xKINGDOMx

Hamburg, Germany- Euro tour '12. day 7

2012-02-20T17:34:00.001-08:00

Rote Flora is my favorite venue on earth. It is to hardcore venues what Notre Dame is to Churches. It's an awe-inspiring Cathedral of Core containing 2 show spaces, a skate park AND a rock climbing wall. For serious. It's something that an American hardcore kid could only dream of, a venue of such perfection that it almost hurts to visit because you know you have to leave. Rote Flora as a building has been around in some form or another since 1888 (housing operas, a cinema, and a department store over the years), but has been squatted (legally) since 1989. BEHOLD:

This was our third time playing Rote Flora. As we loaded in (meaning: everyone but me loaded in) I stood outside taking photos and thinking back to shows gone by. Feb '09 with Bishop. June '08 with Anchor. Reminiscing has a tendency to make one feel old and as I reviewed a little video I took of the streets of Hamburg for a friend and noticed the fine lines forming around my eyes, I really felt it. Walking back over to the entrance to provide moral support for those loading (meaning: take more pictures), I ran into my Hamburgian friend Lexi.

"Yo Lexi, how long have we known each other? I know we met on the Anchor tour but when did we start talking?"
"It was before myspace- I think maybe on friendster. It was.... '03?..."
2003. 9 years ago. God Damn. My shock was obvious. Lexi smiled. "...we're getting old!"

From a rocking chair suspended in some endless nirvanic moment, Father Time tipped his hat to me.

Lexi brought me my very favorite German condiment- an oily fried onion and apple spread that tastes like heart failure. I carefully tucked it away in my purse with the intention of taking it back to the States with me (...but actually devoured it a few days later in the van while driving in Poland.) Inside the big, freezing cold kitchen of Rote Flora we were each given a burrito, then because we are insatiable pigs we immediately went and got Thai food after.

Hamburg is a cool city. It's kind of the quintessential oh-my-god-punks-run-Europe city. At eye level there's political graffiti and gigantic wheatpastings on everything, black-clad kids walk the streets and if you peek into any of the independently run little shops lining the streets you'll see them working and shopping too, flyers for bands you know and like lie pasted every few feet leaving you with the impression that while tonight you may be playing a show, yesterday you missed a sweet one, and tomorrow there will one even better. Looking down and looking up you'll find the old-time grandeur and quirky earthiness that Europe is known for- cobblestone streets, ancient buildings, eco-conscious miniature cars, and folks from every walk of life cruising around on their bicycles (even in the cold.)

Back inside it was apparent that there would be no heat. It was so cold that it was fucking crazy. Like the wild west of indoor weather- no rules, no bullshit, straight shootin' ice. Gloves on, jackets on, hoods up, and breath visible we set up merch and eventually set up to play, and eventually, started playing. The show started late, and like at least half of the shows on this tour the only bands playing were us and Wrong Answer. They played in jackets, we did the same, and at the end of the night we had barely broken a sweat because the cold was that intense. The crowd in Hamburg was fun as always. We video taped the set and I was so excited to show you all... but it got deleted by accident. :(

After the show we stayed with the promoter who lived above a falafel joint, a falafel joint that upon running out of falafel gave us fried broccoli sandwiches instead. They were absolutely delectable. I don't know if I'll ever eat falafel again.

The apartment itself was an efficiency. Now, while we're not the tallest band on earth, Wrong Answer is comprised of freak giants so the floor was a mess of limbs and heads against walls and arms crammed under furniture. Justin had to share the promoter's bed with him because he literally couldn't fit anywhere else. I had to stay in the fetal position all night in order to not be on top of someone else.

Let's talk Euro showers. There are a lot of different varieties, all of which are exotic and weird to Americans. Tonight's shower was an ankle-deep tub with a wrap around curtain. Listen- I don't really know what happened while I was in there but when I got out the floor had at least 2 inches of water on it. Like, 5 or 6 goldfish could have lived there no problem. In a panic I leaped out and frantically mopped with the bathroom mat, and in my haste knocked everything, like seriously everything in the bathroom onto the floor. My clothes. The toilet paper. My toothbrush. I was as graceful as Allosaurus in a ballet. Because the apartment was very cold the bathroom stayed wet all night and dude after dude came out of the bathroom with wet feet, grumbling to me about the ruined toilet paper. Let it be known: I am a moron who doesn't understand how shower curtains work. I don't know what happened that day in the shower in Hamburg, I may never know. All I know is how I woke up the next morning: to the soothing sounds of the Kingdom/Wrong Answer "Symphony Of Asses."

Ah, tour.

Essen, Germany- Euro tour '12, day 6

2012-02-15T09:42:00.000-08:00

The venue where Angry Youth Fest was taking place would be better described as a compound. There were 2 levels: upstairs contained the stage, a bar, a kitchen, and warm, clean backstage #1, then downstairs there was backstage #2 (this one a bit cold, a little grimy, and filled with Germans smoking cigarettes), showers, and concrete hang out rooms (stocked with beer and soda.) Germany can always be counted on to feed you right, and tonight was no exception. Coconut curry, vegetable stew, rice, and fried spring rolls. (Vegan, of course.) We ate until we we'd reached the rolling point then all spread out across the venue. I went below to freshen up. While blow drying my hair in the bathroom I was walked in on 3 times- by an Italian, by a German, and by an American. Ahhh, the diversity of a European festival!

Upstairs some kids sold cheap vegan sandwiches, the 7 or so bands on the fest (which in America would just be a show) sat behind their merch tables, and I had a reunion with some old friends from Belgium. After awhile I excused myself to go downstairs and workout in one of the empty chambers of the compound. I could hear members of another band in an adjacent room having what was perhaps one of the most embarrassing discussions about girls I've ever been witness to- and keep in mind I've been on many tours with/around many single and DTF dudes. But these guys were different. Rather than sounding like your average tryna-slip-it-in-er, they sounded like a bunch of 6th graders with only a vague idea of what a nipple looked like which was somehow grosser and lamer. They talked about going to see Oathbreaker not because they liked the music, but just to look at the singer. (Classy!) I heard one of them say something like, "Girls in Europe are like coffee- so many varieties!" When I was done working out I walked through the room they were in and they all fell silent. Usually I introduce myself to like... everyone... but fearing these dorks might cum in their pants if I made direct eye contact, I walked by without saying a word. It's possible they're still talking about it today.

Get It Done who I was unfamiliar with before played an awesome set, and then Wrong Answer played and got one of the best reactions of the night. Mad moshery and such. It's nice when people like the right bands. Actually while I'm on the topic of Wrong Answer, let me just say: They're great. In fact they're kind of the definition of great in regards to a hardcore band. Right riffs, right attitude. They care enough about what they do to make something with depth and quality, but care little enough to keep it fun and punk.

Awkwardness blew over our set like a thunderstorm over a Floridian summer day- quick, fast, and hard. It was excruciating. A set that would never end. A horse shoe so big you could build a house in it. Stares so blank that I wondered if people were taking open-eye naps. Yawns. If you've ever seen us you'll know that I'm rarely at a loss for words, but between songs I bumbled, rambled, and made next to no sense. Ouch.

Back at our table, Dave got his first chance on tour to use his German skills. Dave, for the record, speaks 7 languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Russian, and Chinese... no big deal.) I walked up as our friend Zeger and his friend Mascha were listening to him in awe. Mascha told me how amazed she was at his accent, and then whipped out her phone and said she had to video tape it for her friends because no one would believe it if she just told them.

After the fest was over, we were all hungry. Kevin and I went out to get fries for everyone, and the only place that was still open was a pizza shop run by German-speaking Italians. (Man, where was Dave when you needed him?) After trying to pantomime "fry" for awhile and using every word I've ever heard them called "frite? french fry? potato? ... pomme frite?" they understood.... and told us they could not oblige. They offered us pizza instead. We shook our heads and stood there for a moment wondering what to do while they spoke in fast Italian behind the counter. "Ok, we make." Staying open 20 minutes passed their closing time, these guys made 8 $1.50 orders of fries, packing each one carefully and wrapping it in tinfoil, keeping the orders that came out first in the oven so they wouldn't get cold. This would never, ever happen in Philly. Maybe there's somewhere in America where this would happen (Kansas?) but there is no pocket, no corner, no single shop in Philly where the workers would have the patience or desire to help foreigners, and even if you visited Philadelphia in every single parallel universe it exists in, there would not be a single one in which anyone would stay open late to make fries.

Back in backstage #1, both us and Wrong Answer had laid claim to various floor spaces (leaving the smokey downstairs for the smokers to sleep in), setting up a little fort here, taking over a couch there. Deafheaven, also wanting to avoid the cold and smokey annals of the compound came in with their stuff as well. The promoters from the fest brought in and assembled cots for everyone, and then we all did what we do (the dudes went on Chat Roulette, I did pilates and wrote, Justin hung on his phone, Dave read) while in the background Deafheaven talked amongst themselves. I overheard the singer, George, saying something about someone confronting them earlier at the show, and curious to what happened (and always loving a good old European honesty story) I asked.

There was a photo of their drummer, he explained, wearing the shirt of a band called Hate Forest while they were playing that surfaced on the internet. Hate Forest is NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal) and for those who don't know, The National Socialist Party is literally the extended name of Nazi (Nazional-sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) and those involved with that particular movement are fascist neo-nazis. At Angry Youth Fest, an attendee has approached George to ask what the meaning of wearing a neo-nazi band's shirt was, and George explained that Deafheaven is from San Fransisco where these things (fascism, neo-nazism) don't mean the same thing, because they are like, "so far removed" and like "super liberal", but he "like" understood "why he would be so sensitive" about it "given their history and everything."

Let me tell you a story. A friend of mine used to be a racist skinhead. The way he got involved with that scene is through seeing someone he thought was cool wearing shirts of racist bands, bands which he then checked out. He spent several stupid years listening to his friends read from Mein Kampf and talking about how blacks and Mexicans were a serious problem, then thankfully wised up, saw the err of his ways, and lives now with his shameful past (where he has to do things like tell the outspokenly anti-fascist Jewish girl he's out on a date with about his neo-nazi tattoo.) He was floored when I told him about Deafheaven wearing the shirt and downplaying its significance, importance, and meaning. Deafheaven is on Deathwish Records, and maybe you heard, but that's like kind of a big deal. Despite that it was their first European tour and much more popular bands played the fest (certainly not us, but AYS for sure) Deafheaven headlined. A lot of kids are going to be looking to these dudes and KIDS NOTICE EVERYTHING. Look at my friend. Nothing you do is insignificant no matter who you are, but your actions become especially significant when you are in a band, and even more so when you are in a band that's getting popular.

When you wear a shirt promoting fascism, you are promoting fascism. No one is removed- not in "like, super liberal" San Fransisco, not in Essen, Germany, not in the fucking Bermuda triangle. It's so ignorant and second-hand embarrassing that Deafheaven defended and made light of promoting fascist bands (especially because you know they're doing so ironically- though if accused of that would claim the band had some killer riffs or something) when over here in Europe fascist hardcore, metal, and punk is huge, and neo-nazis are a real and constant threat. (When we played Fluff Fest in 2009 there was a display of all the people neo-nazis had killed recently... it was a very large display. We've also played shows that were attacked by nazis, and seen kids have bottles broken off their faces for being anti-fascist.)

Struck dumb by George's words, none of us said a thing. It was too surreal. It reminded me of a few days before we left for tour when I watched a man get attacked outside of my house. He screamed for help over and over and over while a guy threw him into the street and I stood there frozen at my window, watching in the dark, totally transfixed by the insanity of it all. It wasn't until the next day in the van when we all started talking about it that the gravity of what has transpired hit us. Is it kind of lame to write about it here without talking to Deafheaven first? Perhaps. But this blog goes in sequential order and we're not playing together again until later this week and I see no point in stopping the presses for them.

Later, Dave told me that after our set George had come up to him to ask how it went (admitting to not even checking us out, thanks dude) and then said that he "gets the same feeling" watching Oathbreaker as he did from us. Later Justin said, "What feeling? That there's a girl in the band?" Uh, yes. That George has a keen, keen eye. Especially for someone who doesn't watch other bands. Watch out world.

(Also this has become a joke on tour- if anything has a girl involved with it, it "really gives us the feeling of like, seeing Oathbreaker" or, like Kingdom.)

The next morning I retold the story of the Hitler mask in Denmark to another dude in Deafheaven, and he said, "Woah, a Hitler mask? I like, thought they were like sensitive about that over here..."

.....sigh.

These dudes didn't seem like bad dudes, just dumb. And Europe, they're on tour right now. If you see them perhaps you could explain your "sensitivity", they don't seem to quite grasp it.

Aalborg, Denmark- Euro tour '12, day 5

2012-02-14T17:27:00.000-08:00

Squatting behind the dumpster with my pants at my knees and ass out in the freezing air, I thought of all the times I'd attempted this (only somewhat successfully) and widened my stance. Above me a Swedish flag billowed in slow motion like a gigantic blue bat wing. The hollow clanging of a flag hoist against a pole struck out into the night, dampened by the silence of the snow. The van was parked in front of the empty gas station about 40 feet away. It was just me, my travel toilet paper, and 0 degrees on the side of a desolate and bathroomless Swedish highway. 30 Days Of Night on my mind and a little spooked, I got down to it.

Carefully watching to ensure that my stream didn't do anything wild, I started to go. Instantly a mushroom cloud of steam flew up between my legs. Blind to lower happenings, I started to panic. If I wasn't keeping an eye on things, anything could happen. The stream could break into 2 and go down my thigh or I could just start spraying like a hose, the ways in which I could urinate on myself were literally endless! Cursing, I crab-walked in the snow, whizzing as I went, bent over with my face toward my crotch, trying desperately to monitor my flow. When it was over, I checked my ankles with my one gloveless hand. They felt dry, but then again it was cold I probably wouldn't be able to tell anyway. I jogged back to the van buckling my belt as I went, got under my sleeping bag, and drifted off.

"...where's Justin?"

We sat in the van in the belly of a Danish ferry that was about to debark at any second. When they'd announced 10 minutes to docking, we'd all gone down to the auto level and stood around the van because as we all knew, the second the gate opened the hundreds of cars around us would all start driving off, and we had to drive with them. But Justin was missing. We waited, and waited, and waited- and he never appeared. The gate opened and we were forced to leave and Kuba asked the guard where to go when you lose someone on the boat. After an extensive search and about 30 minutes later, we found him clutching his baggage with a lost look on his face. But rather than tell you what happened, I'll let him do it:

CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO OF JUSTIN GETTING FOUND LIKE A LOST CHILD

We got to the venue, Fryd-1000, early. It was a graffiti covered punk bar, a familiar sight in Europe but never one you get tired of. Inside we met Peter who was perhaps one of the most accommodating promoters I've ever encountered. Within a second of walking in he offered us coffee and tea, told us where the bathrooms were, gave us the internet password, and informed us that our band quarters would be ready shortly- he just needed to finish cleaning them up. There would be showers and laundry, and dinner later in the evening. He then provided us with directions to falafel and cheerily walked away to prepare.

Back at the venue, Peter led us up to the band quarters. This venue- again like so many in Europe- was a magical place where you play and when you're done you walk upstairs to a super-clean room that resembles a summer camp cabin or a really big slumberparty. Bunk beds, mattresses on floors, stacks of towels neatly folded, pillows... it's insane. At least for an American. Peter showed us the level for the other bands first (as well as the beverage fridge which he had been thoughtful enough to arrange by band so that we had a straight edge shelf, since, he explained, we couldn't read the labels and he didn't want us accidentally drinking beer.) It was so dope I was instantly jealous... theeeeen he led us up a second staircase to our room. All jaws fell.

The room was bathed in golden sunshine, glowing like the dream it was. The entire ceiling was a window held in place by huge wooden beams. Anti-fascist murals lined the walls. 2 heavy bags and a speed bag hung, and between two beams there were... are you ready for this? MONKEY BARS. A weight bench and weight set were tucked in the corner, and up the wall there was a ladder to nowhere. I dropped my stufff, kicked off my boots, and jumped up and down from mattress to mattress for like... 5 minutes. Maybe 10. Dave and Anton kickboxed on the heavy bags. Other people flopped down for naps. Kuba sat online on the couch. Life was fucking good.

"Did you hear that the first band crashed their van on the way over??!" I was trying to strike up a conversation with a Danish guy in one of the other bands. His look hearkened back to the Sid Vicious style of yore- leather jacket, tousled hair. Behind us dinner was laid out on a long wooden table in a clutter of steaming plates and bowls. Everyone stood in line clutching empty plates eyeing the fixins. Thick vegan chili, guacamole, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, tortillas. This to a band is like pizza day to a 2nd grader. People milled around, trying to roll their overstuffed tortillas and failing. Forks clinked on plates. Beers and euro-colas went table to lips, lips to table. The Danish punk's face showed no sign of emotion- not for my interest in speaking with him, not for the burritos, not for the band that crashed. He shrugged, said "More food for us.", and walked past me to get his portion.

Something we noticed about the Danes we met was their tendency to ask you questions they had literally no interest in the answers to. Here's an example:

A guy from the Danish band interrupted a few of us chatting to ask about our tour.

"You're going to Russia?"
"Yes! For twelve days!"
"Where in Russia?"
"Um... 12 different places?"
"Ahhhh."

...and he looked away.

Downstairs Wrong Answer was being filmed for a spot on Danish news. I sat in the dining room on my computer chatting with someone from back home, telling him about the incredible hospitality we'd been shown in Aalborg. "Wow, they really love you there!" This was favorite band treatment for sure. This show was going to RULE. And it was time for it to begin...

I made my way downstairs full of burrito and coffee, relaxed and clean, feeling more like a bar resident than a band member. Wrong Answer was on stage sound checking. Dave stood behind the merch table. I looked around. Giant green mowhawk. Dread mullet. Spiked leather jacket. A beer in every hand. Every hand on or near the bar.... across the room from the stage. Justin called for everyone to move forward. From the bar everyone looked over with the passive interest of cows watching a passing car, then went back to their beers and conversations. After a couple of minutes, a couple of people wandered toward the stage.

"We're Wrong Answer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania... thank you... two... for checking us out"

As their set went on people came over and got into it. A line of people locked arms and headbanged against the stage. The mohawk guy ran into the crowd wearing a mask. From where I was standing it looked like Nixon. He took it off and Justin pulled it on and attempted to sing with it on for a song. When it was over, he took it off and looked at what it was. My eyes had been a little off. It wasn't Nixon... it was Hitler.

"Oh jesus I should have looked at this before I pulled it on...." Justin laughed awkwardly on stage. Pames, Ivan, and I stood on the sidelines laughing hysterically. I went over to Dave to get his opinion on doing our One King Down cover.

"I don't think these people know what a 'One King Down' is."

Our set was very similar to Wrong Answer's. Headbanging. Head nodding. Beer sipping. The only thing we sold was a tape, and I think it was more because of the benefit aspect than for our music. After our set I sat on a bench by our table cooling off and a bearded hippy-crust punk came over and offered to smoke me out. I politely declined. He offered again. Again I declined. He offered again, and this time I explained that I was straight edge, and when that didn't seem to register I explained what straight edge means. He stared at me for moment and slurred, "If everyone gives what they have, everyone will have what they need. I have weed..." and I said, "but I don't need weed, so now there's more for you!" He leaned toward me, made some strange movements with his hands, and stumbled off.

So. Here's the deal. We are no one's favorite band in Aalborg, Denmark. In fact they don't even know who we are. Peter is just a really, really nice guy. Before he left for the night he gave me a bag of sandwiches to take with us the next day and told us that any time we wanted to come back to just let him know.

Up in our band wonderland we were met with some other harsh realities. For one, there was no heat in that room. It was around 10 degrees outside. Anton had climbed the ladder to nowhere and saw that it lead to a little storage space where there were the following instructions written:

CLOSE THE WINDOW WHEN YOU ARE DONE HUFFING GLUE

On the level below us the other bands stayed up getting drunk and screaming until 5 am. I sat down there online for awhile and a guy tried to take my computer from me ("I need to check something, it's ok?" "Uh, no dude.") and a few others, while grabbing beers from the fridge spoke in Danish, then in a mocking tone switched to English to say something about not drinking and looked over at me, then as they walked by they all broke into a drinking song (in English) and laughed.

Too cold to shower, I crawled into my sleeping bag dirty and shivering and caught my usual 3 hours of sleep before it was off to Essen, Germany.

Interview with Legends Arising

2012-02-13T10:55:00.000-08:00

Short interview for a Dutch site- read about our new release BETWEEN THE STARS and life on the road.

Legends Arising Interview

Västerås, Sweden- Euro tour '12, day 4

2012-02-10T18:30:00.000-08:00

I stood in the middle of the venue, my guaranteed-to-stay-warm-to-negative-forty-degree boots on my feet, thinsulate jacket zipped and buckled, hood up over my thick knit hat, gloved hands in my pockets, and absolutely freezing. It was the kind of cold that shuts your body down bit by bit. First with glacier face, snowman hands, freezer feet, and ending with what feels like amateur icicle acupuncture (the sensation of being pricked at a rapid speed with surgically-sharp shards of ice, generally starting in one's thighs moving upwards slowly causing what is it known as "the weather venom effect", which for ease of explanation I'll just say is similar to being bit by a cobra.)

A few feet away the dudes went in and out the open loading door with equipment, Scandinavian wind whipping in and sweeping away any remaining body heat left from the show. I hopped from foot to foot. I was equipped for nights like these. I made sure to pick up all the necessary winter wear, but man, no amount of impermeable superfabric could protect me from this. I looked over at Robin, the promoter, who wore wet canvas sneakers and a thin jacket. He was standing there next to me, talking about the show, acting like we were two people just hanging out- oblivious to the reality that we were two people slipping into everlasting unconsciousness, that if we didn't get out soon we were sealing our fates as future encino men, that scientists in Antarctica would pity us for the the temperatures we were being subjected to. It was lunacy. I grew up in MAINE and this was way past my threshold for cold, what kind of mutant was this Robin guy?! I needed answers. I asked him how he was surviving wearing canvas shoes in the sub-arctic freeze.

He grinned. "I'm Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedish!"

When we arrived at the venue food was ready and waiting (couscous, mock chicken strips, vegetables, coffee, juice) and everyone laid into plates and cups and found a place to chill. I sat in the kitchen on my computer. There were big happenings in WTFville at that moment and I was trying to fix things. Kuba, our driver, had asked me a few minutes before what we wanted to do about our show in Truro. I had no idea what he was talking about, so going on that my answer was I wanted to do with that show what we do with all our other shows- play it. He went on to explain that it was a last minute show on the west end of the UK and the next day we had to be in Germany which was an 18 hour drive away. It was his opinion that we could not physically do it. France was on the way, he said, we should have gotten a show there. After a quick meeting of the minds (Dave, me, Justin) we decided that rather than play a show we can't actually play we would cancel Truro and try to get something in Paris instead. I wrote to our booking agent to tell him to cancel the show and starting hitting up Frenchies.

I had maybe an hour before our set and I had to find a show. No clue when I'd have internet again, I frantically messaged and chatted. A lead here, a lead there, a maybe, a no. Stress. Robin and other people from the show came in and out of the kitchen to hang out and chat, but I was engrossed in what I was doing and irritated that I had to do it (it's not easy to book shows on a continent you're not from) that I wasn't really talking and probably seemed rude. The trouble ended abruptly though when our booking agent sent me an email saying that the drive wasn't 18 hours, it was 15. 15 is totally doable, though I didn't expect Kuba to be excited about it. Nonetheless, Truro was back on.

Anger's Curse played a fucking awesome set before Wrong Answer, Wrong Answer set it off as usual, and then we played.

After our set I signed the first autograph of tour, which Justin has made fun of me for since. Here's my stance on autographs in hardcore (which I've written about here before)- they're silly. In America they're a no-go 100% of the time. But over here things are a bit different and I think that rather than explain, as Justin told me he would if presented the opportunity, that I'm no better than anyone else and we're all just hardcore kids not fans/rock stars, I'd like to be accessible and say, "Sure! I'll sign whatever!" While I agree it's a lesson that should be passed on, with language barriers and just, differences here, I think that it would be more rockstar to refuse to sign an autograph than to sign one. So I signed our 7", and yep it was weird in that things-in-Europe-are-kinda-weird way, but I appreciate that anyone likes us or respects us enough to ask (or buy the record, or talk to any of us- I almost never talk to bands I like unless we play with them because I get too shy.)

After we finished loading out we headed to our sleeping place for the night- a sprawling multi-floored community center. We had to leave at 2 am to start our drive to the ferry to Denmark so we all stayed up drinking coffee and hangin'. Robin and I talked vegan baked goods and I worked out in the hallway, Justin chilled on his phone, Dave and Kuba napped, and the rest of the dudes insulted a crazy racist old man from Indiana on chat roulette for at least an hour. The man, while yelling things like, "Your Dad is a faggot and your Mother is a slut!" showed them his SS ring and bragged on his nazi import/export business (to which they showed him their asses), pulled out his antique gun collection and threatened to shoot them, ("Shoot your computer you old racist piece of shit!"), and after Kevin showed him his dick he yelled "I'll circumcise you!" and came back with a samurai sword. He ranted about hating blacks and Jews, and then when the dudes pointed out that Ivan is Mexican and asked if he hated Ivan, he said, "No, I like Mexicans! I lived in south Texas for awhile." REAL LIFE.

At 2, we went back out into the cold, said our thank yous and goodbyes to the very nice Robin, and bid Sweden a good night.

Örebro, Sweden- Euro tour '12, day 3

2012-02-07T03:53:00.000-08:00

Ever been somewhere where people ignore you so completely that you start to wonder if you might be a ghost? This was our experience loading in at the show in Örebro. The running theory (my theory anyway) is that we had actually died the day before this show and our spirits had continued on, pushing forward into Sweden's cold-as-the-grave north completely unaware that when our lives end, so does our tour. That's literally the only logical explanation I can think of for a bunch of people refusing to move even an inch for people carrying heavy equipment, completely ignoring pleas to step aside, or standing directly in front of the merch counter while members of the bands they went to see acrobatically maneuver around them in a desperate attempt to set up. And why else would someone set their soda down on shirts AS they're being laid out if not that nothing we were doing could be seen by the living eye? Ghost bands, ghost gear, ghost merch. Makes total sense. Coffin closed.

We were fed in a freezing back room of couches and inflatable mattresses, all coated in a thick layer of crust and dust. It was the kind of place that makes one think of scabies. We slurped thin lentil soup and bread* ("Ah, prison food!"), shoulders up to our ears and jackets zipped. Then we got news that this room was where we were sleeping that night. Everyone's eyes scanned the tiny filthy space, everyone's jaws hardened, and I... I just wanted to cry. No shower. No heat. No clean spot to sit. No room to even lay down with fully extended legs once everyone was packed inside. These tour times are straight misery, the moments where you promise yourself you will never tour again. Then we got more news: Some of us could stay with the promoter, but not all. Others would stay in the little room. Eyes darted around. Who would stay? Who would go? Without a second thought, I knew that I was willing to turn on each one of my tour mates in order to secure my place at the promoter's.

After the news sunk in, depression settled in some camps and alliances formed in others. Justin and I both agreed that we were going to be among those who went to the promoter's, then, to ease the guilt, Justin added that he was sure everyone would get picked up in the morning and brought to the apartment to shower... so it wasn't really THAT bad. But we both knew otherwise.

Back in the venue, a blond scruffy-faced dude gave me more news: A guy who had booked us/Anchor in '08 and split the show with the door money WAS THERE, AT OUR SHOW, RIGHT THEN. The scruffy dude went on to tell me how surprised he was that the guy had dared to show his face, but perhaps the guy had thought we'd forgotten. Now, I forget just about everything (boyfriend's birthdays, my social security number).. but one thing I always remember are the times I've been fucked over. I looked around the room for the guy and smiled. Dumb motherfucker.

I'd been given a description of the guy by the scruffy dude and I walked around the venue checking faces. Seeing someone that looked vaguely familiar and fitting the description I approached, grabbed him by the arm, and leaned into his ear. I asked if he'd booked us and Anchor a few years back in the area. He shook his head no and laughed. "Are you sure? You look reaaaaallly familiar...." He shook his head NO emphatically, kept laughing, and said, "It wasn't me! It wasn't me!" I apologized for mixing him up and watched the rest of Elapse's set. After, scruffy dude asked if I found the guy. I relayed the story of my mix up and he said, "No! That was him!! He denied it?!!! Wowwwwww...." We looked around... and the guy was gone. I ran outside to try to find him, but it was like chasing a ghost. Disappeared without trace.

Another newsbreak hit the venue floor: ALL of us were staying with the promoter! Eelief and guilt. I felt like Boromir attacking Frodo- sure, everything was ok and my loyalty was back in the right place, but I had to live with the shame of what I'd done (or in my case, thought.)

Each band was resurrected on the stage and the oblivious crowd that had frustrated us all night was awesome and appreciative. The show was so much fun.

After, we went to a place called Max Burger (which Wrong Answer is infatuated with) where I can perfectly illustrate to all the Americans reading this the difference between Europeans and us. Curious if any of the sauces were vegan (to dip fries into), Vini, the promoter, asked the girl at the counter. Let me tell you how this would have played out in Philadelphia:

"You wanna know what? Pshhhhh... I dunno. You wanna see what? The ingredients? For real? Pshhhh. We don' have none. You wan' me to get the what? Package? Fuuuuck I aint' doing all that...."

This is how it played out in Sweden:

The girl behind the counter listened to Vini intently. Her face showed honest concern. She grabbed a list of laminated nutritional info, read for a moment, then told us she didn't believe any sauces were vegan. Then she told us she was going to double check (and we did not ask her to or make a big show of disappointment, we honestly didn't really care that much) and read the ingredients on the box of every sauce they offered, came back solemnly and said, "They all have egg but 1, the sweet mustard. I am sorry."

This is Europe: even at a fast food restaurant people care. Caring about a stranger's desire for fry sauce. Wrap your mind around THAT.

We parked outside of Vini's apartment complex and walked in the excruciating sub-arctic temperature through the maze of entrances and into his place. Inside, we got to know Vini better. What a cool dude he is. Originally from Brazil where he once lived with my/Dave's friend Leo (who now lives in NYC... talk about a small fucking world), he moved to Sweden and felt like he was meant to stay. He became a father, gained sole custody of his little dude, who as we were learning this was running around beating up Pames and Ivan. He works in a women's prison as a... crap... counselor? And he plays in a band called Chain Reaction. Sometimes you meet people on the road you feel really lucky to meet, and he is one of them. Also, for breakfast the next morning he got us.... are you ready for this?....

VEGAN CAVIAR. In 2 varieties.

I didn't try it, but the general opinion was "salty."

Thank you to everyone in Örebro. You were interesting, nice, fun, unexpected, and Vini, let us know when you come visit!

*The soup was delicious and the bread was excellent. A note on talking about accommodations and food: There are times here where I may sound ungrateful, like above where I called the soup thin. Do not misunderstand me, I/we are ALWAYS, always grateful to be fed and given a place to stay. But just because we are grateful does not mean that we don't notice when soup is thin, and even when that soup is delicious, I'm not going to leave its lack of substance out of my description. JOURNALIST HONESTY.

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN -Euro tour '12 day 2

2012-02-05T14:07:00.000-08:00

We approached the venue skeptically. The address was right, but... this was it? A library? A library full of middle aged Swedish people and creamy complexioned children? A library with middle aged Swedish people and creamy complexioned children all sipping warm beverages and eating sugary snacks at the quaint little cafe in the back? With local art being displayed? And a room in front hosting an in-progress tumbling/acrobatics class?! This was where our show was happening?

Our walk into this pleasant Swedish community center was akin to a bunch of gutter punks sitting down to Grandma's Christmas dinner. Awkward fucking contrast.This is a part of Europe I'd forgotten. It's not all playing squats and graffiti-covered venues, hardcore across seas can be a quirky animal.

Daniel (the promoter) and Jenny's place (where we were staying that night) was just up the street, so out we trudged into the blistering cold and snow to be fed THE MOST DELICIOUS VEGAN HOTDOGS ON EARTH. Bummer for us, and bummer for you (unless you live in Sweden), they are only in Sweden. But let me just say this- Justin (of Wrong Answer), a staunch believer in the 3-fast-food-meal-a-day meat-filled diet, said that it was probably the best hotdog he'd ever eaten.

Speaking of Justin... after we'd all cleaned our plates several times Daniel offered him more food, and Justin, looking over at the treats baking in the oven, shook his head and said, "Naw, I'll just wait for dessert." Daniel, seeming somewhat startled, carefully explained to Justin that the desserts were not actually for us, they were to sell at the show... but maybe, he went on, if some were left Justin could maybe have some? (Since then there's nary been a situation where one of us doesn't offer ourselves dessert- or better yet, ask Justin if he's planning on waiting for some. "Hey you guys wanna grab falafel?" "Naw, I'll just wait for dessert.")

"Now this is D.I.Y."

Daniel was watching me pull tiny bits of gum from my mouth to attach the back of our tape insert to the front. We were in an office building in downtown Stockholm where all the workers were shoeless (I added my boots to the shoe pile at the door) and I had to pretend to be Swedish (i.e.: not speak) if anyone came by to ask why we were making nearly 100 double sided color copies. It was a lunatic operation. We had started early- ridden the subway into downtown Stockholm with the dudes and split off to make a master copy of the tape art. Seems like an easy task right? Just pop on over to a print shop/office store and you're golden, no? No. Not here.

We started at a mall where Daniel asked shop after shop if we could use their printer- including the information desk at the entrance. This seemed insane to me. Can you imagine asking the mall information desk to make a couple color copies off your thumb drive for you?! I trailed behind him, the mute coffee sipping English speaker, feeling guilty for needing/receiving so much and such absurd help. Daniel told me later that if we'd been working on a school project he would have given up. It's all about priorities you know? Ours were making photocopied inserts for a small run of 2-song cassettes that almost no one on earth would ever see. Punkorities.

Outside perfect snow globe snow drifted down slowly. Ivan, a Los Angeles resident, had never seen snow before. Fucking Europe. Shock and awe man, shock and awe.

kingdom - pythoness from emma giulietta on Vimeo.

LUND, SWEDEN - Euro tour '12 Day 1

2012-02-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

Being in a place like Sweden really doesn't carry the far-from-home shock value of a lot of other European countries. Sure, the immaculate streets and people make you feel vaguely like you're walking through the filming of a movie where the star hasn't yet arrived and everyone is acting "natural", and yes everyone you speak with has an accent (but they're speaking English... which they somehow just KNOW to use with you), but it's no Poland.

I stood there then in the thick of it right then, in Malmo, Sweden, worlds away from my life in Philly yet completely unphased. While I spoke of sleeping arrangements matter-of-factly with our host for the night, Tomas, in his store Justine and Juliet I thought, "Man, I really am 'Euro jaded'." I'd lost the magic in a visit to Europe. Feeling a little worn and a little old, I took in the little shop. It was small and elegant. Across from me a glass case held big, shiny, rhinestoned... somethings. It was a jewelry store, I decided. But wait, what kind of jewelry store was it with so few pieces? I looked again and thought, "Wait, are those...???... nooooo ..." Right then Tomas's small and adorable girlfriend/business partner walked in and started to dress a mannequin... in a strap-on harness.

"We open Wednesday... we're a sex shop! A vegan sex shop!"

In the glass case across from me the rhinestoned butt plugs sparkled under the soft lights of the store. Tomas, pale and blond, smiled broadly and talked to me about Earth Crisis. I was so, so far from home.

Shock and awe.

KINGDOM/WRONG ANSWER EUROPEAN TOUR BLOG, DAY 1. Lund, Sweden.

This is what I wrote in my journal at the venue: "ONIONS."

A pot of stew was already bubbling away when we arrived. Marinating in the familiar scent of European Tour, we organized merch and sound checked, ate and hung out. Kids started to show up. Ahhh, Euro Crowd. Hardcore and punk, girls and boys, oversized crew necks and dread mullets. It had begun.

"We're Wrong Answer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania..."

I had the pre-set jitters. I wormed my way anxiously through the crowd to the bathroom at least 6 times. I warmed my voice up for far longer than necessary. I drank so much water it sloshed around in my stomach like a self-contained sea. We set up and got on stage, red stage lights blinding us, fog machine kicking in. "I feel like I'm in Slayer." The crowd giggled. Our set was, well, a set (I never know what to say about this), and when it was over these things happened.

1. We were presented with a vegan chocolate coconut cake, which we devoured.
2. A girl came over to me holding a curved piece of metal and told me that she felt she should tell me she broke her bra dancing during our set. I had literally no idea what to say to that and while stumbling around for an appropriate response she said, "I'm going to go find someone to give this to!" and walked away.
3. A dude came over to me and, in heavily accented English, said, "This is my first hardcore show. I liked it.", and I found myself again trying to figure out an appropriate response, ending up with something kind of halting and lame like, "Good! Uh... hardcore is... awesome!"

After the show we went back to Tomas's and made another trip to Jalla Jalla (a vegan-friendly falafel spot in Malmo) where we met a drunken local who, with hummus smeared across his cheeks, told us he used to live in Alabama (which he pronounced with a southern accent) and where he had been known as "The Redneck Swede", and the next morning we got into our little loftless van with Kuba, our metal-loving Polish driver, headed to Stockholm.

PS- Check OUR TUMBLR for lots of pics/vids- updated often!

BETWEEN THE STARS - A BENEFIT FOR TRANSITIONS

2012-01-26T23:06:00.000-08:00

I remember listening to the mastered version of this record for the first time. I was riding the bus to my shit job, elderly people were coughing out into the aisles, a toothless man in sweatpants was screaming at the driver, a dude was talking on speaker phone behind me, all as the familiar trash lined streets of Philly whizzed by. With my headphones tucked into my ears, I listened. As the bus cut through Philly I made my way through the Threads recordings, smiling at first, then grinning, then laughing. Everything around me was absurd. The day-to-day life of public transportation, aging, working, constant frustration, this city and all its anger. Listening to our record right then, I saw my off-tour home/"real" life for the ridiculous thing that it is. I wasn't part of it, not really. When you're like me, which if you're reading this you probably are, then you're never really part of it. As I sat there laughing to myself on a bus full of degenerates listening to my own band, I thought... this is what it is to be a hardcore kid. Nothing feels real but this. It's all for the birds, but this.

When we recorded Threads, we recorded 2 extra songs to release as a benefit for TRANSITIONS, an amazing organization in Phnom Penh, Cambodia that helps restore the lives of girls rescued from sex trafficking. And now it's finally happening.

We're self releasing these recordings on cassette (available in person from us and online after we get back from tour in March) and on bandcamp, where you can stream it for free and pay whatever you want for it. 100% of the money we get will go to Transitions. The fist pressing (99 tapes) will raise over $700 alone. We're not a big band. Never have been, never will be. But even a little band like us can do big things. Hardcore changes US, and through US can change everything. Don't let this scene be just music. It is so, so much more.

With all our love to the girls at Transitions and James and Athena Pond who make it happen, here's BETWEEN THE STARS. Share widely and donate generously.

<p>&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://xkingdomx.bandcamp.com/album/between-the-stars"&amp;amp;gt;Between The Stars by Kingdom&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;</p>

TUMBLR

2012-01-21T18:48:00.000-08:00

We got one.

XKINGDOMX.TUMBLR.COM

Pizza Friends early records

2012-01-18T12:36:00.000-08:00

Our friend Donny runs a blog called Pizza Friends where he has people write about groundbreaking records in their early lives. It's pretty neat. If you're interested, Davin's story about Man Is The Bastard's D.I.Y.C.D. is HERE and Dave's story about Merauder's Master Killer is HERE.

REGENERATE

2012-01-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO FOR THE HIT SINGLE "REGENERATE" off the THREADS EP

Filmed, directed, and made by Dave and Davin. Starring Yan. Featuring the talents of Donny, Vedika, Josey, Randon, and the good people of Philadelphia.

Extra special thanks to Grindcore House, Blackbird Pizza, and New Harmony.

More Than Ink interview

2011-12-27T18:14:00.000-08:00

Pretty sweet interview with Davin up on More Than Ink HERE. Check it!

KINGDOM/WRONG ANSWER EUROPEAN TOUR 2012

2011-12-20T17:59:00.000-08:00

DATES ARE HERE

...see you in the pit

Gettin' streamy on the DL

2011-12-04T15:00:00.000-08:00

O HAI. Been awhile. Guess what?! We've put The Rage That Guides and the 9 Lives 7" streaming on our bandcamp. Neato! Mosh time!

<a href="http://xkingdomx.bandcamp.com/album/the-rage-that-guides">The Rage That Guides by Kingdom</a>

<a href="http://xkingdomx.bandcamp.com/album/9-lives">9 Lives by Kingdom</a>

After some coaxing from bandmates and friends I decided to stop pretending this doesn't exist. Here is our hard-to-come-by, unmastered, trash can of a demo that Dave thinks is sweet (though he was not playing with us then) and I think is, well, I think you know how I feel about it. We recorded this demo in 2006 before we had a bass player or had played a show. The very first person to buy it was Pierce Roberts, our then bass-player-to-be, at our first show in Oswego, NY. HISTORY Y'ALL, HISTORY. Download it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?0ozb2f8l1f818g8

MERCH STORE UPDATED!

2011-07-21T18:08:00.000-07:00

xkingdomx.bigcartel.com

Philly pictures + Halloween in July video!

2011-07-20T21:57:00.000-07:00

The rest of the photos are HERE.

Summer tour 11, Day 5- Mt Pleasant, MI

2011-07-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

There's a really annoying thing that happens when you're booking tour. A promoter confirms a show with you, keeps in good touch telling you how awesome the show is going to be and then a few weeks before you hit the road when you try to get details on the show they just stop responding to you. You write to them, and/or call, and/or text, and they never get back to you. Were they a digital apparition? Did you dream them up? Did they die? You may never know, but you do know now that you have next to no time to find yourself another show. Neat!

That's the story of this day. Prepared to eat the day off with Pierce (one of our best friends and old bass player) in Toledo where we'd crashed the night before, I got an email from Rorik from the band Cloud Rat offering us a last minute show at his store in Mt Pleasant, Michigan. Score! Pierce took us out for delicious sesame tofu, our family reunion came to an end, and we hit the road. Miss you broham!

First stop: Detroit to get Madison, vocalist extraordinaire. Have you heard Cloudrat yet? If not, do so. With Madison in the van, Dave tried not to talk lest he expose himself as a Cloud Rat fanboy (not that it mattered, I outed him as soon as he was out of earshot.)

Ever find yourself wondering what hardcore is all about? I can tell you: this show.

#1. The show happened in a hc kid-owned independent record store called Justice Records.
#2. Rorik (one of the two owners of JR) swooped in to help us and set this show up on 36 hours notice with his band Cloudrat and Brent (the other owner)'s band, Time To Deal, just to help us out.
#3. Despite how last minute the show was, people showed up, supported, and went wild. Couch cushions were moshed with. Walls were worked.
#4. Rorik and Brent hooked us up with food and beverage, put us up, and knowing we needed to practice with Ivan, let us practice in their store DURING BUSINESS HOURS.

Ya see? Dudes grow up and keep hardcore a part of their lives, go out of their way to help kids they don't know, who then mosh and eat together and in less than 24 hours all become friends. That is what it's about.

After the show Rorik spent his night in the kitchen making vegan burritos for everyone while we hung with about half the show in his living room, and when all the tortillas and avocados were gone we did what we do worst: gambled.

Soaring Eagle Casino was a siren in the night, enticing us with its player’s club card ("sign up and get $10 free!"), luring us with its unlimited soda machine, blinding us to rational thought with its brightly colored flashing slots, robbing us with its $5 table minimums.

We awoke the next day (a little broker than the night before) to Rorik making us vegan banana pancakes. He gave us the (ONLY) keys to his store (which was set to open in 15 minutes) and we went off to practice. As we drove through the quaint soda-pop-fountain smiling-elderly-man-with-well-groomed-meticulously-parted-hair milk-shakey downtown of Mt Pleasant feeling vaguely like Michael J Fox in the first back to the future, Dave and I bickered about what time to leave for our next show until we were interrupted... by the van.

GA GLUNK!

The van shook.

…CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUG….

The van slowed.

“What the fuck?!”
“What was that?!”
“Uhhhh...”

…CHUGGA CHUG....

The van crawled...

….GLUUUUNK.

..aaaaand stopped.

“...we’re out of gas.”

Ivan and I hopped out of the van to push while a fat middle aged woman with a frizzy bouffant laid on the horn, impressing us with her ability to be either driving blind or be the honest to god center of the universe.

The iPhones among us looked up the closest gas stations and as we stood in various stages of irritation on the street I remembered something terrible: We had the one and only key to Justice Records... AND IT WAS SUPPOSED TO OPEN RIGHT THEN! Rorik had trusted us to open his store! Brent was waiting outside! AHHH!!!

A fan of comedic timing, my phone, the only phone with Rorik’s number in it, died. The guys ran off in search of gas and I hit the streets of Mt Pleasant solo to find a place to charge. A cafe would be perfect. I walked around looking for someone to ask for directions, but the people of Mt. Pleasant steered clear of me. Real clear. My wild fashion choices (grey shorts and black shirt) were freaking out the squares to the point that no one would even talk to me. It was the most punk rock I’ve ever been.

A hippie girl wearing subversively dangly earrings was the only one not to shrink at the sight of me. She smiled and told me where to go.

“There’s a café arouned the corner, it’s a little vegan baker-“
“VEGAN?!”
“...yes, vegan."

I took off running.

The Flour Uprising’s two charming owners told me (unprovoked) about every single thing they sold, over-pronouncing the words “VEGAN” and ”ORGANIC” in a small-town we’re-the-only-ones-selling-this-kinda-stuff way which I found absolutely charming.

Tethered to the wall by the phone, I called Rorik from a crouched position and explained. He very calmly drove over to get his key from me. For the second (and not the last time on this tour)… I burned with shame.

When we got to Justice Records no one was angry with us (thankfully), and we practiced with Ivan for the second time while business was conducted beside us. When our 3 song set had become 5 we hopped into our fully gassed van, nestled in next to our brand new gas can, said our thank yous and goodbyes, and drove off to Grand Rapids.

WE'RE HOME! (+ Halloween in July photos)

2011-07-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

We got back late last night from what I can safely say was our greatest tour ever. Huge thanks to everyone who came out and supported! In the coming weeks I'll post up all the stories (day by day) along with pictures, video (and links to sweet bands!)

These however are way too cool to wait on. Here are some photos from last night's Halloween in July show in Frederick, MD by Radek Matweecha:

Summer tour 11, Day 4- Ashtabula, OH

2011-07-09T23:56:00.000-07:00

"Everyone in this town looks like a Vietnam Vet."

We rolled into town, passing leathery grubby-faced bandana-wearing men driving dinged up vehicles from the '70s. Exclusively. I didn't see a single female or person under 30 until we got to The West End, where as we pulled up we heard, "...Dave?"

Outside, Bust It! from Connecticut sat around their sawed-off pickup truck trailer drinking beers. Dave knew some of them from growing up in MA. We all sat around talking while Ivan, our fairy god mother-created miracle fill in, listened to our songs on his iPod. Barnum, the promoter/venue d00d rolled up with a huge bowl of pasta for us and we descended like locusts. It should be noted that Barnum is an all star. He runs a DIY venue in his town, he plays in Homewrecker, and when I called him the night before in a dead panic asking if we could practice before the show AND borrow a drum set to do it, he was totally accommodating and understanding.

I sat outside watching one of the guys from Bust It! juggle while The Dudes practiced inside. They started "Real Crime", I braced myself to hear it massacred. Ivan was too good to be true, coming to our rescue, being such a good dude... there had to be catch. He definitely sucked at drums.

They played... and played the song almost perfectly. Within about 10 minutes it sounded like a recording.

After an hour it was time for the show to start. Dead Words, who'd only been together for something like 2 months, was awesome. I'd describe them, if asked, as "Brain tickling heaviness". Their music was complex, full of unexpected twists and turns. Watching them felt like doing a brain teaser. Sudokucore. Crosspuzzletry. They're playing Philly shortly after we get home, I will be in attendance, getting my brain musically massaged.

Bust It! totally took me by surprise by being really punk and really catchy (not to mention really tight and really good.) I figured they'd be a Righteous Jams-type slow n' low band that would inspire floor-grazing mosh moves but instead they made me want to ride bikes with my friends on a carefree summer day. So awesome! If their record doesn't melt in the van before we get home it's gonna stay on the old turn table for awhile.

Between bands Ivan sat outside listening to our songs, air drumming, stressing. When it came time to play, he was wild-eyed and smiling. "Fuck it, let's do it!" We played 3 songs and it was awesome. The crowd smiled along with us, forgiving our mistakes.

There's a craziness with Ivan being here, we've become like people after a near-death experience, throwing ourselves full force into what we're doing. Where mistakes used to eat at me (see 3 entries ago- Philly), now I just laugh at them. If ever there was a time I took playing too seriously, it's over. We're here to have fun, play punk rock, and share a few ideas. We're not fucking Pantera. Shit ain't gotta be so serious. Sometimes you can show up, practice before your set, and play 3 songs. At the end there's still basketball outside, hot pasta, and a friend to crash with. Fuck it, you know?

Summer tour '11, Day 3- Purgatoury

2011-07-08T00:35:00.000-07:00

We all knew what was going to happen as soon as he said it. We had pulled out of the rest area onto the dark highway in silence. He was tense, sitting upright, eyes glued to the road instead of his phone. The air in the van was weirdly still. We'd known something was going to happen, with him something always did. It was time. Pames leaned forward and asked if he was alright. "Yeah... I'll just talk to you guys when we get back."

A few hours later we all sat in the living room having a pointless, circular conversation. Aware that no amount of logic or sense could reach him, I went upstairs to eat a grapefruit while Pames and Dave wasted their breath. At 4 am he got in his car and left without an apology, saying goodbye only to Dave.

That's the finger-restrained version of how Dustin left this tour and this band (after joining officially not but a couple weeks before.) Why did he leave? "Family emergency". Did he attend to it? No. Where is he now? At home on the internet. Has he done this before? Yes. Are we stupid for letting someone like that into the band? You bet. Were we freaking the fuck out that we had almost 3 weeks of tour booked ahead of us, a $100 a day rental van outside, over $1,000 of merch in our living room, no money in our bank accounts, jobs that we couldn't go back to until the end of July, and no drummer? You can't even imagine.

Luckily, this is hardcore.

Pames and Dave sat downstairs hitting up everyone they knew. I posted on the b9, on facebook, even on craigslist. There had to be a drummer out there who could drop everything, get to Philadelphia, learn our songs in a day, and go on tour for 3 weeks... right?

After a few hours we got some responses. One was on our facebook page. All it said was, "I can do it." I don't know why, but I just had a feeling that "Ivan Saul Caleb Diaz" was our dude. His profile was private, his picture too tiny to make him out in, I had no idea where he lived or who he was or anything about him but going on instinct I sent him a message asking for his number, got a string of digits in response, and called.

"Hi... this is Davin from the band Kingdom. I saw your post. So uh, where are you?"
"Oh hey! I live in Los Angeles, California."
"Dude... uh... you know we live in Philly, right?"
"Yeah! I can just hop on the next flight out."
"........really?"
"Yeah, it's no problem!"

After chatting a bit (played drums his whole life, down for house shows, down for carpet sleeping, down for ramen), then listening to his band (They As In Them) we all nodded in agreement and I picked up my phone.

"You seriously down to come out today?"
"Yeah! I'll drive to the airport now and see if I can get a flight."

At 11 the next morning we pulled up to the Philadelphia International Airport. Ivan and his hastily packed bag jumped into the van. He was all smiles.

"So, where we goin?"
"Ashtabula, Ohio! We can practice before the show."
"Wait... we're playing TONIGHT?"
"Yep! If that's cool. What do you think?"
"Hell yeah!"

Tour was saved. The road re-stretched itself out ahead of us. The summer sun beat down on the asphalt, Dave squinted against it as he drove, Pames "Snooze Hound" Jollard napped, Ivan listened to our songs our repeat, air drumming along, and I relaxed for the first time in 36 hours.

(Pames, Ivan, me, Dave)

--

It's worth mentioning how Ivan found out about Kingdom. HE WORKS WITH MY AUNT. She found out he played music and showed him ours. What are the fucking odds that some random dude who works in LA with my AUNT would be not only a core dude, but the kind who'd drop everything to play house shows in the Midwest?! It's fate man.

Summer tour '11, Day 2- NYC

2011-07-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

Our NYC show could have easily been a joke. A screamo band, a European thrash band, an '80s punk band, and a vegan straight edge hardcore band walk into a bar. The joke could have then easily been a dream. I'm at ABC No Rio and my band is playing... but there are these huge punk guys from Basque country wearing their own band's shirt and my DAD is there. The dream could have easily become a dark comedy a la Little Miss Sunshine, when the antihero family featuring the quirky Dad and the punk rock daughter almost get in a fist fight on the street over a stranger's hay fever while her bandmates, unaware, innocently lap vegan ice cream cones a few blocks away.

ABC No Rio is the east coast's Gilman Street. Since 1980 this punk rock relic has stayed relevant, making hc history on the lower east side of Manhattan, an area I can't even hear the name of without moshing in honor of Warzone. Outside the venue street punx and political punx and hc kids of various ages and ethnicities milled around. I met up with my Dad and his girlfriend (who'd gotten up at 5 am to catch a bus to be there in time) and brought them to the club.

(My Dad in the backyard of ABC No Rio! He's the best!!!)

Inside, it was exciting to find a stencil done by one of my favorite artists, NYC native Seth Tobocman. I actually gave my Dad Seth's book You Don't Have To Fuck People Over To Survive for his birthday this year!

The show began. The opening band took me back to a shoeless Saetia-influenced time. Screamo is back in a big way. This was to be the first of many screamo bands we encountered on this tour (as I write this we're about a week in and have played with at least 1 "emotive hardcore" band a night) A whole new generation of screamsters are pouring their feelings out in venues nationwide, knocking over their equipment in fits of passion, writing deep, heartfelt lyrics. It's not my favorite thing, but it's better than a lot of things... like... recreational butchering... or Nickelback. Despite it not being my thing the guys in the screamo band were very nice dudes, and my Dad (who had never seen a screamo passion-fit before) was very impressed by them.

Humilitate from Basque country was next. It was their first day of tour, their first time in America, and word was they were a bit culture shocked. Shock aside, they thrashed and burned for at least a solid 45 minutes. That is a long time to thrash, especially jet lagged. The singer was a black-clad egg-shaped dude of at least 30 with long, thinning hair and a relentless scream. After their set I complimented him and he laughed, shrugged, and said in fractured English that he'd personally thought they sounded like shit. I found his post-set blues endearing.

I'll post video from our show at some point. After us was the event of the night. Bugout Society's reunion. These guys broke up over a decade ago. On this night they were literally insane. Clinically mental. Known for throwing White Castle burgers at the crowd back in the day, they modernized for 2011 and threw tofu burgers... made special for them by White Castle. WHAT?! The guitarist wore a sailor hat, the singer boogied down while they played, the banter was lunacy and I seriously felt like a total fucking square, struck dumb by 4 old punk dudes who were on a total other level, some old school freak-out shit that I have never been privy to prior to this. On Kingdom Bugout's singer said, "I've had some encounters with vegans before... mostly physical..." (I was later told a story by their bassist about them throwing burgers at Earth Crisis....) then continued on to tell us that it is dumb to name oneself after a restaurant and dumber yet to sing about food (which of course we don't, but you know...) which probably sounds shitty now, but was pretty funny then.

After the show burger-smeared kids hung out in front of the venue and I got talking to Mike (who I'd met at our last NYC show) and a dude named Eric, who back in the 90's did a zine called Rumpshaker that he's now resurrecting. As we talked, I realized I'd gotten an issue of Rumpshaker when I was 15 or 16 (it was amazing- it had an interview with Rick Ta Life and his Mom) aaaaaand 2 records that Mike put out (Ire and Jihad.) Small world!

Dave, Dustin, and Pames went with some kids from the show to a vegan ice cream shop called Lula's which apparently was amazing. I split to get dinner with my Dad and his lady love and on the way back to the venue, through the genetic "flapping gum syndrome" we both suffer from, we created a cherished family memory.

A puffy, clammy faced man walked by us propelled by sneezes so violent and wet that it seemed that his face was the lighting point of ground igniting fireworks. BAM! Mucal explosion. His splotchy mug spewed slime like a hydrant just pried open. Phlegm flew in all directions while his body shook from the aftershock. Goo flung from his nose like doves escaping a magic show. His hands, limp at his sides, flapped back and forth like two old gym socks whipped up in a hurricane. It was the single most vile fucking thing I have ever seen in my life, and my Dad, his girlfriend, and I all stared at the man in stunned disgust. No attempt to cover his mouth! Hands at his sides! People all around! What a fucking peasant!

As he passed us my mouth still hadn't closed from the shock, which in retrospect is pretty gross. As he passed our eyes followed him, all glued in disbelief, waiting for him to say it was a stunt, an act, something for TV. But no. As that germbag passed, my Dad, unable to handle such a breach of civilized behavior and common decency sneered, "COVER YOUR MOUTH!"

Now, If you live in a city (which my Dad does not), you know exactly what kind of words those are. They are not polite suggestions. Thems fightin' words.

"TAKE OFF YOUR BACKPACK." Sneezy spoke to my Dad with a dueler's calm, but before my Dad could react or Sneezy could take a single step I was on him, pushing him backwards and saying shit that I will not post here because it would make me sound like an idiot. He threw a few more fighting words at my Dad, then when it became apparent that there would be no fighting my Dad he shouted in his defense, "I have allergies! I have hay fever!". When that failed to draw sympathy (or loosen my grip) he played the victim. ("Get your hands off me! Don't touch me!") And when that didn't work he tried to punk me out. ("What are you gonna do, huh?!") Then, with some encouragement, he left.

As he backed away from us, my Dad the tourist in his backpack, and me, the loving and devoted daughter, Sneezy started calling us names. Just one name actually. Nazi. He called us nazis and sieg heiled as he backed away, a martyr to his cause (germ spreading and the right to fight my father in case you forgot.) To my Dad he screamed, "Sieg heil you Nazi! Tell me how to live MY life! You NAZI!" Then to me, "You nazi BITCH! Sieg heil. Ohhhhhh sieg heil! You're so typical, fucking nazi, with your fucking TATTOOS! FUCK YOU!!!" My Dad and I stood on the sidewalk, two baffled Jews getting sieg heiled at on the streets of New York by a criminal sneezer.

When Sneezy was at a safe distance, I went over to my Dad and his girlfriend. We all looked at each other, eyebrows wiggling around to express our befuddlement. Nazis? Us? How... inaccurate. Assholes? Yes. Jerks? Sure. But Nazis? Nein! Of all the names in this world to call us... NAZIS?

And then I looked down at my shirt.

We howled with laughter. We laughed all the way back to the van, giggling wildly as we retold the story to each other over and over, reliving each surreal moment to the hilarious punchline where my shirt made us nazis. At the van we relived the story again for the dudes, said our goodbyes, and then me, my swazi-covered (anti-fascist- if you somehow, like Sneezy, missed that part) shirt, Dave, Pames, and Dustin hit the road.

Summer tour '11, Day 1- Philly

2011-07-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

Dave was due any moment with our new van. Our equipment was heaped on the sidewalk in front of my house. Pames and I stood lookout on the stoop like prairie dogs, anxiously squinting against the South Philly sun, waiting. We perked up with every approaching Cambodian/Mexican worker transport van hoping, wishing, praying that it was ours. Dave had been stuck in NYC traffic for hours. He'd left Boston that morning with our rental van (from rentgreenvans.com) and now it was well past 6 and he was still not back. Any minute now though... any minute.

Up the street came a multi-colored eye sore on wheels, something covered in advertisements for... wait... guitar strings? And... did it say "ROCK HARDER" on the front? Oh god. Pames and I strained to see the driver.

"Dude... is that him?"
"No way, that can't be..."
"Dude, I think it is..."

"...dude."

Meet I-VAN 2.

We rushed up to North Philly and got to the apartment just in time to catch the end of Wrong Answer. The room was packed. People were tucked in every corner and crevice of the room. One person sat cross legged on top of the fridge like a human fruit basket, some were crammed against the kitchen counters, others stood on couches and spilled down into the hall by the bedrooms where there was nothing to be seen but the tops of arms that were getting thrown around in the sick dinette pitting that was taking place a few feet ahead. I couldn't see Wrong Answer at all from where I stood so I watched the windows instead, which looked as if they were going to be fallen through at any second.

I was nervous to play. We hadn't played Philly in AGES. Every single time we'd try to put together a Philly show on tour (because our members are scattered all over we only play shows when we're touring) something would happen at the last second and it would fall apart. This is Hardcore '08, two shows in '09, earlier this year... we're cursed. So not only were we playing a show that I was convinced something bad would happen to, and the first show of tour (which are notorious for having things go wrong), but I was also sick and on day 2 of antibiotics aaaaand we were playing in front of friends, which is weird. I'd rather play in front of a thousand strangers than a small room full of people I know.

Familiar faces all around, we started to play. I put the mic to my mouth to sing my first line, a line where there is no music, just my voice... and as the words came out realized that my mic was off. Ughhh. Throughout our entire set my mic turned on and off, and at one point stopped working entirely and had to get switched out. Were it a room full of strangers, I'd have laughed it off, but there in a room full of kids I knew... man. Burning shame.

After our set I slipped around the corner of the apartment and into my usual post-playing bad mood (where for about 5 minutes I'm convinced we've played terribly and dwell on every minute fuckup in our set), and sitting on the curb, threw up. Dave sold shirts and records out of the back of the van to people who didn't think we played terribly and after a few minutes I came around. It was sweet meeting kids who I've seen around and having the usual hours of coretalk and gossip that only hardcore kids can or would ever waste the time having. Eventually we went back to our house to catch a few hours of sleep before our matinee in NYC.

JERSEYS!

2011-06-25T00:10:00.000-07:00

You can now support us in comfort. Softest jerseys (/nightgowns) ever.We'll have these on tour (up to 2x) and when we get home we'll put them up on the webstore.

THREADS OUT TODAY!

2011-06-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

Threads is officially out today! If you pre-ordered, you should be getting in today/tomorrow (unless you're overseas), if you didn't pre-order FEAR NOT you can pick up our new tunage in a multitude of ways.

1. From Dead Truth Recordings
2. From Revhq
3. From itunes

Lyrics for Threads are now up on this here blog, as well as our tour dates (tour starts FRIDAY!) Please come out and support!

Hintrizons

2011-06-15T20:44:00.000-07:00

We have some new things coming up on our horizon... here's a hint:

PRE-ORDERS END TONIGHT!

2011-06-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

Hey! Pre-orders end tonight at midnight (east coast time), so if you've been holding off on ordering I'd stop holding and click below:

PRE-ORDER HERE

They ship on 6/17 (next Friday.) Unless you're us, then... well, I'll tell you in pictures. I came from work to this:

And yelled, "Holy shit, living proof that the word 'fragile' is completely useless on a package, even when you upgrade the message from a stamp to sticker!"

But our records made it safely. And they look so fucking rad.

You know, it's always cool to have your music recorded, cooler still when it gets put out by a label (which means someone other than you gives a shit about it), cooler yet when it's on vinyl (for obvious reasons), but what's been the coolest of all for me on this record is being involved first-hand (or both hand...ed actually) in the packaging and design, because it's something I've never done. The layout I made on my bedroom floor with a glue stick, some paint, and typewriter came to us all slick and professional, having totally lost its flaking-off-the-paper-that's-textured-like-the-face-of-the-moon-from-all-that-thick-ass-paint look it had when I originally did it. Wild. I hope you all like it.

In other news, our tour starts soon. We've been practicin', learning a new cover to keep in our cover arsenal, getting our sharpies in order so we can hit the road. See you there y'all!

(at practice:)

XXX

SUMMER TOUR 2011

2011-05-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

KINGDOM MIDWESTERN/SOUTHERN TOUR '11

6/24 - 7/15

All details are HERE

check back for constant updates

PS- Earth Crisis shouted us out... NO BIG DEAL!

THREADS PRE-ORDERS UP!

2011-04-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

PRE-ORDER THREADS HERE!

Get Threads the second it comes out, get it on limited colored vinyl (quantities/colors: 150 half black/half white, 350 white, 500 black), get a limited shirt (only being sold with pre orders!) that I drew with my own two hands, stickers, buttons, and other stuff. There are a few packages, check em out!

PRE-ORDER THREADS!

And since you can't see the shirt design well on the ad, here's a shot of the shirt design before it was scanned:

Day 8, Summerville, SC

2011-04-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

A good show is not judged by the amount of people in attendance, nor by the merch sales tallied at the end of the night. Nay my friends, nay. A good show is judged by not but two things: the spillage of blood and the flippage of tables. An outsider might view these practices as barbaric (aye, as many an outsider has) but as an outsider one lacks the vantage point from which to look through the force to the subtly guiding it. They see only blood, we know the reckless abandon that drew it. They see only violence, we feel the boiling point the room reaches in the instant before. At a great show we experience fun with rage, humor with pain, fear with fearlessness- a duality of being that to an untrained eye appears to be just senseless clobbering and destruction. But we know better. Thus the test of blood and tables.

In the freezing grips of the deep south, in a small town called Summerville, in the sleepy state of South Carolina, we played on the linoleum floor of a legion hall. A chair whizzed through the air from one side of the room to the other, over and into the crowd of sweating, grimacing, laughing, moshing kids, and my eyes followed it until I caught sight of something truly beautiful: a single table in the back, caved in. I smiled and thought, “This is a good show.”

After, we were given and promptly scarfed vegan chocolate chip cookies by some kids had had driven something like 4 hours to come (!!!), noticed that Ben (who booked the show) and Dustin looked pretty similar, then packed our stuff up in the pouring rain and freezing air (indoor and outdoor- we could see our breath at the merch table) to go to Dennis from Blacklines' gigantic, super plush, mega-house to shower, sleep, eat ramen, and torture his dog with a laser pointer. Thanks to everyone in Summerville, y'all are awesome.

Boise Vegan Interview

2011-04-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

Check out our interview with Boise Vegan!

Peta2 Interview!

2011-03-02T18:54:00.000-08:00

Check out our interview with Peta2!

Day 7, Gainesville, FL

2011-03-01T21:21:00.000-08:00

The summer of 2008 was rough.We were touring Europe for the first time. It was Ben, our original drummer’s last hurrah with us before moving to North Carolina and joining the band Brave Young. He and I had recently patched Kingdom back together with a bassist we’d desperately wanted to replace and a new guitarist who we barely knew and who knew only a handful of our songs. We were out for 3 ½ weeks on foreign soil playing more covers than originals, barely playing our own songs, barely getting along while doing it. It was madness.

As tour progressed the reality of Ben leaving the band started to hit me, that when he was gone it would just be the bassist who told me that he and the guitarist were going to change our sound (“You’re outnumbered!”) and who I butted heads with so often I'm surprised they didn't fuse together, the guitarist I didn’t really know (who while being both talented and cool was also a good friend of the bassist), and me. When Ben and I dreamed up Kingdom years before, we’d had a vision of what we’d be. Could I maintain it without him? Could I maintain it with those two dudes? Or should I call it quits?

The van drove on and things within the band were a mess, things in my personal life were a mess, my friend Julio had tagged along for part of tour and I’d spent it LITERALLY crying on his shoulder... I was a mess. Time was running out for decision making. Julio had offered me an indefinite vacation in Spain at his place to clear my head. The more time I spent with the new (/newish) members the more I felt Ben and my vision slipping away, which truly did make me want to run away to Julio’s. But I loved touring, I loved Kingdom, and only now were we getting to the point where we could really go places and do something. Why let it end when it was just getting good? But, I argued with myself, would it really be good with the company I was keeping? Would it even be Kingdom anymore?

Two days before going back to the States we played in Germany with my friend Paul’s band, Signs of Hope. After the show Paul and I stayed up talking until sunrise. Seated on the hard floor of the venue with our band mates tucked in sleeping bags around us, I spilled everything. About the bassist I despised, our soon-to-be-gone drummer, my love of Kingdom and desire to keep it going even though I was miserable. Clashing desires, conflict, confusion.

Paul told me stories of his own band (of which he was the only original member), and his own problems maintaining a line up. It’s a problem most seriously touring bands share. Near sunrise Paul, in his casual twinkly-eyed way, shrugged my whole dilemma off. He told me to kick out the bassist and if I lost the guitarist with him, whatever! I could just find new people. These guys hadn’t written any music he said, they were not irreplaceable. Keep the band together, find good members... you can do it.

“I can?”

He smiled and twinkled and told me, “Sure!” as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

When we got back to America I did as Paul suggested. I parted ways with the bassist. The guitarist left with him as expected. It was time to start fresh. I would give it one chance. I would call my friend and ask him to join, and if he couldn’t or wouldn’t do it then I would say to hell with the whole thing.

A cell phone rang in a pocket in Boston. The owner answered. I spoke. “Hey Dave... wanna join Kingdom, write a record, and tour the world?”

Dave moved to Philly and took up residence in a spare room in my house. We wrote The Rage That Guides (with Ben's help) in our living room and toured the world. We fell in love after a show in Germany (much to our surprise) and recently celebrated our 2 year anniversary. Now Threads is recorded, and we’re back on the road... and all because of Paul. Without his words of encouragement when I so desperately needed them, Kingdom would have ceased to be, Dave and I would never have ended up together, and fuck knows where we’d all be. Certainly not playing a laser tag/pub under black lights in Gainesville, Florida with Signs of Hope and Nerd Alert.

My teeth glowed milky blue under the lights as I told this story to the crowd in Gainesville. They burst into a spontaneous chant of, “PAUL! PAUL! PAUL!”, who blushed, then, eyes twinkling, grabbed the mic and told the crowd that while he may have helped, I’d done it myself.

We started our next song, Harbinger. As I shouted, “YOU CAN’T BREAK ME”, my voice broke (...talk about irony.) It was an almost comical pubescent style crack and I was embarrassed, but thought of something my friend Jim once said to me which I always went to in times like this, “Who cares? It’s hardcore! Just have fun!”

I leaped across the make-shift glowing neon stage, singing and sweating and fun having, watching the mix of fun-punks and crust punx and leather jacket punks and hardcore kids with and without Xed hands whip ‘round in a frenzy, and caught eyes with Jim. Jim, of Battle! (who we toured with 3 times), Jim of Nerd Alert (who played before us), Jim who I once called before a big fest we were playing, feeling way out of my league and terrified of messing up who'd said to me “Who cares? It’s hardcore! Just have fun!”. And after Harbinger, glowing like a jack-o-lantern, I told the crowd this story, too. What a funny night, I thought.

In life there are rare nights like ours in Gainesville where the past and present and future all collide, where you can look out and draw a clear line from one person to the next to chart the path of your life. These nights are rare and can be rattling, they make you feel loved in one light then old in another. But seeing your influences in the flesh is cool, and I'm not talking the famous people- the singers, the writers, the speakers, the teachers or philosophers, but the normal kids with worn down soles on their shoes who slip wisdom in between jokes and complaints.

And I didn’t get Kingdom back together all myself like Paul said, though I appreciate his sentiment. Kingdom isn't my band. I thought being the only original member would be strange, like it would make the band mine in some weird captain-of-a-sinking-ship sorta way, but realized after Dave and later Pierce and later Pames joined that a band isn't just the people who created it, but also those who carry it forward while honoring its original form. In time, the present of a band usurps the past. A band is not its first few months, or the trial and error periods, but what is left shredding in the end, and it belongs to those who believe in it most strongly. Sure I've been here since the beginning, but in some form or another so was Dave (we toured with his band on our first ever tour in 2006!), and Pierce (who was at our first show, was the first to buy our demo, and the first person to care about us), and Pames (who booked us and, coincidentally, Battle! in a practice space in Richmond many moons ago.) I'm no captain of a wreck, more like a member of a rowing team. We push and pull together.

After the show I lost my voice almost completely, but it seemed fitting. Listening to the very people I was with is what had gotten me there in the first place, so perhaps it was best to keep my ear tuned again. We stayed with Jim, as we always do, and in the morning went out for vegan ice cream with him, James (of Battle!/Nerd Alert), and Signs of Hope. We said our goodbyes to our friends and the warm weather, and got back in the van and left Florida.

Signs of Hope + us

(Florida tree moss)

And since I had no other place to put this, here is the AMAZING Jamaican food we had at Reggae Shack in Gainesville:

(fried sweet plantains, red beans and rice, callaloo)

(fried sweet plantains, red beans and rice, spicy jerked tofu)

(fries, seitan steak burger)

Veganism? Delicious!

Merch!

2011-02-28T21:24:00.000-08:00

xkingdomx.bigcartel.com

We ship internationally!

Day 6, Tampa, FL

2011-02-22T22:06:00.000-08:00

"I’ve never used a prop for an interview before, but..." he said as he bent over and rummaged around in his bag, "...can you tell the story behind..." he pulled something up, something small and blue which I didn’t immediately recognize, "...THIS?!"

He dangled it between us like proof of a dirty deed, his face impassive, tape recorder thrust forward, waiting for my response. And then I realized what it was that he was holding.

I choked on my own surprise, hiccuping laughter, spitting and sputtering, wanting to question and answer, interrogate and explain all at once, but all I managed was a strangled... "OH MY GOD!!!"

Oister, that wily motherfucker.

--

Oister was the theme of our day in Tampa. Talk about one person making a big impression, shit, this guy, all 130 pounds of him, was the talk of the van for days. But in the morning, as we drove, we didn’t even know he existed.

Florida's roads are ripe with little citrus stands. Every 10 minutes we’d pass one, usually a little wooden farmer’s-market like table covered with oranges and grapefruit, sometimes a strange gift shop that resembled the kind of log cabin you’d imagine finding in a swamp- a hodge podge of cheap wood slapped together with dingy windows, decorated with unexpected treasures (treasures?) such as child sized rag dolls. (Nothing says "Florida" like a 4 foot rag doll!) Between the shops were orange groves with short fat trees hung so heavily with oranges that they looked like ornaments put up by overzealous 7 year olds. On the drive to Tampa we were stuck on a toll road and missed all of these strange little stops, but we did stop at a rest stop and... stop. Let me tell you about Pames’ shirt.

In front of the rest stop was a citrus stand captained by a chinless, chicken necked, blond butt-cutted surfer-meets-nascar-fan of about 20 who, as Pames and I walked by, spoke to Pames with a burnout’s deep drawl.

"Yeahhhhh! Ever been to Cali man?"

Pames and I simultaneously followed the dude’s eyes to Pames' shirt which read "Weed, California" over a big pot leaf. Pames replied, smirking, "Naw man."

The dude continued excitedly as if Pames hadn't spoken, "Yeah man, I really wanna go. I’m going to-" he could hardly suppress his glee, "AMSTERDAM later this year." Then he wiggled his eye brows in a ‘know-what-I-mean’ sorta way.

That was our brush with the local culture of whereverthehellwewere, FL. Impressive.

Our show in Tampa was hot and small but fun, as shows in Tampa usually are. We got to play with Axis again which was a huge treat. On the ride to show I read aloud an interview with them in Karim’s zine, Coffin Nail, and our love for them was cemented. Here’s our set from that night:

Oister, whose band VegXAll (a seething political/vegan 2 piece that reminded me of fastcore of years gone by, political clips playing from a sampler and all) opened the show with their first ever performance, asked me if he could interview me for his zine. His zine, Spying On The Scene, had a few issues out which we had already picked up and I agreed. But first came the post-show parking lot hang outs.

I stumbled out of the venue soaked in sweat and out of breath, convinced that we played like shit and I sang like a wheezing bag pipe. I'd say about 3 out of every 5 shows we play I think we've sounded awful. Immediately after the set I become moody (much to my later embarrassment) and have even been banned (by Dave) from talking to band mates because I get so negative. ("We were tight tonight."... "Areyoufuckingkiddingme?!") When people come up to me after we play and say "good job!" I think they're doing it out of sympathy. And I really thought we blew in Tampa. Like, so bad that we shouldn't even be a band. But then I saw the video we took, and thought, "Hey... that sounds good!" and realized that all these years and all these shows we haven't sucked. Huh.

Tom is an old friend of ours and one of the dudes who set up the show. He sang for a band called Gator Bait, runs Significant Records, is a proud father, and a 40 year old straight edge kid. Talk about an impressive hc resume. Last time we played Tampa he brought his daughter, and I, always having my face paints with me on the road (I work as a face painter and one never knows when one may need to become a zebra), painted her up as a leopard. I could wax poetic again about the hardcore community, about growing up and staying true, about family and friendship, about laughter shared... but I shant. Just know that it was a very cool moment during our Straight Edge Revenge cover when our friend Kotu, who had a couple years ago written to me about his disillusionment with hardcore, grabbed the mic, and when Tom sang along with a smile on his face.

(Tom, Dave, Me, Pames, Kotu, Axis, Dustin)

The parking lot slowly emptied and it was time for my interview. Oister and I went around the corner of the building where he pulled out a tape recorder from like, 1985, and a list of questions. It started tame enough, with the usual "What made you go vegan?" type queries, but then came this:

"How do know JP, and what do you think of him?"

A curious question for a zine I thought, but answered. We met him on tour and stayed with him and I think he's a swell guy.

"OK, a couple of weeks ago I was talking to JP about this show and he called your band 'shitty metalcore'. NOW what do you think of him?"

WOAH THERE NOW! After I shouted my disbelief (“He did NOT say that! Really? REALLY?”) and rebuttal to the accusation (where I compared us to all of our influences [which we sound nothing like] while shouting, “Are THEY metalcore?”), he quickly followed the verbal assault (!) with another inquisi-sucker punch.

"I’ve never used a prop for an interview before, but..."

From his bag he pulled a fluffy, blue sponge.

I experienced in the space of about 2 seconds a spectrum of emotions that, were I to explain them by their place on the color scale (and then place that color scale on my cheeks), would start in pink and quickly dive into a deep, burning red. I stammered, “Is it...?!”

“Yes,"

Oister held in his hand the infamous LOOFAH.

"I bought it off ebay. I even have the original packaging, and the photos that came with it.”

The story of the loofah is as follows: On tour in 2009 we stayed with our buddy, Mean Pete. We all took showers in his bathroom, and when it was my turn I took my soap and, disliking using my hands to suds (but finding a sponge on tour to be impractical) saw his fluffy, blue sponge hanging on the shower head. I pulled it down, soaped it up, washed myself, rinsed, hung it back in place, toweled off, and went to sleep. The next morning as we were readying to leave, Pete came screaming into the living room,"WHO USED MY LOOFAH?! WHO USED MY LOOFAH?!" After realizing that Pete meant his fluffy blue sponge, I said, "Oh, I did. Why?"

"I'm a fucking germaphobe! Now I have to throw it out and buy a new one! I can't believe you! Fuck you!"

Pete went on and on and on about the unforgivable and disgusting thing I'd done while we all laughed at his distress. I offered him $.99 to buy a new "loofah" (no one would listen to me on that this sponge was NOT a loofah*) and he refused. Then, in the midst of his cootie fit, I could almost see the light bulb pop on above his head. He said, "Actually... fuck you, come here. You're getting me a new loofah."

Pete grabbed his camera, handed me the fluffy blue sponge, and directed me back to the crime scene (bathroom). "Hold that up and smile." I did. He walked off smirking and said, "I'm listing this shit on ebay. 'Loofah rubbed all over the body of Davin from Kingdom' Some creepy dude is gonna buy this. Fuck you." I barely believed him and cared less than I believed, and we packed into the van and left without a thought about the sponge (though the debate on whether or not it is ok to use another person's sponge raged on.)

A few hours later the texts and phone calls from my friends started rolling in asking me what the hell was going on with my loofah. ("It's a sponge!") By the time we got to our show in Atlanta, unbeknown to us, the "loofah" had swept hardcore and practically everyone but us had seen or heard about the listing. No, we didn't know how big it'd gotten, and we didn't find out until we started playing, until the moment I said, "We're Kingdom from-" and was cut off by people shouting, "LOO-FAH! LOO-FAH! LOO-FAH!"

Pete had posted about the fluffy blue sponge's ebay listing EVERYWHERE. Every message board. Every internet outlet. Everywhere. His description was hilarious and insane, the snarky tongue-in-cheek sales pitch of a bitter germaphobe, and the picture of the product was the one of me, grinning as instructed in his bathroom.

Quickly the bids started, and more texts rolled in as we drove from state to state telling me about it. Misinformation spread. People on the internet started talking shit. "Can you believe that girl Davin is selling her own loofah? She's got such an ego!" and "First Colin of Arabia sells his beard, now Davin from Kingdom is selling her loofah... I hate what hardcore's become." I watched this whole thing unfold in the few minutes I could steal away after shows to check online, laughing at the absurdity yet finding myself growing increasingly angry as people wrote things about how me and my loofah "killed hardcore."

The "loofah" sold for $4 to, as Pete told me, "an unknown person." $4 was not a giant sum, but juuuust enough to be weird.

2 years later, in the lot behind the venue in Tampa, I was meeting, nay, getting interviewed, nay, getting verbally assaulted by that unknown... Oister!

"I bought it so that I could ask you for the story in an interview."

I'm not sure how my stuttering and yelling will translate to text, but I hope it was worth it.

After the interview Oister offered me the sponge back, which I considered (so that I could mail it to Pete) but in the end said, "No, it's yours."

We left the show with a new friend named Nick and went to JP's house. JP the shit talker.

We walked in the door and I didn't even make it to the living room before I saw JP and said, "Did you tell a punk kid that we're a "shitty metalcore band" 2 weeks ago?!" JP, in shock, said, "NO! What?" and I told him the story, and awaited the answer. He almost fell over laughing, and Nick, and Ben (JP's roommate) also doubled over in disbelief, everyone gasping, "Oister said that??!!" JP vehemently denied the entire thing, and and everyone laughing, and everyone telling Oister stories, we ate.

JP had a pizza waiting for us (mushrooms, onions, artichoke hearts, and daiya cheese) which we devoured, then we stayed up well past the point of our eyelid's cooperation, telling our worst ever tour stories- the ones full of crazy people doing things that were at the time terrible, but in the retelling hysterical. In the morning we all went to vegan Vietnamese food (meeting up with other Tampa locals, all of whom almost died hearing the Oister/JP/Loofah story) and talked about our first and most embarrassing screen names (Dustin's Bust-A-Dusta was a fan favorite) and silly hardcore names (like Dave's "Gay Dave".) Then it was back into the van.

*This is a loofah:

This is a fluffy sponge (called a "pouf" to be specific):

Scribbling bibbling

2011-02-18T10:34:00.000-08:00

So a lot people have been asking us where the preorders for THREADS are since we said they'd be up a week after we released the song "Harbinger" and they're still nowhere to be found. Here's the answer, and a sneak peek at the layout:

And while we're talkin' art, here's some Kingdom related art that people have sent us lately. If you have some, send it our way!

This one is by Jake of the band Passengers made for Hoax zine. Here's his explanation, "These are feverfews which symbolize good health, and protection. The mass of them is supposed to represent the community protecting itself."

And here are two digital... caricatures? sent to us by W. Dolle in Germany:

And here are a couple tattoos. The first belongs to Rann from the Philippines, and the second to the guitarist of Shallow Breath.

Day 5, Pembroke Pines, FL

2011-02-14T21:39:00.000-08:00

Mean Pete. He’s a character that’s popped up on here a lot (remember the time he almost got us kicked out of our hotel room for not knowing the difference between a light switch and emergency cord?), we’ve toured with his bands (Remembering Never, Bishop), and his label (Dead Truth Recordings) is putting out our new record. In today’s adventure, Pete had promised to make us chili before the Pembroke Pines show, but we ran out of time to stop by his house. I sent Pete a text asking if he’d bring the chili to the show for us. Pete, our friend. Pete, our label guy. Pete, who knows what it's like to be a hungry band on the road. Pete, who now likes to be called “Peter” and does not use the prefix “Mean”, said this in response:

“I’m not bringing a bunch of bullshit.”

I could practically hear his voice saying it as I read it, and in the the parking lot of The Talent Farm, I actually did. Mean Pete shouted this text verbatim at us when we moaned, “WHERE’S OUR CHILI DUDE?!”, then he went further, pretending to hold a big pot of chili while making an 'I’m an asshole hippie' face.

“I’m not gonna be one of those dudes with FOOD at a SHOW. Fuck you.”

Ahhh, Pete.

The Talent Farm itself is reminiscent of a European venue. The stage is extremely tall, there’s a band room to chill in, the bathroom has toilet paper, and there’s a giant sound booth... but The Talent Farm has one curious and unique quirk: 3 cameras installed in the walls which both stream the band’s set live, and produce DVDs to be given to bands after they play. Ours is sitting in our living room. We’ll rip it and upload it one of these days.

This show was the reason this tour was booked. First off, it was like 80 degrees outside and there were palm trees everywhere. Second, we wanted to see our friends... and this show was like a family reunion. I'll get into them in a minute.

Before our set I became overwhelmed by the fear of toppling off the stage as this had almost happened once on a similarly tall stage in Germany. Derek Zipp, one of my BFF’s on the internet, on my cell phone (top 5 y’all), AND in real life (NBD) sat on the side of the stage and talked me down, and then it was time to play. Our set was fun- the mosh was brought, kids sang along, and I stayed upright. Here, see for yourself:

After we played, lots of people came up to us and thanked us for coming, thanked us for caring about things (never sure what to say to that...thank you for caring that we care about things?), and one dude and I spoke at length about putting DIY ethics back in hardcore, which was fun and refreshing. Sad that it's refreshing though, huh?

In the band room, One To Blame was in make up. Our buddies Daron Marino, Jared Warsh, and Sam Kooby were transforming like beautiful butterflies into... a hippie... a... bat...dude? and a Mexican wrestler. And I’ll tell you, they simply took our breath away.

I will not attempt to describe One To Blame to you, I will simply give you this video from the show:

We poured out of the venue laughing and out of breath, hugging and high fiving and taking pictures. Here's a class of '09 Bishop/Kingdom European tour reunion shot:

Then went to Derek’s to meet Lulz, his rapmetal coatimundi that I’ve heard oh-so much about. I’ve known about Lulz for a long time, but he and I have never met. In my mind Lulz was a squirrel sized, adorable fur ball that hung out on a little hammock and ate bananas. As we walked up Derek's steps it turned out that my mental image was... small scale. Lulz was gigantic. Like a fucking raccoon.. mixed with a monkey. The fact that he hung out in a hammock and ate bananas made him no less terrifying as he ran at us... just minutes after John Warden and Mean Pete had told us that Lulz is prone to attacking and biting people.

I scrambled up Derek's stairs and ran screaming into the house, looking for cover. Lulz, liking my little running game, scampered after me, bucking and leaping around and, if I remember correctly, opening and closing his mouth. I ducked into a laundry nook where I continued to freak out, and I vaguely remember Derek saying, "Well don't scream at him!" in a semi-annoyed voice. I wasn't screaming at Lulz per say, I was just... screaming... like I was going to die, because I kind of thought I was, so I did not stop.

Lulz quickly tired of my hysterics and left to leap around Pames, Dave, and Dustin.

Dustin, braaaaave Dustin, tried to make friends with Lulz. And what did Lulz do? WRAP HIS ARMS AROUND DUSTIN'S LEG AND BITE HIM. He drew blood. (After the initial shock, we all said, "He drew first blood, not fucking me!" and moshed.)

Through this, Dave and Pames were laughing, I was whimpering in the laundry nook, and Derek was saying, "Aw Lulz...", and "Davin, what are you scared? He's not scary!" ("HE DREW FIRST BLOOD! PUT HIM AWAY! I'M SERIOUS!")

Lulz eventually, after doing this weird thing where he put his nose up Derek's nose (... on second thought, I don't even know that Derek dude...), made his way back to his cage where he rattled the bars and looked at us menacingly through the window.

We fell asleep watching It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, which Dave and I (who live in South Philly) had never seen, and we were amazed to see our neighborhood and hang outs all over the show.

We awoke hot... which was weird since it was February 2nd, and made our way over to Mean Pete's for breakfast. Pete had warned us that he lived in the ghetto, which very well could have been true (bad neighborhoods look vastly different from city to city) but struck us as hilarious nonetheless, because the worst thing we saw was an old paper plate stuck in a palm tree. ("Oooh, rough neighborhood!")

Pete made us pancakes and told us how he hated almost every song off our Eulogy Record and thinks we should only play our old 7" and our new 7" live ("But dude I love 'Fire Born'"!"... "Man I hate that fuckin song!") is his signature way of bashing and complimenting, and then John Warden and John Warden's famous dog came stumbling out of bed and joined us. John listened to the conversation for a second then added, "Don't listen to a word he says. If I listened to him I'd never play drums again."

John Warden's dog had been a daily topic on our '09 tour with Bishop. There is a bitter rivalry between John Warden's dog and Mean Pete's dog, both of whom are big, a little scary (Pete's dog bites people she doesn't know, John's dog is a jumpy giant with open bleeding wounds), a rivalry which rages on today, and even as we ate breakfast they talked shit to and about each other's canine companions. In the end we all decided that Lulz was the worst dog/creature on EARTH, and as we all settled into a collective "That creature is going rip Derek's face off some day...", the dog dissing eased down to nothing (heyo!)

(Mean Pete's dog, Dave, John Warden)

We finished our pancakes and talked shit, made fun of each other and everyone we know, and Dave did imitations of the weird moshing that we'd seen in Florida (which had become the instant favorite tour joke.) Mean Pete asked Dave to show him how it was really done, to show him true, hard moshing and refused to let us leave until he did. So John Warden put on Hatebreed, and as we all fell over laughing onto the white tiled floor, Dave brought the br00tal m0sh in the living room. With that, we gracefully bowed out.

Just a day before I’d reflected on Kingdom being the kind of band that found its place in Daytona, but at the Pembroke Pines show I realized that wasn't true. I don't know what our place is. It's not Daytona, it's not Pembroke Pines. We're not from Philly anymore since only 2 of us live in the city, so it's not really Philly either. We're just... a band from the east coast. And our place is... hardcore, which I guess is why most nights feel like reunions and most places feel like home.

On two nights as different and friend-filled as these, I feel I should touch on scene diversity for a sec. People really get their, uh... gender neutral undergarments in a knot about certain types of people/bands and getting along/playing together. (As if we should all be enemies and every scene should be insular. Sounds super fun right?) Hardcore's not just a place for politics or for moral and ethical stands to be made, it's also a place for a bunch of friends in costumes to inspire stupid fun. A community is not just a blueberry muffin from a swell pal, it's also a jaded old shithead of a friend who won't bring you chili... but will put out your record. It's all of it together, all of us together, the costumed, the nervous, the serious, the awkward, the self righteous, the weird moshers, the stands and the stage dives taken, the shit talking, the laugher. The things that set us apart aren't bigger than the things that bring us together.

It's like Diecast once said:

Skinhead or not
Straight edge who cares
Music unite
Because hardcore still lives

Immortal fucking words, amirite?

Thank you South Florida, all our old friends and new, HIVEMIND, ONE TO BLAME, 40 WINTERS (who have a new song! CHECK IT!) for an awesome night... as always. See you real soon. <3

Day 4, Daytona Beach, FL

2011-02-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

Or, “You know you’re not in Philly when...”

We walked into the truck stop where a man wearing a cowboy hat sat with his cowboy booted-feet kicked up on the digital poker game. As he twanged into his cell phone he gave us each a stink-eyed once over. A few steps further in and a man with a thick, red mustache wore a sleeveless denim button up tucked into his stone washed jeans and bought road food from an obese, monroe-pierced, beady eyed cashier who glanced over at us apathetically. This sure ain't home, I thought.

The next stop was at a gas station/truck stop/Japanese restaurant somewhere in Nowhere, GA. Here we ordered the only vegan option, shredded sauteed cabbage with a thick, sweet, sticky teriyaki sauce that was among the most repulsive things I've ever eaten. Pames ate white rice with soy sauce, which in retrospect was a wiser choice. All around us southern folk with thick asses and accents grazed on french fries (made by Japanese people) and stink-eyed us, presumably thinking, they sure ain't home.

If you watched our cat business interview, you’ll have seen the business cards that we were given randomly by a passerby. These were conveniently laminated and hole-punched and have become our tour passes (since we forgot to make them ourselves before we left) and today we started collecting “tour charms” for them.

(front)

(back)

In the process of booking the Daytona show someone had said to me, "Yeah, you're totally a Daytona band." I had positively no idea what that meant. We've played Daytona Beach on every tour, in fact they were one of the first places to give a shit about us back when all we had out was our demo. We love Daytona Beach. What was that person implying?

I looked around the room as we loaded in. There were kids in jerseys and kids in patches. There were zines and my friend Lars (tattoosbylars) and his girlfriend Gab came bearing vegan blueberry muffins. A toddler ran around the room, little earplugs already in place. Daytona Beach has a scene of kids that still see hardcore's connection to punk and community, to creativity and giving a shit, and yeah... if appreciating that kind of scene is what they meant by us being a Daytona Band, then they were right.

Speaking of Daytona bands... ever look at a band and think you know exactly what they're gonna sound like? The first time I saw Arsis I KNEW they were going to be metal. Like, no doubt. So when Axis started setting up and I saw their singer wearing cargo pants, Sauconys, and wooden beads half way up his neck I pegged their sound as "political '96ish" and prepared to get bored (while I loved that sound as it was happening, it's a style of hardcore whose resurrection I don't enjoy.) I was wrong. So wrong.

Axis musically sound a lot like Buried Alive. They are so fucking heavy it's unreal. The singer spoke between songs and explained what they were about, which was coincidentally very similar to what we're about, and we all got very excited because, well... it's hard to find a band with good ideas AND good music.

Right before we set up, our friend JP (who will come up again later), pointed out what appeared to be a tiny turd on the floor. He explained that it had fallen from the toddler's diaper, and a few of us on that side of the room, giggling and grossed out, questioned him until he admitted that it was chocolate. We sealed our lips and waited to see who stepped on it.

Our set made it 3 songs deep before the screaming started. One of the dudes from Axis was shouting at his friend, "DUDE DID YOU SERIOUSLY RUB SHIT ON MY FACE??!", while everyone watched and laughed, and his screaming went on for so long that we ended up talking/playing over him. Our set was fun... video coming soon.

photo by...? tell us if you know!

Outside everyone chatted (meaning: Axis and us going back and forth saying nice things about each other... I think our bands are courting one another), and loaded gear, and eventually I made my way over to Karim- a dude who we were crashing with who was previously unknown to us. I craned my neck up and stared in awe at the stars, which are something that we Philly-folk rarely see.

Karim told me about Daytona Beach's population of bros and small minds and lack of diversity. ("I'm the darkest person in my neighborhood.") You really don't need to leave the country to experience culture shock, I'll tell you that. Philly is a majority black city, but also chocked full of Hispanics, Asians, Indians, and everywhere else-ians. On our block alone there are Thais, Cambodians, Mexicans, Italians, blacks, and us. There's a bodega, a pizzeria, and an Asian market. That's just one little block in a big city. So when we leave this melting pot and find ourselves in places less... melty... it's almost creepy.

Karim quickly inflated a bed, unfolded a sleeper couch, got glasses for water, towels, gave us internet info and directions on how to use his TV... and it became clear that Karim knew a little something about making touring bands comfortable. Dave mentioned this, and Karim said he used to tour manage bands and spent 7 years on the road. "Oh, what bands?"

"Martyr AD, Dead to Fall, Lacuna Coil, The Black Dahlia Murder..."

".. The Black Dahlia Murder? Were you with them when they got the Danzig shopping list as a rider?"

"... how do you know about that? And yes, I was the one who got it...."

This. Is. HUGE!! For those not in the know, here's the Danzig shopping list:

Danzig's shopping list as received as a rider by The Black Dahlia Murder (pic given to us by Between The Buried And Me's merch guy, Chuck, a friend of Karim's, and roommate of Ben, our old drummer, who we were staying with when we recorded our full length in '09... seriously, RANDOM!):

And because we got Karim telling the entire story on video (to be put into a tour video soon), I'll not ruin it now.

We all stayed up late recounting our craziest tour stories. Before we fell asleep, I got 5 text messages from the dude from Axis apologizing for yelling during our set. He explained that he had believed he was truly getting shit rubbed on his face (which is why he was freaking out so severely), and because he had earplugs in he'd had no idea how loud he was being. He apologized and over-explained to the point that it was both funny and charming, especially because we weren't even upset. Manners man, gotta love 'em.

The next day we bid Karim goodbye, and stepped out of his extremely well decorated house into straight up summer. We took some pictures in front of palm trees, rolled down the windows of the van, and drove off into the 85 degree January day.

MERCH STORE'S UP!

2011-02-11T15:06:00.000-08:00

You order stuff here: KANGDUMB MERCH (And yes, we ship internationally.) Better pictures up soon.

(crewneck!)

PS. Here's a video from last week of us playing "Harbinger" in South Carolina!

NYC PICS

2011-02-08T19:47:00.000-08:00

Photos by taken Mike Howard

2/6/11 @ The Party Xpo in Brooklyn, NY

Day 3, Atlanta, Georgia

2011-02-04T23:25:00.000-08:00

Long ass drives are what happen when you want to cover a lot of ground on tour but can't get a lot of time off work. This was the first in a few long drives. We rolled out of the warehouse parking lot at about 8:30 AM. Pames, Dustin (our fill in drummer- he also played with us on the Bishop Euro tour), and I crashed out immediately while Dave drove. After a few hours we came into the reason we headed south on this tour... warm ass weather.

When we left Philly we could barely make it down our street without sliding into parked cars. The snow was more than knee deep and most areas hadn't been plowed. As I packed my suitcase I stared at a pair of shorts in my drawer for awhile then thought, "Nahhhh, there's no way that it's possible to wear shorts anywhere right now." I did however pack 2 winter hats, a scarf, and a lot of layers... like an idiot. GEORGIA. FLORIDA. DUH.

Speaking of packing, check out Dustin's suitcase. Have you ever seen anything this fucking organized?

At a North Carolinian gas station we watched mulleted children punch magazines (?) while their mustachioed fathers bought ciggs and we perused the oddities ("BIG AZ Burritos" and other cleverly named foods) that southern travel stops offer. Dave was chastised for taking a picture of a note on the women's bathroom door which read, "Never men. No!" by a man who yelled, "NEVER MEN! NO!" which led us to believe that he was the mastermind behind the signage.

This stop also marked a milestone in tour- the first gas station ramen. Let me explain, for vegans not in the know or those who think veganism on the road is sooooo harrrrrrd and soooo expeeeensive.

I send this section of this blog entry out to Pierce. No wait, I'll do this proper. THIS IS FOR MY BOY PIERCE, HE'S BEEN HOLDIN DOWN TOUR RAMEN SINCE DAY 1!

TOUR RAMEN:

1 pack of Top Ramen Oriental Flavor (the only vegan flave) available anywhere for about .$.25
1 coffee cup (16+ oz- these are sometimes free, sometime cost around .$25
hot water from the tea tap

Instructions:

Break ramen into chunks while still in package. Dump into cup. Fill cup with hot water to top. Pop a lid on the sucker. Wait 3-5 minutes, then drain in the parking lot. Stir in seasoning. Savor the salty, MSG-laden taste of tour. Sure it's not healthy, but what road food is?

The sun fell and Pames told ghost hunting stories, the spookiest taking place at Witch's Pond in Stafford, VA (rumored to be one of the most haunted towns in Virginia.) Back during the witch-trial days, women who had been accused of witch craft were brought to this pond to either sink (and die human) or float (and get killed for being a witch.) Pames has been multiple times at "the witching hour" (3 AM) and heard, as many claimed to have before, splashing (in still water) and screams (when no one was there.)

It's time I tell you about our van. We rented a cargo van... you know, one of those windowless, creepy molester-style jawns. What's great about renting a van is that you never have to worry about it breaking down, blowing your loot on repairs, or premature ejaculation from tour due to van drivile dysfunctions because if your van shits out, you get a new one. They're clean and good on gas, and guaranteed to get you where you need to go. On our last tour we spent 6 weeks in rented comfort, but when Dave went to pick up the van this time it wasn't quite like before. Oh no, no inconspicuous roomy white van for us this time. Nope, we got a neon yellow van with a fucking CAGE behind the front two seats. Pames and Dustin sit behind the grate in semi-darkness like kidnapping victims, or stray dogs, or tool boxes. We pass food between the holes. In order to see where we're going they have to get on their knees and grip the grate. Pames actually has cuts on his hands from gripping the grate so often.

It was dark when we pulled up to Luna Nueva. Luna Nueva is a Mexican restaurant that allows hardcore shows but continues to serve locals food while they happen, which leads to both a painfully awkward and hilarious environment. Kids there told me about Backtrack playing while families were seated and eating empanadas at tables just a few feet from moshers.

(a fountain directly behind where people stand during shows)

As I walked around and checked out the venuraunt kids came up to me and said things like, "I'm so excited to see you!" and "So glad you made it!" and "Thanks so much for coming to Atlanta!", which after bombing in Richmond was good to hear.

The opening band featured some young kids, one of who's sister came to check them out. She seemed about my age. We chatted as the band played and it was strange to share so much and little with someone at the same time. She was a snappily dressed young professional. I was black-clad punk rocker. "So like, what night is this? Do they do things like this often here?" I explained that the show was set up because my band came all the way from Philly to play it, which as I said it and looked around at the people eating corn chips, seemed really bizarre. We came to Atlanta to play this Mexican restaurant.

My friend Josh showed up and we talked at length about the sad state of hardcore and the idiocy of the newer kids, which is an often had, pointless, and frustrating conversation that pops up a lot with those of us over 25. We miss the hardcore we remember, we resent the kids now for not giving a shit, and grumble to each other about this trend or that phase. Deathbed started playing and, as if echoing our memories of shows from '95-'00, played vintage hardcore- 90-'s alive, rockin' Earth Crisis gear and all.

Pames and I sat behind the merch table to watch the next band, which sounded a lot like Modern Life Is War and said about their new record, "It's a split with an avant garde version of ourselves" and mentioned something about playing glockenspiels.

Our set was fun. After we finished playing I plopped down on edge of the stage to cool off and a couple of kids came over and talked with me. A dude and I were talking about Philly's hardcore scene when a girl approached and started talking at me rapid-fire, almost frantically about how great she thought we were and in the same breath, about how she was raped and how hearing it talked about on stage, openly and publicly, was fantastic. It was so much at once, so flattering and personal, I didn't really know how to react. Unable to think of anything else to say, I thanked her. She left, and the dude next to me and I resumed our hxc chit chat as if nothing has happened.

After the show this happened:

Then we hung with Josh and had a new conversation about hardcore. This time it wasn't about what we hated, but what we loved. Not the sell out reunions and the asshole new jacks, but bands likes Earth Crisis who stand behind their words and music and friends who are still doing cool bands and keeping real hardcore alive. Not the people who take advantage of hardcore, but those who move it forward.

We crashed with a dude from Deathbed, watched a strange Paulie Shore movie, and got some much needed sleep.

Day 2, Richmond, VA

2011-02-02T00:23:00.000-08:00

Harrison St for vegan eats (biscuits and gravy, tofu steak, BBQ tofu). Village Cafe for coffee. Vinyl Conflict for records (Tragedy).

How best to describe our set at the show in Richmond... let's see.

We had the biggest pit of any band... but no one was in it. They were probably expecting something huge to happen because we're so crushingly heavy and made space to accommodate, and out of dead fear of the impending mosh they stayed far, far away from us. Yeahhh... that's what it was.

The show was at the Warehouse and was with Mindset (Bmore), Deadbeat (Richmond), Break Away (Richmond), and Turnstile (Bmore). I checked out Break Away before we left for tour, and as I told them after the show, I felt like I needed to X up to even listen to them in my room. Break Away is bringin' hate edge back. Turnstile (who share members with TUI) got the biggest reaction of the night, which was surprising considering it was their second show ever. The wonders of the internet! I feel like when you watch Mindset all you can think is, "This is a hardcore band." They're like, exactly what a hardcore band is. You could time capsule Mindset and when someone found them 1,000 years from now they'd be like, "Ahhh, I get it."

The sound was really wack for our set (I actually thought the bass amp was off the whole time) and the crowd was pretty chilly. A few kids were into it though which made it more than worth it. Not every show can be Frederick, not every kid likes our style, or our politics, or our members. What can ya do?

After the show we hung in the warehouse kitchen with friends (which seems to be the usual night time activity) and told fight stories of hardcore yesteryear ("And then he pulled a knife...", "And we had pipes and shit...", "And they broke both his arms...", etc, etc), Lee told of about how, in his own personal hell, Ryan Braces (of Bracewar) is screaming at him to mosh harder and harder but no matter how hard he moshes it's never hard enough and he spends eternity trying to "RESPECT NOTHING!", then eventually went into Mac's room, pulled out his jiujitsu mats to sleep on, then stayed up until 4 going over every reason people give for not being vegan and refuting it, which was a fun though pointless (since we were all vegan) activity. (Interested in veganism? Click here.)

TOUR KICKOFF, Frederick, MD

2011-01-31T21:29:00.000-08:00

When we were sorting details for this show, I asked Jeff, the promoter (and Passengers drummer), a few things about the scene there (like if there was one), the likelyhood of kids showing up, and a key question about the venue... which was a living room.

"Is it uh, big enough where people could um.. 'move around'... if they were so inclined?"
"... kind of?"

--

In the mayhem of the moment I didn't even see the foot coming to my face. Two dudes cartwheeled in opposite directions, straight slumping people out (I say slumping because there was no room for them to fall down so they just kinda... slumped.) A dude dropped from... outer space? and crawled across the room, falling nearly on top of Pames, who, along with Dave, had been knocked out of tune over and over and unplugged repeatedly. A circle pit erupted. Faces around me screamed along, laughed, or grimaced in mid-mosh exertion. Pames flew into the bass cab over and over. Dave got knocked into the cymbal stands, his amp, and me... and I, well I stood basically ON the drums, shoving people away so they didn't knock us all to the point where we'd fall into a heap like a bunch of jenga pieces. A boot flew through the air and kicked me in square in the face. Between words I wiped under my nose in case there was blood. I was soaked in sweat and in the darkness couldn't tell, and didn't care anyway, and as holes got punched in the walls and the humidity suffocated and the kids raged and maybe I bled or maybe didn't, I smiled.

It had been a year and half TO THE DAY since we'd played our last show. A lot can change in a year and a half (both in hardcore and in a person's life) and I wasn't sure how I would feel being on tour again or what hardcore would look like (outside of Philly, where hardcore is solidly awesome and unaffected by trends and bullshit, thus reflecting very little on the hardcore scene at large.) When hardcore kids reach a certain age it seems that they start to see life from eyes that dull the shine of what's around them. They lose their ability to get excited, to be inspired, to be amazed. They've seen too much. They've been disappointed too many times. They don't care for whatever reason. It's something more than jaded, it's something so dead and cold that it scares the shit out of me. And it made me wonder... on tour, a year and half older, out of my magical little city where hardcore dwells eternal, do I still believe?

I do. Shows like this one remind me of why, no matter how old I get, I will always be a hardcore kid. I believe because the kids at this show believe, and together we take our faith in hardcore and make it something real. Debelia Debelia (a local band) played a reunion and covered Hatebreed, then Passengers (also local) played and we all watched with our jaws dropped to the fucking floor (if you like heavy metallic hardcore give them a listen), then Refiner (from NoVA) played and covered Tom Petty (!!!), and in the end we all ate (the kids, the bands, the residents of the house- including the dogs) and hung out for hours. Everyone slowly filtered out, and one of the last kids to leave handed me something and said, "From Frederick."

We're framing them.

We layed out our sleeping bags where we had just played and stayed up giggling and telling stories until 4 am. At 9, we were awakened by Alissa (resident and Passengers member) and her girlfriend making us breakfast.

We chatted about the local homeless population (which Alissa works with) and watched King Tut (one of the resident dogs) beg for homefries by LITERALLY putting his paws together in a beg-like gesture, and finally, slowly, left for Richmond.

Thank you Frederick, for a top 10 best ever show, and for reminding us all how fucking awesome hardcore can be.

COME TO THIS!

2011-01-23T22:43:00.000-08:00

NEW TUNEAGE!

2011-01-17T10:09:00.000-08:00

It's here! The mastered record! Here's the opening track off "Threads", which will coming out soon on Dead Truth Recordings. (Pre orders coming later this week.) Move all breakables out of the way...

We're moving off myspace soon and over to bandcamp, check out our kewl bandcamp page.

And here is a video where Davin explains a bit about "Threads" and the story behind the song "Harbinger".

HARBINGER:

You can't break me
Against my throat a persuasive blade
Talks me under a man without a face
As I inhale with the first pang of pain
The girl I was a breath ago slips away
When I stand the world's a battlefield
Though I know now it always was
Where so many share his silhouette
So many cower under his threat
We, the 51%... but I am who one less
I'm a living message
A promise of vengeance
Oh how surprised he'll be to find he's made a warrior of me!
The shake of my virgin thighs rings out through time like a war cry calling
Calling: make them suffer
Make them plead
Erase them to the memory
Oracle eyes
I see through sites
And I've become your destiny
HARBINGER
I laugh when he approaches, yeah he misinterprets me
He sees a smile as my lips curl into a sneer (teeth bared)
And a sparkle in my eyes as I strike the flint (fuse lit)
He's not afraid but I'll teach him fear
He's not ashamed but I'll make him revere it
Let try to rally his boys, yeah bring 'em right to me
The sun rounds the earth again and again
I've spent my years swingin' at faceless men
My victory may be a bitter one
But all will know this one thing when I am done:

You can't break me

SHOWS

2011-01-09T20:38:00.000-08:00

Since Facebook blows for bands and Myspace is the worst thing currently on the internet, we are now posting all our most current show info here on the blog. See that tab up top that says "UPCOMING SHOWS"? Click on it and you will enter a world of details, a place positively ripe with information regarding all of our upcoming performances.

We leave in just a couple weeks! Get all the pertinent data on our shows as they relate to your location on the above tab, then come hang out.

XXX

DEAD TRUTH RECORDS!

2010-12-31T11:57:00.000-08:00

From deadtruthrecordings.com:

"Dead Truth Recordings is tremendously pleased to announce that we will be releasing “Threads”, the latest 7″ ep from Philadelphia’s Kingdom. The 4 song ep, recorded by Mike Reaves (Swamp Thing, Fire & Ice, Bracewar), will unleash their best (and coincidentally heaviest) songs to date.

Kingdom has released 2 eps, a full length on Eulogy Recordings, has toured the U.S. extensively and toured Europe more than most Euro bands. Kingdom has an un-matched work ethic and is completely dedicated to what they strive for.

This ep proves Kingdom is still pissed, still punk and even more relevant than ever. “Threads” sounds like the revolutionary counterpart of Crowbar, Madball, and Hatebreed in a bar fight. This record packs a proper kick in the ass this scene needs and deserves.

Kingdom proves the vegan straightedge is still strong on the eastern front."

Head Check interview

2010-12-24T09:45:00.000-08:00

Wanna hear a bit about our new record? Or read the thrilling stories of Dave and Davin's very first hardcore shows? Then click HERE.

Wow

2010-12-16T23:20:00.000-08:00

I was just going through some photos and stumbled across this. This has to been the cheesiest live shot of us EVER. Pretend you've never heard us then look at this picture. Are you thinking tofu eating/Hatebreed worshiping hardcore, or dragon slaying/devil worshiping metal? I'm goin' with the latter...

UNITE MY FELLOW VIKINGS

Studio Stories, the final chapter

2010-12-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

10-31-10

You can keep hardcore out of punk, but you can never keep punk out of hardcore. I guess that's why we found ourselves back at Elwood Thompson's, elbow-deep in $3.50 garlic filled vegan calzones.

We were being chauffeured by our friend Mac (of Litmus Test zine, macxvx.blogspot, and moshing for us on stage in the UK fame) in Squeaks' car. And on Squeak's car... well, story goes that she just showed up with it one day with no real explanation.

Yessiree, she showed up with an airbrushed Beetle featuring a palm tree, a sunset, and on the front, a mud-flap style git-r-done boobie lady. And this was our ride to the studio (garage.)

In the studirage, there a was feeling of determination in the air. It was our last day to record. James was out of town, so it was just Dave, Mike, and myself. We got right to work- Mike at the computer, Dave video taping me screaming into the otherwise silent room.

As we recorded I tried to imagine all the places each song would go, who they would go to, what they would mean to the people who'd hear them. We'd play those songs in Georgia, and Texas, and Vermont. We'd play them in Russia, and Argentina, and England. A 38 year old dude in Nevada would order the record, a 16 year old kid from Virginia would, too.

I've been astounded and amazed by the impact some of our songs have had on people- the countless kids who've told us that "Bathory" inspired them to go vegan, the dude who wrote to us saying "The Rage That Guides" made him feel, for the first time since he'd been raped as a child, a whole person unashamed and undefined by his past, the girls who tell us they feel validated by "Pythoness", the folks who have written in with their own stories of police harassment and poverty after hearing "Real Crime", the people who have stopped using drugs because of the songs "9 Lives" or "Broken Teeth". Ex heroine addicts who are EX because of us. New activists for the same. Eyes opening, seeing from different vantage points, understanding another side. All from these few songs. It's humbling.

A lot of people say hardcore can't change anything. I disagree. Hardcore can, and does, change everything.

The sun was down when it was time for gangs. Due to the Halloween cover show happening at the Warehouse, our friends were stuck there getting things ready. We had a real dilemma on our hands. How do you record gangs without a gang? Well, you have a sound wizard named Mike who saves the day. He called some kids (who called some kids) and within a few minutes there we were, boy and girls, from 16 to 28 years old, in costumes and out, circled around the spit guarded mic, yellin'. Matt, Max, Justin, Sean, and Emilee, we can't thank you all enough for coming out!

Things got surreal after gangs were done. First, we sat and listened to the songs all the way through. We had been hearing them only in chunks, instruments pulled apart from each other, in a way that didn't at all resemble what we had written or played. But there they were, our songs, in full. And they were so fucking sick. There were moments where I was like, OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE WE MADE THIS!! AHHHH! IT'S SO AWESOME!!! I'D MOSH! I AM MOSHING! AHHHH!!! and moments where I hopped up and fixed a line here or there (in one song I had forgotten a line entirely...), and when it was over, Mike, Dave, and I made a mad dash for the Warehouse.

It was Halloween. This show was happening,

And we were late. We ran into the Warehouse and Gorilla Biscuits was playing. Saying my hellos as I ran to the front to sing along, through vikings and Star Trek characters, past vampires and demons, my voice raw from hours of recording. Mac and I sang along with the enthusiasm that only vegans can to "Cats and Dogs". I ran upstairs and grabbed my face painting supplies, ditching my other costume entirely (there was no time.) I painted Dave, and myself (apparently doomed to always be a skeleton.)

Minor Threat played a couple songs, then Warzone, then Judge. My favorite part of the night was standing on a table in the back, video taping the absurdity. A plastic ax swinging violently through the air as all around goblins and ghouls either kicked walls or ran for cover. Jugga-Dave tearing it up. On stage, a convincing Mike Judge huffing and puffing under his pillow-stomach. I grinned a skeletal double grin- with teeth for lips and teeth for teeth. I love Halloween, and boy do I love hardcore.

That night, a 16 year old (who shall remain unnamed) got their first tattoo. A straight edge tattoo:

And fuck anyone who says that you don't know who are at 16. I think most people know who they are when they're teenagers, it's only later that they lose sight.

Max picked this up during Judge:

And a close up, juuuust so you can see how truly gross it was:

And here are some post-show shots:

After the show was over we went to Strange Matter in an attempt to catch The Descendants cover band, but missed them and instead saw The Misfits cover band for a few cramped moments. There were so many people in there we could hardly move. People kept yelling at Dave, "Fucking magnets (/face paint), how do they work?!"

We left, grabbing food at Panda Garden one last time:

And as we ate spring rolls and mock beef and broccoli, Dave looked at me with pleading eyes and said, "Davin... can we move to Richmond?"

What will happen? I don't know. I never do. What I do know is that tour dates have been picked, our record is being mixed, and the open road awaits...

"ahhhh!"

2010-11-30T09:27:00.000-08:00

(by David Johansson)

Interview from '09!

2010-11-29T23:46:00.000-08:00

Our interview from Law and Order zine (out of Sweden) from 2009 (while we were on tour with Bishop) was just posted online. Stories on Dave and I becoming straight edge and some really solid writing from the interviewer. Check it out!

Law and Order Kingdom interview

Happy Black Friday

2010-11-26T19:57:00.000-08:00

Same shit, different year.

Black Friday (off The Rage That Guides)

Work today
Cash rules everything around me
And everything around me is empty
But how can we run escapeless seas?
I put one foot in and sink
I put one foot in and think
We're all sunk by the misery of deceit
Check out today
Cash rules everyone around me
And everyone around me is empty
Disinherited of life
Off the plank we dive
To depths so low
To depths so cold
We choose to breathe below the sea
We choose to sink
Our spirit's poverty
Turns to fury
Turns to frenzy
Believe us when we say that today's casualty was an act of love
We sink
We sink
We sink

Video studio update #1

2010-11-22T22:26:00.000-08:00

Studio Stories, part 5

2010-11-21T12:16:00.000-08:00

"I'd now like to quote the great American poet, Jamie Jasta.

'I can justify your suffering, can you justify theirs?'"

Chuckles rippled through the crowd. The guitars, bass, and drums tore into Hatebreed's* song "Filth" and laughter fell into pure fucking chaos. Multicolored confetti flew through the air, so much, and so thick, that I had to wipe my eyes every few seconds to rid them of the build up. Kids punched out ceiling tiles and smashed them on the ground releasing fiberglass into the air and our throats stung and skin itched instantly. People hit walls, did flips, circle pitted, stage dove, crowd punched, beat the stage- it was absolute mosh mayhem. I ran back and forth, partly singing and partly laughing, and then, before I knew what was happening, completely puking.

Big unchewed chunks of stew and soggy bread spewed from me all over some dude's arm. Thankfully, he was looking back at the venue getting destroyed** and missed it. With puke caught in my nose and myself caught in a total gross-out, I thought, "God damn it, I knew I shouldn't eaten before we played!", and skipped to other side of the stage before anyone noticed what'd happened.

It was my tendency to puke while singing that I was thinking about the morning we recorded vocals. How to give myself enough sustenance to make it through the day so I didn't carpet Mike's garage in vomit. Early eating. That was the key. James, Dave, and I woke up and went to Harrison St for (vegan- duh) french toast and biscuits and gravy. Bleary eyed I drank coffee and watched Richmond's cornucopia of sub-culturals filter into the cafe. I was finally getting to make my contribution to the new songs, and while the coffee didn't do much to help me cope with the morning (I see very few mornings), that energized me. I was ready to record.

At Mike's, I grabbed a mug out of his parent's kitchen and microwaved the first of my zillion cups of hot water that day. Warm water helps keep your throat loose (that's what she said), and when you're going to spend 5+ hours screaming, you reaaaaally want to make sure you don't do any damage.

A side note for vocalists: It's very easy to damage your throat while singing for a hardcore band. It's very easy to lose your voice as well, and when you're say, on TOUR, that's mega bogus. So let me share a few tips with you:

1. Always, ALWAYS warm up before you play (shows, practice, records, whatever.) I start by humming up and down scales for a couple of minutes, then I sing scales. Up and down, I belt it out- going as high and as low (and loud) as I can. This warms up the ol' chords, and just like warming up before lifting at the gym, it helps prevent injuries. You'll feel really dumb while you're doing it, but it will save your voice, so suck it up and do it (... and, that's what she said.)

2. Drink room temp/hot water before you play, if possible. (A literal warm up.)

3. Drink as much as possible during playing.

(for more info here's something Greg Bennick wrote on the subject and those zen of screaming dvds that everyone raves about)

We started with the song that was the hardest for me to do. In the new record, I tried some new things- and in that song in particular, I sang. Not like, sang sang, more like screamed in key. More Rancid than Crowbar, if you get what I mean. Anyway, it was challenging.

After that song was finished, Mike and I were in the kitchen getting drinks and he turned to me and gingerly said, "Soooo... Davin, that song took 2 hours to track- I'm not saying that that's bad, it's just... well, if they all take that long..."

I assured him that the rest would go quickly, and they did.

"Yo, lemme do that 'blahp' again, that one wasn't hard enough..."

Recording hardcore is ridiculous. It's especially ridiculous when you're recording "uhhhs" and "yeahhs" and noises that sound like hocking loogies. Let me try to paint this picture for you.

You're standing in the middle of a garage with a dude you only kind of know. In front of you is a mic stand with a giant spit guard/noise dampener which is so... clunky... and stationary... that you kind of feel like you're in Aerosmith. You have gigantic headphones on that block all noise but what comes through them, and what comes through them are your songs, and you have to pretend they're being played live and then scream in that big quiet room, in front of a dude you hardly know, who does not hear what you're hearing- he only hears you yelling. And since you're probably passionate about your subject matter, you're worked up, huffing and puffing, dripping sweat while he's kicked back in his chair drinking a soda. It's a very unnatural environment for hardcore. How do you whip up energy standing in a room with only 1 other person it in, and he's sitting half asleep in a chair? How do you make your songs feel live when they're recorded in bits and pieces over days and days?

But forget that, and imagine that scene again, only instead of shouting your oh-so important words, you're belting out, "BLAHP!" (or "huuuahhh!" or "bwllleaaahhp!") And of course you can't stay still when you do that, so you move a little. In front of the big Aerosmith-y mic stand. And how do you move when you're blahping, Mr. Tyler? Probably like an idiot. I know I do. Robby Red Cheeks' cheeks ain't got shit on those of a vocalist recording grunts.

Despite that, when all is said and done and you've thrown an echo effect here and there, you're glad that you did it. In fact it's the greatest thing you've ever heard. The "blahp" is a fantastic and unexplainable phenomenon, hardcore's version of rock and roll's pointless "la la la"s, existing to serve no purpose other than to please the ear. But why, I wonder, instead of a melodic vocal tune do we prefer a mucousy sounding expectorant cough?

Anyway...

Hours passed and the dudes ate a couple of times, but I didn't. The sun fell and the garage grew dark and I sang empty-bellied. It had all gone well, in fact I wasn't even hungry, theeeeeen at some point in recording song 6, the puking started. But because I hadn't eaten since the early morning I didn't really puke, I frothed. I'd scream a few lines, then my mouth would fill with white froth. Another few, froth. Yelling, frothing. It was gross. But in the name of song 6, I pushed through.

Then, without warning, the room spun around and I saw spots. "Ineedtoeat... right.... nooooowwwwww." Thus ended day 1 of vocals for me.

After some Chinese food Dave recorded his back ups. I laid on the couch, my entire body feeling like it was shutting down. My head spun. My muscles ached. My temples pounded. When Dave and Mike were done, we loaded into the car and, in tired silence, went back to the warehouse and went to sleep.

*Covering Hatebreed is debatably lame. We know this. It's not as unforgivable as covering, say, Guns Up or Down To Nothing (both of which we've seen- and I'm sure you have too- numerous times), but it's still not really all that cool. But you know what it IS? Fun. So much fun. And you know what's lamer than covering Hatebreed? Getting so caught up in what's cool and what's not that you become so self conscious and cautious that you forget how to let loose and have a good time. If what we have in our hearts is what we take to our graves, I sincerely hope I don't take myself too seriously even 6 feet underground. That ain't no way to live or die.

**This venue was getting bulldozed the following day, it's not like we encourage the ruining of show spaces- we don't!

Interviewage

2010-11-18T12:20:00.000-08:00

Check out an interview we did for Postmortem Zine: Postmortem Zine

Studio Stories, part 4

2010-11-16T23:33:00.000-08:00

Ever noticed how punk kids are infatuated with garlic? You know, those new wave peace punks- the ones that run Food Not Bombs and live in collective houses and silk screen bike (or garlic) themed patches? These folks have more garlic tattoos than any other group of people on earth. The bands they listen to have garlic-themed art in their records. Their sub culture and that vegetable have intertwined in my mind so completely that when I'm chopping garlic (aka "upping the garlix") for my dinner I feel almost subversive.

This is relevant, because on day 3 of recording, James, Dave, and I swung by Elwood Thompson's (a local health food store) on our way to the studio (garage) and got something for brunch that was the fucking holy grail of garlic. How we didn't have to beat through a line of hippie punx to get it I don't know. $3.50 each got us calzones stuffed with daiya cheese, mushrooms, spinach, tomato sauce, and WHOLE ROASTED CLOVES OF GARLIC. Like 15 cloves per calzone. Is that even healthy? Can you OD on garlic? And if you do, do you ascend to a place where everyone wears patched pants, giant pots of stew are always simmering, and you're seated, eternally, behind a table of anarchist literature at a never ending crust show?

At the studio Mike had moved things from the garage to a bedroom. We recorded bass while James, always the snoozer, slept on the bed, I hung out on the plushly carpeted floor, and Dave (who recorded bass just for consistency's sake), kicked back in a cozy chair to lay tracks. He played a Fender P-bass and recorded directly (no loud amps like the day before) via a Sans amp.

Bass was done within a few hours, and then it was time to do vocals. Something was off for me and nothing I did sounded good, so we scrapped the day. We went over all the things that could have thrown me, and realized that it was singing in natural light (with was pouring in through the bedroom windows)- something most hardcore vocalists never do. We tried to think of any times we'd even played in sunlight, and only Fluff Fest and Ieper Fest came to mind- and even those were incredibly awkward, but the presence of huge crowd helped offset the weird. In the bedroom, the situation was made weirder by the presence of... well, a bedroom. So we told Mike that we wanted to move back into the garage for vocals, which were set for the next day.

With a half a day still left, we did what we always do- we ate. This time we went to Panda Garden. After eating some mock meat, we spent about an hour filming each other saying rapmetal things like, "No one understands me." and, "My parents kept me in their cage for 15 years!" thinking it would be SO entertaining to show y'all in our video update, which of course it would not be. Don't worry, we'll leave it out of the videos.

At the cash register, I overheard one waiter teaching another to count in Chinese. I asked if she was learning Chinese, she said yes then asked if I was learning Chinese, and I said, "No, but he is!" and pointed to Dave. Dave has been learning Mandarin for the last couple of months (his 5th language of the year- he's been studying Russian, German, Italian, and Portuguese as well) and, upon hearing this the Chinese-speaking waiter grabbed the Chinese-speaking owner of Panda Garden and rushed him to our table, where Dave was thrust into the spotlight of having a conversation in Mandarin with an entire restaurant gawking at him (including me and James.) But he did it. Amazing right?

Back at the warehouse, a Blink 182 cover band was practicing and people were baking goodies. The night wore on in a blur of chatter and snacks, then Fire and Ice started practicing. (Richmond was being very Richmond, as usual.) Then I don't know how it started, but I got my face paints out (I've worked as a professional face painter for the last 5 years) and James was sitting in a chair, face up, waiting to be transformed. Without telling him what he was going to be, I painted him into a koala as everyone stood around giggling madly.

Next up was our friend Brandon (a dragon):

Then Dave (a pig):

Then I ran into the bathroom and painted myself:

(btw- all these faces are copyrighted by Stacey Hogan!)

Fire and Ice finished practicing, and after taking almost an hour of video of us acting like what we were painted as (including Brandon breathing fire), we went downstairs and skated, moshed, and randomly played instruments until 2 in the morning.

Studio Stories, part 3

2010-11-13T10:43:00.000-08:00

In the first Ninja Turtle movie there's a badass warehouse where all the foot soldiers (and their recruits) party. Remember it? Of course you do. Remember the first time you saw it and you wished with all of your might that a place that like that existed, that some day you may find it? Oooh, to skate during school hours. Oooh, to play until sun rise. It was like Never Never Land for punk kids, a slightly seedy and lawless lair where the only thing expected of you was to hang, and hang tough. And despite that you had never seen a place like it the warehouse seemed so possible that, unlike Never Never Land, it stuck with you all these years, you carry a little torch for it in your heart, you still hope, dear readers, however old or young you are, that you will find it. We all do.

Well, consider it found.

In Richmond, some of our old and dear friends made it a reality. There are, however, a few key differences from the food soldier's spot. For one, everyone's straight edge. No smoking behind Mom's back there. For two, everyone's vegan. No pepperoni pizzas getting delivered. And for three, it has hardcore shows. YES!

This is where we stayed while we recorded. Day and night vegan kids (associated and not associated with hardcore) filtered in and out of the little kitchen, doing nothing (so far as we could tell) but baking treats ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT. No matter what time we were there, people littered the hardwood floor munching sugary delights. Someone always in front of the stove, someone always mixing at table. Treats, once out of the oven, were for everyone. It was a vegan diabetes-inducing free for all.

Downstairs, ramps and skate boards await who ever wants to ride. A stage stands in the middle of the floor with gear piled all over and around it, the heart of the giant cement building, wires spilling out like arteries. Bands play, practice, and form right there in the center of it all.

We awoke sprawled out on dumpstered couches, peeked into the kitchen (where various baked items lay on cooling racks), and headed to Strange Matter for some heart-stopping southern breakfast. After chest pains were achieved, we rode out to "the studio" (Mike's parents place) to finish laying the guitar tracks.

Ok, you gotta forgive me here. I am not knowledgeable when it comes to gear. But for those who are, Dave gave me a list of what he used on the record.

"For amps, we used a Sovtek Mig 100 and a Peavey 5150, both through the same Marshall 1960 cab. My guitar is an Epiphone SG with EMG 81/85 pickups. For strings, Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottoms, and picks Dunlop Tortex .88mm.

I didn't pre-write (nor have I ever) the little guitar solos in the songs, since if too much scrutiny went into it, then there wouldn't be any soul or attitude to 'em. Which is also why when we play songs like 33/45 live, the solos vary nightly. It's pretty common practice among blues players, which is more what I am anyway. So, I just let it flow during the recording."

James lay on the hard garage floor, hilariously falling asleep over and over despite the INCREDIBLY LOUD amps blasting the SIQEST SONGZ EVR in his ears, which we took ample video of. I sat outside combing through the lyrics over and over, making sure every word was where it ought to be. Dave sat on a little stool, click track mechanically dinging away over the drums, riffing up a storm.

After all the guitar tracks were laid came the real fun. Pick slides, "noodlies", and solos. Dave (aka Hans Solo) laid the first one down no problem. But the second... well, let's just say we edited over 20 minutes of video footage taken while he attempted to get it juuuust right. The video will do it more justice than my words can (vids coming soon, btw.) When we were all on the brink of hanging ourselves on discarded guitar strings, Dave nailed it. The perfect solo. Fuck yes.

Pick slides were done with a credit card ("I saw Unearth doing this on their DVD!") and when those were done, the Endless Fight of recording guitars reached its Bitter End, (which was actually pretty sweet.)

Back at the warehouse, Naysayer was practicing downstairs, upstairs brownies and various other vegan treatage was being made. We plopped down on the kitchen floor, grabbed a snack, and hung out until the wee hours of the morning.

XXX

Studio stories, Part 2

2010-11-11T08:52:00.000-08:00

Richmond, Virginia. A city so overrun by hardcore and punk kids you start to wonder if there's anyone else there. You look one way, a slew of hardcore kids whiz by on bikes. Look another, a crew on mopeds. Girls with teased hair pinned in creative piles on their heads walk by laughing. In a diner window, every booth seems to be occupied by people with hand tattoos. Crusties with sleeveless black shirts and facial piercings hang on the corner and as you pass them you hear the word "solidarity" used in casual conversation. You start to wonder if anyone in the city DOESN'T own a Naysayer shirt. Richmond contains subcultural worlds within worlds, and it is truly amazing to witness... especially over vegan brunch- a breakfast burrito to be specific, which is where our story starts.

Recording Journal, Part 2

Dave, James, and I sat at a booth downstairs in Harrison St. Coffee Shop trying to wake ourselves up so that we could finish recording the best record ever. I absentmindedly chewed my tofu as countless "fun punks" with flop-hawks, Lifetime/Kid Dynamite kids with freshly cut hair, dudes with shaggy black swoops, and what appeared to be a hardcore band (if I had to guess) came in the door. Remarkable. As vegan biscuits and gravy and french toasts hit the tables of the people around us, I realized that there's no place I feel more IN step with the world than in Richmond.

At Mike's place (Mike Reaves of the pop sensation known as Swamp Thing- also the dude who is recording us) we got right to work. It should be mentioned that Mike records in his parent's garage. And yes, we traveled to record in a garage. But before you judge that, let it be known that his garage recordings come out better than most studio recordings. A wise dude once said to me, "You can throw a coat of varnish on shit, but it won't make it better, it will just make it varnished shit."- it's the same with sound engineers. You can throw a talentless dude in a studio, but all you're gonna have is a talentless dude in a studio. Put a sound wizard like Mike in a garage, and shit's bound to get magical.

So, anyway. We put the amp and cab in the laundry room (yup), adjusted mics and levels, then and Dave and Mike laid a few 1st guitar tracks in the garage as bicycles and lawn tools hung next to their heads. We cut the day short due to some computer issues, which was fine for several reasons.

#1. VINYL CONFLICT. This is an all punk/hardcore record shop run by Brandon from Government Warning/ No Way Out Records

#2. Harrison St Coffee Shop, again. This time for tempeh artichoke subs, faux-tuna sandwiches, and tempeh ruebens.

#3. A Strike Anywhere show (all in walking distance from #2, and #1.)

Seriously. How much better can a day get? At the Strike Anywhere show we ran into members of DTN, and I got to thinking... how much more Richmond can a day get?

I don't follow any religion- in fact I don't even believe in God- but I do have have faith in, draw inspiration from, and seek guidance within certain things. Hardcore is one of them. And while most bands offer nothing in the way of substance, sincerity, or authenticity, Strike Anywhere offers all 3. Seeing them is almost a religious observance for me. It's like this:

You know when you're at a show and there are those moments that are indescribable to anyone who hasn't experienced them, where the only thing that matters to you in the whole entire world is being a hardcore kid? The feeling of sharing an outlook with a band or the people around you where you actually start to believe that the whole world is with you? When you love a band so much that you dance unselfconsciously, that you scream along without caring how stupid your voice may sound, where you jump on people's heads even if they're like 13 years old and you weigh WAY too much to be doing that, where if you get hit you don't even feel it? A renewal of faith for the faithless, a rebirth (of hardcore pride), going from a chorus of disapproval to a chorus of one? That's how I feel when I see Strike Anywhere.

Thomas, the vocalist, talked about the hc/punk community, the friendships forged over years, the sense of coming together, as he always does. I could literally feel myself filling with what can only be described as "good vibes", and I decided I was going to-that I had to- hold onto that feeling, that moment, and put it into our record. It would pour through me onto our tracks. The sound of unity, community, punk rock... but... well, here's what happened:

Strike Anywhere started playing and the crowd- a mix of punk and hardcore, bro and sorority girl, goth and fuckknowswhatelse, surged forward. This is not my favorite thing but when you're at a show like that you've got to expect it. 7 rows of people squished together, smashing the front row breathlessly against the stage, leaving everyone else trying to not penetrate each other, but everyone, no matter what their situation, was singing along. In the spirit of good vibes, I threw my arm around the person next to me and we screamed every word together, smiling.

There had been a girl at the front of the show all night. She was, from what I could gather, a Hot Topic mall type who wanted more personal space than the front of a show allows. She seemed outraged by anyone who so much as brushed against her, and spent her night throwing elbows into those who did (which was everyone- it was a sold out show.) Throughout the course of the evening I found myself beside or behind her at times and caught countless jabs to the ribs, but it was alright. Strike Anywhere was playing and I had hymns to scream toward the stage with my brothers and my sisters. Peace and love man, peace and love.

But guess what? When the crowd ran forward as I just mentioned, and I threw one arm around a kindred spirit and the other toward the mic, my sides were left open for hits, and who just happened to be trapped in the human wall beside me, freaking the fuck out? Elbows.

The crowd rocked and swayed, pushing me into her, which resulted in numerous panicky hits to my ribs. Very quickly this became very annoying. I was unable to get away or nearer to tell her to stop, and she was freakin' relentless. The crowd went to the left. Bam! The crowd moved forward. Bam! I breathed her air. Bam! She was an animal. Desperate, I grabbed her arm and gave it a light squeeze, shooting a pleading, "please stop hitting me, look around at where you are, there is no way for me to get out of your personal space" look, but she went wild before she saw me. My touch sent her flapping her arm like an injured bird, trying to thrash me off. Which she did. Then she planted her wing into my side, hard.

It was getting absurd. I could not understand why someone who obviously required so much personal space would choose to be where she was- the only place with less personal space would be in a gang bang. Annoyed, I leaned across sweaty arms to tell her to stop, but as I neared her ear she dipped her head away from me. My words were as unwelcome as my touch.

Frustrated, I put my hand on her head to get her attention. I got another elbow. Furious, I reached out quickly and palmed her head like a basketball. She shook me off like a snorting mare. Her elbow flew back again and again like she was trying to start a chainsaw. Still, she hadn't looked at me. Not once. I couldn't handle it. It was Helsinki all over again.

While her bony arm jabbed hatefully at the air a final time, her hatred of being touched transferred to me in a more general way. I hated being at a show with people who were not hardcore kids. I hated the shirtless bro dude who kept yelling "YEAHHHH!", I hated the idiots that shoved everyone forward for no reason whatsoever, I hated the push moshing, I hated this Hot Topic mall girl who was passive aggressively getting really god damn aggressive with me. Fuck a community. My earlobes burned.

I grabbed Elbows by the hair and dragged her head to my mouth, and screamed, "TOUCH ME AGAIN AND I WILL FUCK YOU UP." She stopped struggling and looked over at me. She didn't nod, speak, or throw an elbow. She just sunk back into the crowd.

I realized something about myself at that moment- that while Strike Anywhere may be one of my favorite bands, 100 Demons is another. That while I may catch a good vibe here or there, I lack the ability to hold onto it. "You know who I love? Nobody." No sloppy punk shows, no sharing music with a group of idiots. I am, for good or bad, stuck in the sub-sub-sub-sub culture of straight up hardcore, and no matter how many mohawks or tattoos are present, kids like us are always out of step with the (that) world. It was an indescribable hardcore moment where I understood my faults my limits, my loves and my hates, my disgruntled place in this world within a world. It's a place of no bullshit, a place of accountability, a place of stage dives and crowd punches and hype parts and mosh calls and all sorts of things that are outwardly embarrassing but secretly awesome. A place without push moshing or beer sloshing, a place where good ol' Elbows would be afraid. That's my place. That's what would flow through me onto our tracks.

The show ended and in the company of sane hardcore kids (who had been wise enough to stay out of the thick of idiocy) Dave, James, and I went off in search of vegan chicken nuggets and worn out couches to rest our sweaty heads upon.

Stay tuned for more updates, videos, and other stuff!

XXX

Feetage

2010-11-03T00:10:00.000-07:00

Sweet feet!

(these belong to Alex Torres)

Spokeage

2010-10-09T16:46:00.000-07:00

DOPE!

From Chopper (UK)

PS- We're heading back to Richmond to finish recording Oct 27th - Oct 30.

Thrilling tales from the studio, Part 1

2010-09-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

Outside the grimy 2000 Coach Bus station in DC a well-groomed man with a harmonica serenaded Dave and I with an unskilled rendition of "Birds Suddenly Appear" and, upon seeing Dave's guitar case and finding out we were on our way to Richmond to record with our band, he insisted we trade contact info "because it's all about who you know, you know?" (Look out for the Kingdom/Harmonica guy world tour...) Shortly after he left a tiny Chinese woman ran up and shouted, "Richie-mend! Richie-mend!" and motioned for us to follow her, and since Richie-mend was were we were dragging our out of shape, guitar-toting asses, we boarded the the anxiety-inducing China Town bus.

Recording Journal, PART 1.
Richmond, Virginia

First things first. FOOD. Y'all know you miss hearing about what we eat.

Great news: the old Twisters building on Grace St has shed its skin yet again and burst forth from the chrysalis of "Bagel Czar" to become a junk food hot spot for vegans and t-rexes alike called Strange Matter. They have a sandwich that consists of shredded jackfruit turkey, vegan ham, and 'teese' on French Toast with Syrup. Yeah, not even kidding. So of course, when we weren't in the studio, we took up residence at Strange Matter.

Second things second. Though Pierce is impossible to replace, we do have a new bass player. His name is James Pollard. Or Yames Poyard, if you like. You may know him from such bands as Pistol Bitch, or as a gang-vocalist on such records as The Rage That Guides, by us.

And since we have not had a drummer since Ben, our original drummer, left, our friend Mike Reaves (who plays in a band called Swamp Thing) wrote and is recording with us. In fact, he IS recording us. His recordings are sick. We are stoked.

At the studio, things were tight. James hung out...

And Dave hung out...

and when Mike wasn't pounding away, he hung out...

... and I hung out, too.

Being in a band is cool because of the moments we share together.

After recording, we shared some moments with some friends

And all in all, it was a sucessful trip. Pounds were gained, tracks were laid. More soon...

XXX

Parting with Eulogy Records / recording new tunes

2010-09-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

Oh hey strangers. We have some exciting news!

First, we’ve decided to part ways with Eulogy Records. We feel honored to have been able to put out our last release on Eulogy, but as a band looking to release vinyl it just wasn’t really a good fit.

Second, after a year on hiatus (which we spent getting fat, learning new languages, and relaxing if you were curious), we’re now in the studio recording 6 new songs. We haven't signed to a new label yet but we're hoping to make an announcement on that soon. After the new record comes out we’ll be hitting the road again with a couple of US tours, a South American tour, and a European tour. (Details when we have them!)

We really want to thank Eulogy for all they’ve done for us, and thank all y’all for your support while we’ve been on the road and off. Keep up with us on myspace/blogger/facebook!

XXX KINGDOM

Surprise visit!

2010-06-14T18:38:00.000-07:00

So earlier today I'm upstairs in my room and Dave yells, "Come down, I have a surpise for you!" Low and behold, Pierce is outside our house! We haven't seen Pierce since Ieper Fest last August (a very long time to go without seeing someone after spending almost a year in a van together!) since he lives 10 hours away, however, he had to drive to NJ for work (to deliver rubber bands...) and decided to drop by. We all joked about last year's tour for a few hours, downed some vegan cheesesteaks at Govinda's and cupcakes/brownies from Whole Foods, and then we had to say goodbye again. Best surprise. BEST DUDE!

(Pierce, me, and Dave on South St.)

Kingdom interview on SuperVegan.com!

2010-06-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

Kingdom interview on SuperVegan RIGHT HERE!

NEWS

2010-06-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

So the other day I'm chatting with a friend on facebook (btw, add us!) and he says, "So I heard Kingdom broke up, that's a bummer..."

Now this is surprising to me as we're in the midst of writing a new record that we''ll be recording this summer, working non-stop to save money to record and print shirts and pay rent for the months we're gone on tour (which will be US later this year, and other continents next year- which means we're saving for plane tickets, too.)

"How did you get this gross misinformation?", I ask him. He tells me that a friend of his mentioned it in casual conversation. As in, "Yeah, work sucks, I've been hitting up the gym, and did you hear that Kingdom broke up?"

Then a few days later I'm catching up with a friend on the phone, telling him about our new record and he asks if we're going to tour. I'm like, "duh dude" and he jokes, "Only in Europe though, right?"

So Dave and I get talking about all this and we decide that the average hc kid, my friends included, think of bands in terms of what they've done in the last 6 months. The kid that thought we broke up probably hadn't seen us play for the last 6 months (since our last US tour was last spring), so he just assumed that our band was over. (Seriously, if a band is not playing the pacific northwest every 3 months that's the only logical conclusion you could draw, right?) And then my friend, who's a little more up to date on what we do, knows that 6 months ago we were on tour in Europe, but now in his mind this is the only place we go. Ever. (Makes total sense.)

So to clear things up:

We are not broken up.
We are writing a new record right now. (5 songs are currently written- we'll be putting 4 on a 7")
Our next tour will be this fall in America.
Then (hopefully) South America over the winter.
And sometime in 2011, we'll tour Europe.

ps. The 9 Lives 7" is streamable here if you want to listen to it.

Euro tour update #20, Budapest Hungary

2010-05-31T00:06:00.000-07:00

THIS POST WAS ACCIDENTALLY SAVED IN "DRAFTS"! A bit late (ok, really late) but enjoy...

I woke up as we were parking. "Laundry is there, cafe with wireless is there." Yesssssssss! What a great way to start a day. This was the first time we'd been able to wash our clothes all tour. Socks were on their 3rd, 4th, 5th... 6th? wear, underwear had been turned inside-out then right-side in again, and really our lives at this point had become pretty disgusting to discuss. Fresh and clean (though still unshowered after an overnight drive), we crossed Budapest to Jaki's house.

Jaki (said Yah-kee) runs Dream Long Dead Booking who booked our first European tour (with Anchor) and this tour. For our last tour (with Bishop) we went with a different booking agency (because Jaki was too busy booking other tours), so we brought him along as our "tour manager". Jaki is a usually-stressed out but always hilarious dude that every band in America that has toured Europe knows and loves, due to his bitter, raging wit, Hungarian cursing, explosive temper, choice use of English slang ("Broseph"), and occasional slim grasp of the English language ("Where the fuck you doing going?")

As we approached his door, a very hyper dude with big, curly hair rushed at it, yelling "JAKI LET US INNNN!", then turned grinning at us, asked if we'd been to Europe before, and while we were saying "yes", told us that he hadn't and that we were witnessing his first 15 minutes in Hungary. I literally have never seen a grown person so excited. His smile was contagious. Everyone started giggling. But we had no idea who he was, and before we found out he had disappeared.

Inside, Jaki and his girlfriend Yvette had made a feast for us. Fried eggplant, sauteed soy meat, bread and spreads, cake, pasta salad, rice. We ate until everyone was stumbling around whimpering "I aaaaaaaaaaate too much....." Very little food remained. I sat outside chatting with everyone when a familiar, glowing face reappeared. It was the excited guy! And he was with a bunch of other guys. And they seemed like they were a band. And then I found out they were. They were RECONCILE from Buenos Aires, Argentina. And that food we just gorged ourselves on was also meant for them. Shit. Without complaint they ate what was left over, and we all hung out until show oclock.

At the venue, I was met by another familiar face- my friend Mate. Last time we'd been in Budapest, Mate- a history major in school as well as a total history buff- had given us a historical tour of Budapest. He told us the story behind everything we saw- names, dates, hows, and whys. Unfortunately this time we didn't have time for another tour, but we did have time to shoot the shit for the hours before the show. We talked about the hardcore scene in Europe being in a decline, how less people are coming to shows, how foreign bands are making less money, and how, as far as I'm concerned, that's just fine. It sucks that some American bands see Europe as little more than an over-ripe orchard, and go in just for the harvest. Guarantees can be quite high out here, merch sales astronomical, and due to that bands suddenly stop caring about anything else. So let it shrink. American bands could use a little reality check.

The venue was run by middle aged gangsters (think Sopranos rather than 50 cent) who were at the show, milling around the bar and standing outside in a physically intimidating group of 6 foot 4 inch 200+ lb men with comically dyed (but still scary) facial hair. After some hours of eyeing me from a distance, two of them came over to where I was sitting. One spoke in fast Hungarian at me, and I held up my hands in a defensive "I don't know what you're saying!" and told him I spoke only English. He nodded that he understood. Then he slowly pointed to my legs and gave me a look I couldn't decipher. I shrugged in question. Then he reached down, tugged at my leg hair, mimicked me shrugging, yelled "STUPID!", and walked off laughing at me.

The show itself was alright. Lots of familiar faces, lots of people knowing the words... but it was one of those kind of awkward shows where no one really dances, and people sing along but from wherever they're standing rather than into the mic. Regardless, it was fun.

After the show I felt wiped. I waited until everyone had gone to bed and decided to take a bath. Once I hit the water it was over, I could barely keep my eyes open. But I was more than tired, I had no energy at all. I could hardly wash. My neck felt like it was made of rubber, or that my head had gained 75 pounds. I struggled to keep it up. Out of the tub I noticed, as I talked to Dave, that I was slurring. I fell fast asleep, and drifted back into consciousness hours later when everyone was getting up for breakfast. I laid on the mattress listening to them for awhile before I decided it was time to open my eyes. Ok eyes, we're gonna do this now. Time to see the day. My eyelids pulled apart like two pieces of saran wrap with corn syrup smeared between them. I peered out through slits. I felt like someone had pumped my head full of salt water. I felt sloshy, clouded, puffy. What the fuck? I stumbled over to a mirror. My eyes were almost swollen shut. I pushed my finger against the skin and it felt like touching gak. Um... this is weird... But whatever concern I should have had for my eyes was replaced by a desire to eat pizza.

We had time before the next show to hit up a vegan pizza joint that makes its own cheese (including bacon cheese!), so we piled in the van, some of us with big weird puffy heads (ok, just me), and drove on toward delicious. And my, was it delicious....

(Epilogue: Throughout the day my swelling went down, and by the time we got to Slovakia I was back to normal. I have no idea what caused it.)

Polski and Русский friends- PLEASE CZYTA/читает!

2010-02-28T20:41:00.000-08:00

Nazywam się Davin. I sing for Kingdom. Uczę się polskiego.

Меня зовут Давид. I play guitar! Я изучаю русски язык.

We are looking for people (Polish for Davin, Russian for Dave) who would like to email/skype with us to help us get better at writing/speaking/reading our languages. If you are interested please write to us!

Davin- xdavinx @ gmail . com
Dave- davexhayter @ gmail . com

Old video of demo songs!

2009-12-17T15:14:00.000-08:00

I just stumbled across this on youtube. This is us with our first lineup just a few months after we formed, playing all our demo songs in DC. This is the only way you'll see us play a few of these, it would take more candy than exists to convince me to ever play "Root To Seed" again. Also, this is before the lyrics to "9 Lives" were rewritten. And I totally sound like a munchkin. Anyway, enjoy... or laugh... or both...

NEW SHIRT!

2009-10-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

Eulogy made a new design for us (that you can only order online). It comes in long sleeve and hoody, too. Pick it up!

(click here and go to merch to get it!)
EULOGY RECORDS ONLINE

Expect more updates soon!

2009-10-06T15:24:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

So tour ended. Pierce flew back to Toledo, Ohio right after Ieper Fest. Dave and I went on vacation in Barcelona for a couple weeks, then came back to the states, got a new place in South Philly, then traveled around new England until a few days ago. I got to sleep in my own bed for the first time since June just a few days ago. And do you have any idea how great it feels to shit in your own toilet, at your leisure?!?! (It feels amaaaaazing.)

So now that we're back I will start writing about the 2nd month of the Euro tour, and give you updates about what the band is doing. Here is the news right now:

We're taking the rest of the year off. We're looking for a new bassist and drummer. We're working on songs for a 7" that we hope to record in the next few months. Plans have started for a South American tour early next Spring. We'll be putting up a merch store on our myspace in the next couple weeks.

That's all for now... check back for more soon!

(Zeger from Belgium. Just got this pic the other day... SERIOUS!!)

Pierce is no longer in Kingdom :(

2009-09-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

Pierce (our bassist) has decided to leave the band. We're still all great friends, message boards will be sorry to hear that there was no epic battle or dramatic reason for him to leave, just the usual: needing money, wanting time with his family, etc, etc. No wait. Let's make a rumor about him leaving...

Ok... we were in Macedonia, Dave handed him a roasted corn on the cob, Pierce thought the corn looked kind of phallic and that the manner in which Dave was holding it seemed to be suggesting hand job exchange. Now obviously Pierce reacted- not out of distaste for Dave- but as my friend, since Dave is my boyfriend and was going behind my back, to one of my best friends, seeking an HJ. So Pierce grabbed the corn, threw it in Dave's face (which gave him second degree burns on his cheeks) then ran back to the venue and told me what happened. Dave CLAIMS he was just trying to give Pierce some corn. We're now in couples counseling. I'm trying to be forgiving, but Pierce is old school and doesn't condone that kind of deceitful hanky panky. He finished the Euro tour as a favor to me. His final words to me on tour were "I refuse to be in a band where band members are cheating on band members with other band members, so I can no longer be a band member." I said, "Well said."

Seriously though. Pierce has been with Kingdom in one way or another since our very first show in 2006 (he was one the first to buy our demo!), then he did merch for us on a 2 month long US tour in 2007, then he joined the band in 2008, we wrote and recorded a record together, and traveled around the world. He's one of my best friends, my little big brother, a multi-talented dude who can rap, breakdance, rollerblade, and shred the bass, and he will never not be moshing to Madball.

Kingdom will still go on without him, even though he's going to be awwwwwwwwwwwwwfully hard to replace. Ben (our original drummer) has still not been replaced (we've been touring with fill ins since he left), so we're still looking for a drummer, and now we're also looking for a bassist. If you're interested, vegan, straight edge, and able to get to Philly for practice, and able to tour a lot starting next year- get in touch!

And huge thanks to Pierce, I would give you all the chips in the world if I could.

-Davin

(At Pierce's last show with Kingdom- Ieperfest, Belgium)

Euro tour update #23 Prague, Czech Republic- Fluff after party/ my birthday!

2009-08-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

After Fluff Fest we lounged our way to Prague in our new gigantic van with our friends from Richmond, Hate Edge and Mary. (Dead Vows and their mini-coop went back to Sweden.) We stayed up giggling late into the night and at some point someone realized it was my birthday. I am now 27 years old.

The next morning we went to my "birthday lunch" which was terribly coordinated and no one we invited came (I personally invited all of Fluff Fest during our set. After the set people asked me when and I shrugged. This kind of planning could have something to do with it being a bust.) I got what I had been set on ordering since March when we planned this tour. Vegetable needles with peanut sauce:

Then we walked around Prague:

This was my favorite show of tour. I'm asking Dave right now if it was his favorite as well and he can't decide, but says that it's in his top 3. Pierce is asleep in the loft so I can't ask him. Anyway, point is- this show ruled. It was us, Outrage, Wait in Vain, Reconcile, and a band from Portugal called Together. There were kids from Russia, Finland, Ukraine, and basically everywhere else in attendance. The room was so crowded I couldn't get close to watch the other bands. I played in my birthday dress and felt ridiculous, but that good kind of ridiculous like the kind you feel on Halloween. People laughed with (or at?) me, since I lacked anything to wear with a dress or time or place to do my hair, I paired my beautiful black satin dress with high top tacky-like-Jersey-Shore silver and gold fat-laced Baby Phat canvas sneaks, a plastic cake pin I got at Fluff Fest, and a backwards Wayne's World hat. But really, if any outfit was to sum up my 27 years of life- that would it.

A few words about Kingdom: We're not for everyone. (I think Trapped Under Ice is the only band that can actually stake that claim.) We don't draw huge crowds, we don't sell zillions of shirts, and we probably never will. We're vegan, we're straight edge, we only have 1 breakdown, I sing too fast for most people the learn the words- we're not an easy band. But whatever our appeal (or lack thereof), we're the band we want to be. Being ourselves has grown us accustomed to shows where a small group of people know us really well, the rest look on bobbing their heads. Our sets are rarely filled with Have Heart-style pile ons or Terror-esque mega pits. However, this night was not our average night. Due to Fluff Fest ending the night before and most people's flights leaving Prague the next morning, every kid that liked us in a 6 country radius was at this show.

Our set was amazing. An explosion of dives and sing-a-longs, with no air left to breathe in the humid little venue, and no room to stand anywhere- not even on the stage. At one point during our set I looked out at all the familiar faces from places we've been over the course of this tour and realized that the small group of people that knew us well was not-so-small. And as I watched our old friends, new friends, and those yet unmet all glistening under those green surface-of-the-sun hot stage lights, dancing to melodies written by my dearest friends, and screaming out lyrics I wrote in my tiny pest-infested bedroom... it became clear to me that my life had taken me to the exact point, to the exact place, that I've always wanted to be. And all the things I "sacrificed" to get there? (Going to school, making money, acquiring nice things, etc, etc) I never wanted those things. All I've ever wanted is nights like this one in Prague.

After our set a few kids approached with a chocolate cake that they had baked for me before the show. Out came a lighter and a single candle was lit, and in the company of total strangers, flattered and happy, my laughter blew it out. Then the dudes, some of the kids in the other bands, the kids at the show, and I all devoured the cake in a matter of minutes.

Together had been held up getting to the show and it was assumed they were no longer playing, but during our last song in they came, just in the nick of time. On stage the singer mentioned that it was kinda rad that the opening band playing last, how hardcore seems to have a hierarchy of "headliners" on top and then everyone else below. It was a perfect thing to say, especially as we all lingered in the after-glow of Fluff. This band had only been around for 3 months. This was their first tour. They tore up the stage, and kids tore up the floor. I stood at the back of the pit in my satin dress, smiling. "This next song is a cover..."

They played "New Direction" by Gorilla Biscuits. I have seen this covered one million times. I have seen this covered one hundred times on this tour alone. But the amazing thing about that song is that it never gets old. Dave ran from behind the merch table and I left my quiet observation behind as we charged the stage with everyone else. The band stopped playing and the crowd screamed together, "REBIRTH OF HARDCORE PRIDE!", then the guitars came roaring back in. I forgot that I was on tour, I forgot that my band had played just 15 minutes before- I was another kid at the show, screaming the words we all knew oh-so well, words that were the perfect way to end this evening.

The set ended, people filtered out of the show. Handshakes and hugs, circles of conversation grew smaller and smaller as people left, and eventually it was our turn. Back in the van, Dave spoke in an echo of my own thoughts. He said that during Together's set he had forgotten we were on tour, and felt like he was just another kid at the show, and that it felt great. That was the just kind of night it was. We don't get many of those, and don't think that we ever take them for granted. Thanks Prague.

Euro tour update #22 FLUFF FEST PICTORIAL

2009-08-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

I wish Fluff Fest happened every month and I always had a way to get there. This is a perfect hardcore fest. It's where bands big and small from all over the world play in front of thousands of kids who are actually paying attention. Where as many people watch the opening band as the headlining band. People camp around the fest*, vegan food is available from morning to midnight for 1-3 euros and it's delicious, there are no fights, and after the shows end the merch/small stage tents are turned into karaoke and dance parties.

*Unless they are me. The only thing I wanted for my birthday was a hotel room for Fluff, Dave got it for me, and I enjoyed long, hot showers, toilet paper, a lack of insects, peace and quiet, and a soft bed with space to roll around. It was lovely.

(I only took about 5 photos because I was too busy having fun to grab my camera.)

Rad bands that played:

Ray- Moscow, Russia
Glasses- Germany
To Kill- Italy
Zann- Germany
Death Is Not Glamorous- Norway
Fall Of Efrafa- UK
Reconcile- Argentina
Tesa- Latvia

Euro tour update #21, Bratislava, Slovakia

2009-08-19T16:11:00.000-07:00

The venue, Obluda, was perfect. We arrived mid-day and waddled in, still full of pizza, to two merch tables covered in food for us. Everyone but me was able to pack some more in.

I loved this place. It was the ideal venue for everywhere. We should all have this place. It would be amazing. It was a room that any hardcore or punk band could play... some band of 15 year olds could play their first show here and it would be cool, or Bane could play a record release show and it would be sweet. The room was the perfect size, the benches along the wall were ideal for short people who wanted to be able to see over tall people's heads or headwalkers, the stage was the right size and height, the lighting was flawless, the bar had lots of soda for the straight edge kids, band graffiti covered the walls. I walked slowly around the room, reading notes from my friend's bands.

Dave and I sat outside and made this, and went back in when it was about time to play:

Our set was a lot of fun. A few people knew us, and those that didn't watched us anyway, heads nodding along. After we were done people hung around the merch tables talking to us, saying nice things, telling us about themselves. My friend Martijne from Belgium was very randomly there and I was so excited to see him, since I thought I hadn't seen him since our Bishop tour over the winter.

"Dude what have you been up to in the last 6 months?!?!" He stared at me. "Davin, I saw you a few weeks ago at Pressure Fest. We talked for 10 minutes." What? I scanned my memory. Nope. No way. Didn't happen. "You kept saying how tired you were." I remembered being tired. (See our first entry on this tour to read about our jetlag and how sleepy we were at Pressure Fest.) I apologized, asked him to forgive me, and to start over again since I was now awake and very curious about him, even though, apparently, he had already brought me up to date once. We talked for awhile, joked about Kingdom being zombies at Pressure (practically falling asleep between songs), and then he confessed that a friend of his had gone just to see us that day and said they were "disappointed" and "had expected more" from us. "Aw mannnn tell her to come see us again!"

I noticed that a lot of the kids at the show tucked their shirts into their pants. Bands shirts, wife beaters, boys, and girls. They reminded me of old men in public parks. I also noticed that the men in Slovakia were some of the most old-school traditionally handsome I had ever seen in my life. First, I caught sight of one Clark Kent by a record distro, then saw another by the bar, then I took a slow inventory of all the men in room and realized that I was at a show attended by absolute super-men- young and old, thin and thick. These guys were chiseled, square-jawed, stern eyebrowed, blue-eyed, dimpled-chin super heroes. It was almost eery. (I write this as an observation rather than a way to inter-flirt with an entire country- I am quite in love with my very own handsome American dude.)

After the show we split up with Dead Vows and stayed with a very nice kid at his Grandma's house. He, his Mom, and his Grandma all lived together, but to accommodate us staying there his Mom and Grandma were staying the night with friends. His Grandma had stayed up waiting for us to see if we needed anything- water, tea, extra towels, vegan snacks. She didn't speak a lick of English and mostly motioned and smiled at us. It was so cute. She whipped up some curried squash before she left, even though we had said we weren't hungry. Just goes to show that Grandmas are Grandmas no matter where you go. :)

We stayed up late swapping stories with the dude we stayed with and his friend (really I mean that I told Dave's stories about working as a mover in Philly- being ordered by his boss to stay in someone's house while they were screaming at him to leave, taking people's stuff hostage and driving off with it to get them to pay, getting chased down the road by said people, etc, etc, etc...) and slept deeply in nice, comfy beds.

Day 2- Slovakia

We arrived at the bar to be met by a huge pot of seitan stew that tasted like an all-in-one Thanksgiving. After catching sight of the people congregating in and around the bar we realized we were in for an interesting night. It looked as if a Slovakian Hot Topic had gone from being a store in a mall to being a store attending a show.

As soon as we set up merch, two thin, tall, long-haired metal dudes toddled over each bought one XL black shirt (these were the only shirts we sold all night.) Next to us a Jukebox offered a wide variety of "extreme" music. Dave pumped in some change and out flowed the sweet songs of Biohazard, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, and Fear Factory .... that is, until the hour-long song check started. Got to love the hour-long sound check....

...and love of course I mean hate. There are two things that drive me absolutely insane: sound guys at tiny clubs that take their jobs way too seriously and run around adjusting and readjusting mics for hours, and drummers of opening bands that play blastbeats for 45 minutes before their set. You probably agree that both of these types are annoying, but would argue that it's generally a forgivable offense as these people mean no harm. But imagine encountering these people on a nightly basis for a month and a half straight. While you're being fed dinner. While you're trying to catch up with your friends in your very limited time with them. While you're enjoying a few moments alone in a corner with a book. These people's intentions stop mattering. They are no longer eligible for understanding, acceptance, or forgiveness. You want to snatch all the cables and drumsticks out of their hands and hit them over the head with them. You want to scream, "YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY 'CHECK' INTO EVERY MIC 50 FUCKING TIMES... THEY'RE ON! PUT THEM DOWN!" or, "YOUR DRUMS WORK! STOP PLAYING!" But as much as you'd like to do that, you don't. Nope. You sit behind your merch table and you frown. You exchange tired looks with your bandmates. If you're Dave on this night in Slovakia, you furiously strain your ears, in vain, and eventually give in to the sound check and slump down in your chair, defeated.

While Dave and I grumbled about sound check, Pierce went walking around town. He decided to climb the fire escape of a building (don't ask me why, Pierce is a strange guy.) As he was on his way back down a man stood at the base of the ladder, yelling at him in Slovakian. He was a regular looking dude in normal clothes. Pierce apologized and started to walk back to the venue, when the dude grabbed him and slammed him against a wall. He then, still yelling in Slovakian, dragged Pierce to a room in an indiscreet building where 4 other plain-clothed guys were playing cards. The guy dangled handcuffs in Pierce's face, and flipped him back and forth against the wall, yelling in Slovakian all the while. The dudes sitting down all had guns and handcuffs. Pierce, with no fucking clue what was happening, who these people were, what they were saying, or where he was, gave up his, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have climbed that ladder!" to, "Does anyone speak English?", and when that was a no all around, to, "Um, ok... welll uh... I'm gonna go now..." The guy pointed to the door, and Pierce left.

W. T. F.

Our set was as strange as expected. Push mosh, twirling, and the two blackmetal dudes with one foot on the stage, one arm raised in the "metal" sign, heads twirling in time with our songs. People seemed genuinely into us and we had a ton of fun playing. Like I said before, it ain't home, so I've come to accept whatever is there to greet us when we get on stage. I pumped my fist to the bass drum, Dave added extra squeals, and as I looked out at the sweaty black-clad crowd, I felt like we were Guns N Roses before they got famous.

After the show girls tried to get Pierce to "go for a walk" with them. They also asked for his number. He had to explain over and over that he had a girlfriend and that he lived in America, his phone didn't work in Europe, and they couldn't really call him. In response, they asked him to sign their stomachs.

Back in the van we all laughed about Pierce's bizarre day, shared our final overnight drive with Dead Vows, to our last show with them, and a show we'd been eagerly awaiting- FLUFF FEST!!

Euro tour update #19, Kumanova, Macedonia

2009-08-14T09:15:00.000-07:00

We spent half of the day driving through northern Greece, stopping here and there to pee at gas stations. They were nothing like the gas stations back home. Instead of Taco Bell/KFC combination Shells with a shitter around the back that's out of soap and filled with flies, these were privately owned, landscaped gas-and-snack resorts. Flowers bloomed along stone walkways that lead to huge, wooden doors, where upon entering you were swallowed up by a beautiful wooden room, bathed in sun, with baskets and barrels in every shade of brown and beige. Locally made delights took the place of name brand potato chips. Soft coconut candies. Halva. Huge sheets of baklava sat in oversized tupperwear containers on wooden tables. Buckets of nuts lined the floors. Shelves were filled with stuffed grape leaves, stuffed red peppers, stuffed fried eggplants. A cafe started inside and spilled onto a lush patio. Aging Greeks in loose but stylish clothing talked loudly and drank espresso. This much culture... at a gas station?

Macedonia. Where the hell is that? I knew nothing of Macedonia, had no idea what to expect. I imaged us playing in a perfectly preserved medieval fortress filled with knights and wooden wheeled buggies and probably dragons.

We met the promoter at his house. He was far more hardcore kid than medieval knight, which bode far better for our show than my imagination's Macedonians had. He brought out dinner- roasted potatoes, some kind of wheat-meat (which, btw, is very tasty and very cheap in eastern Europe- like .80 for a bag the size of a box of cereal), and a stew. I made myself a plate and sat on the stone steps beside his house, flowers bending in the breeze next to me, kittens playing at my feet. I took a bite of the wheat meat, and traveled back in time... back to... what was that flavor? I chewed in fog, scanning my memory bank for what I was eating. Ribs! Ribs so soft they're falling off the bone! I looked down at my plate. That was fake, wasn't it? It was stringy like meat. It smelled like meat. It tasted like meat. Oh no... But he kid had said it was vegan. Hmmm. Dave went to find out. "So, this stuff is really good... what's it made of?"

Wheat gluten. It was wheat gluten!!! Holy shit! I couldn't believe it. I scarfed the tender vegan ribs, the "chicken" stew, the roasted potatoes. Shit, this is one of the best meals I've ever had. The day was off to a great start. And it was going to get better.

Kumanovo is an interesting, culturally rich little city. Pierce, Dave, and I all wandered around town and all agreed that it was one of the nicest places we'd been in awhile. Buildings curved around corners, fell and rose with hills and dips, squeezed together so tightly they reminded me of a sandwich with too many things inside, like at any moment a building could pop right out of the ground and shoot up like a rocket (or like a pepper out of a Govinda's cheesesteak.) Old was crammed next to new, things distinctly Macedonian were smooshed in with things western. For example: next to the bright, modern venue teeming with punk rock kids was a blacksmith. Like literally, a single middle aged man with blackened hands in a sooty room with no floor, nails and axes and sickles that he had made hanging around him, and in the center of it all, an anvil. Then next to him was an ad for the new Ice Age movie (dubbed in Macedonian), next to kiosks selling little toys, crackers, pinwheels, next to a sprawling nike store, next to a small, Macedonian dress shop, so filled with women that I could hardly get around.

As we wandered around and back to the venue, next to the woman selling chocolate popcorn made in a movie theatre popcorn popper, Dave and I saw a man charring corn cobs on a tiny broken grill. We went to investigate. Vegan, 1 Euro. We were in. While our cobs cooked we talked with him and the popcorn lady in simple english. They couldn't believe that chocolate popcorn wasn't a common thing in America, the corn man was in a gypsie band. That was about all we could talk about before we ran out of words, and our corn was done. The man salted them and put them back in the husk, then handed them to us. I'm not sure how, but the grilling has almost made the kernels gummy, which sounds gross but was actually delicious. We munched all the way back to the venue, which had filled up, and after a few games of spider solitaire (a most addictive game that came with my computer), it was time to play.

The crowd was a mix of hardcore kids, alternative types, and other young, interested parties that I wouldn't be able to categorize. Surprising to us, some people knew the words. I felt really relaxed all day and hadn't bothered putting on a bra (which I always wear but this day I was like, "fuck it, I'm in Macedonia... I'll just air out."), which I hadn't thought I'd notice- and I hadn't as we walked around- but as I got to jumping around on stage... holy shit. I felt like they were going to bounce and break right off of me. It was painful, like running up the stairs in the morning before you get dressed... ladies, I know you feel me on this. By the second song I had given up being airborn in any way, even walking across the stage was done carefully. God damn.

It'd be awhile since some good ol' European honesty, so after our set we got a dose. "You guys are good..." Oh, thanks! "... but your drummer is killing you." Oh... thanks... (for the record our drummer was a fill-in)

After saying our thank yous and goodbyes we piled back in the van for another overnight drive, this time to Budapest- but before the van door closed, a little kid that is best described as a real-life Macedonian version of Bart Simpson, walked over to us with a smirk on his face that read "watch me fuck with these chumps", held his hand out demandingly, and shouted "MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!" Some people in van the van said no, some laughed, Dave told him that some people across the street looked like they had money, I told someone to close the door, but before any of this reached the kid or be done, good ol' Hell-Bent reached out and shoved him. I'm serious. He actually pushed a 9 year old.

"Dude did you seriously just push that little kid?" Silence. If I disliked Hell-Bent before, I fucking hated him now.

Next to the van, the seemingly unharmed Macedonian Bart Simpson lit a cigarette. We pulled out and drove silently into the night.

Euro tour update #18, Athens, Greece

2009-08-12T18:19:00.000-07:00

I awoke to people yelling "We're at the beach!", stumbled out of the van, and peered out through sleep-crusted eyes at a beautiful white sand being gently lapped by calm, clear, blue ocean. The sun beat down on my shoulders like I have never felt. I am going to burst into flames. I rubbed my eyes and looked for shelter. Ahhh, there we go. A giant straw umbrella offered a little bit of unoccupied shade a few feet from the water. I ran over, under, curled into a fetal position, dug my hands into the large-grain sand, and fell back asleep. After a time I sleep-walked back to the van where it seemed most everyone was eager to get to Athens. (It's like, kind of a famous city or whatever.)

We waited for awhile, baking like cookies in our seats. "Where is everyone? Let's go!" A few feet from where we sat waiting, 2 Dead Vows guys lounged in the blazing sun. I went over to let them know that everyone was about ready to go and psyched to spend time exploring Athens. Hell-Bent gazed out at the ocean. "Yeahhh, well I'm pretty comfortable here." Oh, well shit. Hold the presses, this dude is comfortable. Eventually we all piled back into the van, some of us- not yet fully awake- had, as was the usual, already become annoyed.

At a gas station I found a variety of stuffed grape leaves and eggplant (in a pull-top can, ready to eat), and stayed awake long enough to devour a dozen or so olive-oil soaked dolmas. I fell quickly back asleep and woke up as we were driving through Athens. I tried to summon every memory I had of Athens from history class. Very little emerged. Shit. I even made flash cards.

Despite my ignorance of the exact events, people, and just about everything else, there was a feeling I couldn't ignore in Athens, even just in viewing it from out the van window. It felt like being in the core of civilization. The old, white buildings, their columns reaching beyond my scope of vision, ancient stairs climbing towering buildings that blocked the sunny sky above. Graffiti covered everything, everywhere. Personal and political, the sentiments of the city were scrawled on the walls in a multitude of languages. Despite that Athens seemed fairly clean (not like, say, Philly, where heaps of trash lay rotting in, on, and around almost every street), it felt almost dingy. Like it was Greece's favorite pair of white canvas shoes, worn to death, having walked through the ages, but still managing to look as good with cut off dickies as it did with togas.

We met up with Jim, the promoter, outside the club that was strangely named "Texas" ("Dude seriously we came all the way to Greece to play in TEXAS?") He said the magic words ("You hungry?"), which lead to a cafe where we ate "Greek junk food"- which was to become both our obsession over the next two days and a life-altering event. See, this "junk food" was so fucking amazing that I couldn't put it down to take a photo. Imagine this: a fresh made pita (not pocket like we Americans are used to, but a fluffy, doughy face-sized circle of soft bread), warmed on an oiled grill, filled with fresh sliced ripe tomatoes, paper-thin onions, fresh parsley, and.... are you sitting down? FUCKING FRENCH FRIES.

A FRENCH FRY SANDWICH.

I could build monuments to this sandwich. I could paint beautiful portraits of it. I could get stranded on a desert isle and be happy to have it as my only company. Oh french fry sandwich, we adore you. Come back to us... come back to us.

Back in Texas, we noticed something strange. The entire club was dedicated to the movie "Sin City". Stills from the comics were blown up and wall papered over the entire place. A giant still of Elijah Wood as that creepy dude in round glasses was printed over 2 giant, swinging doors that lead to the "WC" (bathroom, remember?) I went to the bar to get a soda. A dude with half his head shaved and manicured, black fingernails handed me my sprite. Beside the merch table there was wallpaper with a life-size photo of a windblown goth girl.

As the night progressed we learned that Texas was actually a goth club. Had we not been told that we eventually would have figured it out by the synthetic pink hair and furry leg warmers paired with vinyl skirts that wandered in and out (staff?)

Before the show started Dave got some (more) french fries at a place next to the cafe we had been hanging out at. He came running over to me demanding that I try them. There was something on them, a green herb of some sort. I took a bite. Holy shit... oregano. The heat of the fries had warmed the spice and the result was... words, I don't have them. Let's just say I don't plan to eat fries without oregano ever again. Pierce and I each went to get our own herbed fries, then headed back to Texas to play.

The stage had an awkward fence around it, kind of a mini-barrier. For someone as short as me this was kind of a bummer, but, as always, as soon as we started playing I forgot about it and had a great time. At one point I looked out and saw Peter, our driver, moshing. The crowd in general was pretty chill, I kind of got the vibe that they hadn't seen many bands like us before. People nodded, and watched intently, and after it was done we were swarmed by thankful and supportive words. It was a really great feeling. Not every scene is the same, and I like that. I met someone in Finland who told me that he felt a bit "Americanized" by hardcore, and I've thought about that a lot ever since. I've stopped going into shows in foreign places expecting it to be like a show at home. Why would it be? Why would I want it to be?

We stayed with a very nice kid in his flat on the outskirts of Athens. He said the magic words and we all went marching through the streets in search of more fry sandwiches. "This is the best place for it in the whole city" he claimed as we walked into a shoe-box sized Kebab joint. He was right. Jim had bought us our sandwiches earlier, so here we learned yet another delightful fact about this food-of-the-gods- they only cost 1 Euro each. We bit into our first sandwiches on the trek back to his apartment and realized that one sandwich each was surely not going to cut it. Life is short, and our time in Athens was even shorter. We went back for seconds and thirds, which brought us to 4-6 servings of french fries each that day, with no stomach aches, and not a single complaint.

Athens Day 2.

A show fell through in Macedonia which left us with a day off to explore Athens. Can't exactly say I was bummed. We woke up to more miscommunication (or lack of communication) from our tour mates, who had decided that we were all going to the beach then to Jim's house (where we were staying that night) in northern Greece. After we reminded them that we couldn't go to Jim's house until 2 am when he got out of work (the always-thoughtful Hell-Bent suggested we call him, ask him to give his house keys to a friend who would then meet up with and give them to us, so that we- 9 people he barely knew- could sit in his house, alone...), we decided we'd split up and meet up in the evening.

Kingdom went to do historical stuff, Dead Vows went swimming. We hung in places where such little characters in time as Plato and Socrates used to kick back in their togas and philosophize, we saw an ancient Greek village that had be unearthed and preserved under a clear floor, and we took pictures of stray cats living on the ruins of the Parthenon.

This was the hottest day I can ever recall. The sun felt like it was inches from the earth. I bought a parasol from a vendor and even in its shade, I felt like I was made of sweaty lead. How are my legs so heavy? We climbed centuries-old stairs but after a time I cared little of headless statues, or pillars, or excavated graves (which, actually, I found quite distasteful. "Here lies a little girl still in her grave, which was found in a field, covered in rocks that were believed to protect her in the afterlife, layed by her family.") In the end, our thirst for liquids outweighed our thirst for knowledge, and we trudged down the hill from the Parthenon to the newly built Greek Museum, where we were met by free, ice cold glasses of water.

After we met up with Dead Vows, we grabbed some more french fry sandwiches. We reached Jims late and fell asleep as the sun was rising. In the morning, it was more grape leaves. The grocery store we were at had two options for orange juice, both 100% juice, both in identical packaging. I asked Jim what the difference was. "One is made of Greek oranges, the other not." Wanting to have a much Greece as possible in my last hours there, I grabbed the Greek juice, and drank it all the way to Macedonia.

Euro tour update #17, Sofia, Bulgaria

2009-08-11T18:43:00.000-07:00

I flipped to the Bulgarian section of the 'Lonely Planet Guide to Eastern Europe'. Sofia was a modern and metropolitan city, blahblahblah, local bars, blahblah, and... what the... a VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT?

Dream House, according to Lonely Planet, had 18 vegan options and was moderately priced. No sooner had we parked then we had entered the coordinates into the GPS and started walking deep into downtown Sofia. "There it is!!" We raced up the stairs and went tumbling into the restaurant. We hadn't had vegetables in almost a month. Every night we were fed, sure, but every night we were fed breads, potatoes, pasta, pastries... every vegan thing on earth BUT a green vegetable. Some of us are vegans that love vegetables (like me) and were salivating all over ourselves at the prospect of having some kale. Or, lord help me, a piece of broccoli. The hippy staff stared at us incredulously. "Do you think this is the Irish Pub? 'Cause that's downstairs." No no, we assured them, we're here for your vegetables.

And we got some. And it was perfect.

Everyone got mushrooms and tofu:

But me, I got the coconut almond curry:

After eating everyone but Dave and I headed back to the venue. We explored the city, coming across some confusing english graffiti:

As well as loads of strange shops and a mile long vegetable market.

One thing we had noticed on every corner were little carts boiling corn. We went over to one. The woman, using the international language of pantomime, showed us that the kernels were scraped from the cob and put into a dixie cup. Dave and I ordered one and watched her scoop some corn into the cup, then dump salt, and... shit.. was that cheese?... and... oh fuck... butter? I pointed at the cheese and butter and mimed puking everywhere, then pointed to another cup and the salt, and said "sorry" over and over. She understood, laughed off the loss, and made up a salt and corn-only cup. It was DELICIOUS.

We waddled back to the venue full of curry and tofu and corn, and were met in the backstage with gigantic falafel sandwiches. Full as we were, we found room.

I did a video interview for a Bulgarian vegan website behind the venue, where immediately after I got locked in a conversation with a very drunk thuggish hardcore kid who had been peeing on a wall next to the video camera. Our conversation lasted all night, weaved in between bands and outside the venue. He kept asking me what it meant to be hardcore. This was very reminiscent of the drunk punk in Bistrita, Romania, difference being this guy was extremely entertaining, completely lacking in woes, and kept yelling, for no clear reason, about the Cro Mags. He told me about the Bulgarian hardcore scene and how I may think it's cool, but it really wasn't. For example, he explained, he had a friend that was super down for the core, but then he brought up some 80's hairmetal band to her (I cannot for the life of me remember which one) and she didn't even know who they were. He wanted to know if things were that bad in America.

He and I play-argued all night about hair metal's place in hardcore, about how listening to bands like Sick of It All and Bulldoze affects your every day life, about any and everything with no clear purpose for arguing, and no clear agreements (or disagreements) reached. Some kids circled around us to watch us debate veganism. At this point he could barely stand, wobbling with a beer in his hand, slurring, "Yeah..., but whyyyyyyyy???". I tried, through my laughter, to make points in simple enough english for him to understand, and I'm pretty sure I failed.

Our set was fun, per-use, it's always a pleasure to play for kids that appreciate it. After it was over my drunken friend gave his approval of our music, but complained for the rest of the night that our set was too short. (It was 25 minutes...) "You call that a SET?"

Outside I recorded a shout-out for a Bulgarian hardcore radio show, which was a little weird. I couldn't figure out where to look. At the recorder? At the guy holding it? At the street? I kept laughing in the middle of "This is Kingdom from...hahahaha" or, "You're listening to I Hate...hahahahah" and in the end I think the dude wished I had been more creative with what I said. What do you say for a radio shout out? I don't know about these things!

Outside the venue with a few kids:

After the show we went to a falafel joint where we got the greasiest fries I've ever had in my entire life. The dudes ate more falaf and we, for once, loaded in the van with full stomachs and headed for yet another overnight drive, this one to Athens, Greece.