Day 2: Stock town

Now, Stockton is only 45 minutes from Modesto where we’re staying, and, apparently, Modesto is famous for their “World Famous Auction” (I added the world famous part). Anyway, every Saturday ppl from all over CA coalesce in Modesto for a massive market place of repossessed cars, previously thieved furniture and jewelry, and tons of retired cop cars (with the word “sherrif” crossed out in spray paint). The actual Auction is on Saturdays, and today is Friday, so we just went to see if there might be a van for us with A/C; as you recall from yesterday’s blog post, driving without A/C in august in the central valley is akin to having one’s fingernails removed with needle nosed plyers.

Well, we found a 15 passenger van with 140K on it with AC pouring out of the vents like butter from heaven. We heard that it would go for less than Blue Book, which was roughly $8800. We decided to come back the next day and find out what we could get for it… more on that later.

Breakfast with the Earl’s was absolutely amazing. Staying with family on the road is just unparalleled. The Guinta’s relatives were princely hosts with scones, dips in the pool, fresh fruit etc. We shot some promo videos and we were off to Stockton.

This is our second show on the UOP campus, the first show was rained out and we ended up in a curious corner of the student center with little foot traffic. The gracious activities board gave us another chance to play an afternoon outdoor show in what happened to be the hottest day of the year. The high for the day was 101. Thank God there were these massive shade umbrellas around to cover our stage and a little bit of the audience area, but it was hot.

I could tell I was suffering from mild dehydration, well, we all were, but the show was still fun as heck somehow. The few ppl that braved the temp were really into our music and got comfy in the grassy sauna. Then, right before our set ended, a small gang of kids who’d promised to come up from Merced showed up and it was heaven. White Josh, our good friend, came up and took the world famous tambo solo, and we all went to BJ’s for Pizookie.

Major shout outs to the UOP staff who hosted us and paid for our dinner and put on a great event, shouts to the Merdeadians who drove up, especially to Liu John-ee, who brought some friends and white Josh who brought some family:) After that was swimming pool and naps back at the hotel. Some of the UOP kids invited us to a dance party happening that night but the heat had wiped us out. Plus we needed our rest for our early morning sojourn back to Modesto in pursuit of a new van…

University of the Pacific Photobooth 8.28.09

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Day 1: The Merdeadians are ALIVE!!

It’s hot. We are driving from Downey to Merced, CA in the van with no AC. It’s hot. It’s right at the cusp of being unbearably hot where your body starts to panic and overheat. There’s no AC. The windows don’t go down in the back. I’m sitting on the west side of the car and the sun is increasingly beating down on my body. My diet Dr Pepper exploded in the backseat. It’s hot.

I think we took for granted during our winter and spring tours how detrimental “No AC” was to our touring aspirations. The rest of this tour will be brutal. Pete and the boys are out shopping for a new van… more on that later:)

Merced is an odd experience for us. We had an awful experience here last time, and we basically know nothing about the school. When we got here I was dizzy and tired and burnt out from the trip. We rolled in around 3:30 and we didn’t play till 7. I knew that we had time to kill and that I should start moving out and connecting with ppl… but I just wanted to sit and drink water. Finally me and Nate moved out to find our friend Wilson who was out of class. Pete and Jon stayed behind with the gear and also talking to our new friends Matt Shockley and John Hodge _______ who were playing the show with us.

From there Wilson introduced us to 8 of his friends from Intervarsity, a Christian Ministry on UCM’s campus. Now, for those of you who are new to Centrevol’s blog, you may want to click on “kais tour blog” above and read our friend Marcelle’s definition on “THE KAI EFFECT” as Jon puts it. But here is a perfect example of what exactly that is.

The Intervarsity (IV) kids had planned on surprising their friend Eric Chow with a major bday party at 7:20pm, location Sonic fast food restaurant off campus. After a bit of getting to know the fine fine members of IV, I had convinced them to consider moving the surprise party to the show area on the quad of campus for a little surprising Centrevol style (with Sonic’s to follow the show). Well, thanks to the enthusiasm of such key players as Kim and Eunice (shout outs) Eric was there. Unbeknownst to him we called him up for the world famous Rumor Tambo solo and he killed it. We had cake and ppl danced to 5^th ave while eating it, it just goes to show… you can have your cake, dance, and eat it too!

[[[Big interjection for kais Davis friends. During the set up time, the leader of IV, a gentleman named Jeff Miller came up to me and asked if I was kai from the band concept6; turns out he went to Davis with me and used to see my band play at Café Roma! In terms of community, this is exactly what I’m talking about. I got to meet his beautiful baby Logan, and catch up on some of our mutual friends. It was great. ]]]

After the show the Gentleboys (code for the Guinta brothers) headed back to Modesto where we were all staying with some of their family. Nate and I headed to Sonic to, our amazement, applause. When we got there, the patio was packed with three tables worth of IV kids, most of whom we had not met, and they applauded us when we got there, insane. We spent the rest of the evening connecting with as many of them as we could, an evening exponentially growing our Merced community: invaluable

Mileage today: 127781

Day 0: Back on the road

What’s up everyone, it’s kai, your intrepid Centrevol blogger. I’m happy to report that I now have prime real estate on ye old website and will be keeping you up to date on the front page of Centrevol.com (woohoo). I’m going to write about our activities and whereabouts, highs and lows, and embarrassing stories which you can file away and blackmail us later if we ever run for public office.

This tour is much shorter, 10 days as opposed to our last one of 30+ days. But it is sure to contain similar travails and adventure; one thing that will be unfamiliar is that we will be connecting with many of the same fans whom we connected with last time. As you may recall, last time I was struggling with the whole concept behind touring, whether traveling around the country playing music integrated with our unified philosophy that community is a central priority in life. I deemed in the end that touring is indeed supportive of such a philosophy; that the communities we build on the road are valuable and beneficial.

Tomorrow will be evidence since we are connecting with our friends Sonny, Jane, Josh, and Wilson at UC Merced! The last time we were at the school we played to a totally empty room the last time we were there, but these 4 kids came in the middle of our set and saved the day. Their positivity toward our music encouraged and sustained us. Now we get to kick it with them and get free food, hell yes! (enough of a shout out for you guys?)

Touring is an amazing blessing; I can’t understate it. But it’s also a challenge, a test to the resiliency of our love for music and our love for each other. So we sojourn out with our eyes and mouths wide open. Our eyes anxiously looking for the next adventure and our mouths ready to consume what feast of community God has for us. Our starting mileage: 127444

UC Merced Photobooth 8.27.09

Our new friends at UCMerced

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Interview today on OC Rock Radio…4pm

You can hear it all live here: OCROCKRADIO.COM

Western State College of Colorado, 8.22.09 Photobooth

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WSC Trip Summary:

WSC Trip 8.22.09

Total Miles: 1877.

Centrevol Summer Update!!

Hey guys, it’s kai here bringing you up to speed on the happenings of going ons of your four intrepid Centrevol warriors. I’m going to keep up a semi-regular update on our NEW EP (more info later), gigs, new vision for the future, new lyrics, etc. Although touring tends to be a more dense and adventurous period for us, we want to keep you up to date on our Long Beach travails as well.

Here’s what we’ve been up to since our tour… We hit the ground running as soon as we got back from our “Love is on the Move” tour and started writing immediately. Just in case you don’t know, yours truly did not play on, collaborate, or really have anything to do with “Beggars and Thieves” Centrevol’s LP. We knew that as our sound and dynamic is changing with a fourth member that honing our writing process would be key.

And what a process it has been! Just as unique as the final product, the process of writing is unique to the songwriter. Pete and the guys have an existing style that is very new to me, and it takes some time to get used to. I tend to be a comprehensive writer arranger; bringing relatively complete ideas to the table. The guys like to start with a tiny little music idea, and let it germinate with the help of Nate and Jon stomping out the grooves. Apparently, Pete’s style has worked really well as we currently have 3 new ideas, going on 4 or 5! Our vision right now is to have 5 songs recorded by January.

July 4th fireworks set to the clang of Nate’s cymbals in Downey! Yes, we can no add “Downey, CA” to the list of prestigious cities we’ve played in (along with Paiyette, ID and Havre, MT). We performed beneath an array of fireworks going off over our heads in the warm breezy evening of our nation’s independence day. Thanks Mike for hosting us!

Sausagefest 09 rocked the patio!! The benevolent host to our rehearsal space, Francis, threw a big welcome home party for us in his backyard for all of our fans, free of charge! The best thing was that the load out from our rehearsal space to the stage was approx 30 feet! The sausages were cooked nice and well done, the music went into the night with an outdoor dance-floor, and the Centrevol boys played two encores… poorly. This should be an annual thing so if you didn’t make it, make sure you check it next year!

In the immediate future: I will be backpacking through the Western Sierras with my wife to celebrate her transition from work to grad-school. The boys will be driving out to Western Colorado University for a single gig (Nate will likely hit the casinos in Vegas on the way back). And we have a short-ish tour planned for early September… more info on all of this to follow.

Thank you all for reading and lavishing us with your continued support. We may be out in your neck of the woods come September so make sure you check the dates and come out and meet us!