playing, and a girl came out and asked me why I was standing outside. She was worried about how it felt for the band playing. Not about if she looked cool or had made the scene that night, it was about the band having a good time. Pretty damn cool. So what did I do? I went in and rocked out like everyone else.

The funniest thing of the night was Lance getting peer-pressured into going into the bathroom with some girl. Lance is definitely turning out to be the rock star in the band. Glad someone is.

About 1:30 a.m. - Take off and drive to Joplin, where we barely find a hotel room, and call it a night.

Word to my girlfriend and her giant dictionary at home. -b

Random sign outside	The Wall	Traindodge	Necronomitron	Necro crowd mpg

Mid-South Micro-Tour Day 4 - BRYAN VS. HYPERSPACE
Saturday, October 25
Gravity Propulsion System w/Sicbay & The Conformists
at the RocketBar, 2001 Locust St. Louis, MO

Woke up and drove the remaining 4 hours to St. Louis, all the while fighting the urge to buy a handmade knife. We saw a billboard for this about every 5 minutes. Must be a big business in Missouri. We arrived in St. Louis around 4 p.m., which is way too early. So we killed some time walking around checking out the arch and stuff. Total tourists.

8 p.m. - We load in at the RocketBar. After we arrived, we found out Andrew from Riddle was going to be running sound, so we were pretty stoked. We seem to have a history of problems with sound guys for some reason. Hmmm... Could it be all the amps and the brain-eating loudness? I'm not sure. Ok, so it probably is all the amps and the brain-eating loudness. Whatever.

Speaking of loudness, the RocketBar stage is really, REALLY, LOUD. No problems hearing anything, for sure. That is, unless you're a drum kit. Apparently, Andrew found some way to make the drums loud enough ,and everything went well. Personally, I wouldn't know. I had one of those shows where I went into hyperspace. It happens from time to time if I'm really excited, nervous, or some combination of the two. I played the whole show and I don't remember anything about our set, other than that I had fun and that I broke that same string on my Travis Bean for the third time this week.

Time to relax. All we had left on the trip was to drive home, so it was extra cool to hang out and watch The Conformists and Sicbay and not have to worry about anything but enjoying the music. Did I mention Leif Valin was there? He was on the road tracking his new arch enemy, Pink and Teal, and just happened to be in town the same night we were playing. Also, our friend Mike Mays from OKC was there to for some reason. It felt kind of like home, only further away and in a completely different place.

Favorite part of the night for me was Sicbay playing "Bask and Bubble," even though it was scratched off their set list.

After the show we had cheeseburgers and headed over to Ascetic HQ w/Hieu and watched about 30 minutes of Pulp Fiction before finally going to sleep.

The next morning we woke up and watched some TV show about subversive home-building, and then we hit the road for home.

Front of the Rocket Bar (man are we early)	VIOLATION! (worlds happiest parking meter)	Mark Hangin' outside w/ Leif before the show	The view from the pedal	Lance

Bryan	Sicbay	The Rocket just after 1am	Time what?

END OF MICRO-TOUR

Thanks to everyone who made it out to the shows, all the bands, Gianni, Jon-Paul, Mason, Jimmy, Andrew, Mike, Leif, and Hieu for making the trip fun and easy. -b