Noble Cause Minitour

To my knowledge Chris Sosa and I are about to do something I've never heard of any other touring artists doing. We have started a new event we plan to do annually in which we set up a tour that puts on a short string of louis logic shows en route to get tattooed by a renowned artist whose work we love.

For this first adventure we will fly into San Diego and play 4 shows up the West Coast, traveling to our ultimate destination in Seattle, WA where we will be tattooed by the incredible Derek Noble.

I plan to have Mr. Noble start a right arm sleeve with a horror theme centered around a zombie pin up girl in a shredded dress. Here is a picture from one of my favorite Derek Noble pieces and certainly part of the inspiration behind my choosing...

Syracuse area tattoo artist and brother of mine, Chris Sosa (Tymeless Tattoo in Baldwinsville, NY) will get his scrawny chest tattooed in Derek's darkest stylings.

Here is the travel itinerary of shows and party stops:

Wednesday 9/23 San Diego, CA @ Access Music (In Store Show) 6pm

Wednesday 9/23 San Diego, CA @ Kava Lounge 8pm

Thursday 9/24 PARTY DAY in Los Angeles, CA
Friday 9/25 Phoenix, AZ @ Hidden House 9pm

Saturday 9/26 Las Vegas, NV @ The Farm 5:30pm
Sunday 9/27 PARTY DAY in Sacramento, CA
Monday 9/28 Seattle, WA @ Nectar Lounge

Tuesday 9/29 WE GET TATTED BY DEREK NOBLE @ Lucky Devil Tattoo in Seattle!!!

COME OUT AND JOIN US AT A SHOW, A LOCAL WATERING HOLE ON AN OFF DAY, A LOCAL TATTOO SHOP AS WE MAKE THE ROUNDS!!!

Bar Hunt Recap Jackson, WY Day 4!!!

Jackson, WY is often described as Jackson Hole or at the very least the term Hole somehow always seem to come into play when you’re talking about this little tucked away town. I personally associate this description with shit holes or fuckin'... or fuckin' shit holes. This is getting disgusting.

The point I was trying to make is that, contrary to what the “Hole” suffix might imply, Jackson, WY is actually a pretty little place. Apparently, the whole "Hole" thing comes from some characteristic of this geographic region. I still don’t see it. Anyway, it has this main drag that looks like it was made to race down at 88.6 miles per hour, at the end of which, you’d skid into a brighter future. I could have just said it’s quaint.



This was the first date of the Bar Hunt tour at which we were to play an All Ages show. It was also the first date at which we were to play 2 shows in one day. I rarely do this sort of thing, which you can translate as never. It’s fairly challenging, or at least I think it is, or would be. I have a hard enough time keeping my pipes healthy playing one set a night. Some artists will do entire tours of 2 show days. I don’t have the hearty voice or the training for this kind of abuse, so I was a little nervous. Fortunately the eats were good at Cutty's and our all ages show was early with a 3 hr or so break for me before the 21+ show.

In retrospect I wish they would have combined the 2 events. It would have been pretty packed. As it went down we had two decently attended events and somehow I was able to contain myself enough to retain all the evil powers of my voice.
Highlight performance of the night for me… 101 at the underager event. That kid is spirited as hell, super friendly, original and the kind of performer who commits to his set and his words. I love to see a stage show with a frontman who allows himself to delve into the mood, free of inhibition or insecurity. 101 was throwing down, convulsions, flailing arms, wild vocal inflections and all. He did come scary close to knocking down my keys rig a few hundred times, but to his credit and with his eyes closed for much of this flailing, he never bumped it. His content was even really fun.

101 in a rare moment of stillness


Since the first set was an All Ages show and I have a weak moral fabric, I threw down a selection of my more disgusting songs right off the bat. Little did I know, some of these small town hooligans were far more rambunctious than I, a point illustrated by the hostile little miscreant who tried to go at it with Type at the merch booth after my set. He was cursing and making with the threatening smart alec talk, I guess cause Type made a comment that implied that the kid didn’t have a driver’s license or some such shit. He more or less told Type off, then haggled for 15 minutes with me over the cost of an $8 cd. I finally cut the kid a break. You had to give it up for the guy's stamina. He acted appreciative, but who could say. He was a real smart ass. A couple of times, Kubi even thought he caught the kid trying to steal merchandise but in the end, the young fella walked off with a fistful of stickers that we later discovered papered over the crucial parts of the neighborhood street signs. What a shit that kid was! You almost had to like him. Almost.

Minor Threat. This is face I make when I'm wrecking kid's lives.


The 21 + show was a little less thrilling although it did yield more silly tour slang when Tulsi was spotted making close chit chat with a cute blonde. The slang didn't come till later. First, 101 took Captain Midnite and I on a tour of late night Jackson eateries, which is like going on a hunt for the best swimming holes in a desert. To make a long story short I had to resort to Wendy’s and I hate fuckin’ fast food. I scarfed down 2 of those dry ass baked potatoes. Ick.

It was getting close to closing time and the drunkards had already laughed and rhythm-lessly dry humped each other to Coochie Coup. Tulsi concluded whatever blonde business he had brewing. The door guy Morgan turned out to be even sillier and easy going than us. He took 5 complete strangers back to his house, provided crash spots, beer and other such fun fixins and tunes. I’m not so sure how his roommates felt about this since we stayed up till the sun was rising playing music and laughing hysterically about ball tricks.

At some point during all this chit chat someone pointed out that Tulsi was still with us and wondered why he hadn't disappeared with his new little friend. Morgan asked which little miss we were talking about and when it came out he leaned over and quietly issued a cautionary, "Oh her. She's a slut," to which Tulsi replied ethusiastically, "Gooooood. I love sluts." Good! What a humanitarian! Tulsi, savior of the sluts. Slut advocate. Jesus! I really came to love that kid over the course of the tour. He is incidentally responsible for expounding on almost all of the ball tricks.

Tulsi, Slut Supporter


It wasn't until about 10 dates into the 16 day tour when Type pointed out that this car full of "wordsmiths" managed to keep the lamest of their conversational artifacts alive in the enduring tour slang. Gooooood.

Bar Hunt Recap Day 3: Bozeman, MT

i awoke in the all too familiar surroundings of a nondescript hotel in some random nowhere town between tour stops. it was hella early but true to his mysterious form, Type was already awake, showered and silly. i don't know how he does it. he's the last guy to crash but the first up, no matter what kind of fun he had the night before.

it's a long drive from Washington to Bozeman, and since there's no good reason to stick around a spooky little town like Spokane, we scooted after the show and crashed a couple hours closer to our Montana diggs. i was pretty pumped for this particular tour stop cause MT is a comfort zone for me. thanks to my good friends Black Mask, i've been back to Bozeman at least 4 times. i'm practically a local. Well, not exactly.

Jotorcycle

I reached out to Joe, Black Mask’s keys player, and made plans to link. We had a tradition of staying up all night after the show and playing his beautiful Steinway. Yes, Joe has a real Steinway. It’s amazing. Unlike me though, he deserves it! He’s fantastic and the stuff I aspire to be.

A few tank refills and restroom pit-stops and we reached Bozeman. The venue we were playing at was creepy as fuck, which is to say, it looked like a barn, or maybe even a garage where they repair snowmobiles and farm equipment, and as it happened, it was surrounded by barns. I felt like Eddie Murphy in 48hrs when he walks into the cowboy bar in a suit and picks a fight, only I didn’t have a gun or a well-warn Nick Nolte to back me up. By my estimation, Type was just as likely to get a beating in this place simply on the grounds that he’s a fairly strange looking character.

We crept by the bar full of scary daytime drinkers and mounted animal heads without notice. So far, so good. The sound tech for the evening turned out to be a guy name Luke that I’ve met and worked with several times so things were looking up. I set up my merchandise and stage rig. Then it was time to figure out how we were going to manifest a crashpad and a place to shower before show time. Ordinarily this wouldn’t have proven to be a problem, but Black Mask was playing 2 shows that day: One with us and one with fantastically dorky rock rap hybrids, Schwayze. Fortunately, joe picked up his cell just before the teen frenzy and gave us instructions to get to the house, the greenlight to make ourselves at home and the name of their ultra friendly, large and hairy mascot Tango. Joe pretty much rules.

Tango turned out to be just as friendly as Joe promised and in a couple hours we were showered and filled with our 2^nd dose of Subway $5 footlongs this tour. Eat fresh. Back at the venue, the old MT friends were abound. There was of course the customary awkward run in with Laura who is tough to take your eyes off of, but this time it was worse. She had a new man-friend and what’s worse, he was in the band! Then as if I wasn’t in enough trouble, she had in tow, her rascally friend Leah who was magically delicious. I hate attractive women on tour. They just remind you of how lonely the tour experience can be, so far away from the creature comforts of home. Well, that’s how it is when you’re a good boy anyway. These day’s I’m practically a monk, less the chanting, drab style and silly haircut. Alright, well less the silly haircut anyway.

Showtime was fairly typical fare. To begin, Tulsi performed another set for himself. In other words, he paced around the stage making no eye contact and in his own zone as if it was rehearsal with no crowd. I planned to try giving him the old “draw in the crowd” pep talk/consult but hadn’t seen my window or shown him enough of my own experience and ability to justify opening my mouth. He’s actually a very adept mc. I just thought it was obvious that he didn’t have much stage experience and that it was a bad way to start our tour every night by having the first act on our lineup display a glaring disparity between ability and practical know how. Still, it’s not like he was awful, he just wasn’t connecting. I’ll get to that later though cause things turned around in a major way for Tulsi.

The Let Go had a bit of a goofy night. Type was having monitor mix issues and because he couldn’t hear himself, one of the three bits of durable tour slang coined was born. After a few frustrating songs, he announced with his characteristic mania that he was “taking a knee” and commenced to exchange auditory exhibition for spectacle. It was actually kind of funny to watch, but if you know anything about Type than that probably wouldn’t surprise you. Anyway, by the last day of tour we’d used the expression “taking a knee” for just about any and every activity one might imagine. You gonna eat that? I’m taking a knee. I can’t get this fuckin’ thing to work. I’m taking a knee. So, what happened? Did you get laid? I took a knee. You get the idea.

I performed a succinct set because in this town I actually prefer to open for my openers! I love Black Mask as people and performers. They’re really fun guys on all levels and they’ve got a devoted following in the area so I banged out a tight trip through my catalogue right up to present and then danced the night away front and center for the Black Mask set. I even got serenaded while clutching joe’s stuffed turtle (was it a turtle? I don’t remember) by way of piano solo.

A few more awkward hugs goodnight than necessary with my friends Laura and Leah and I was off to bang my real MT jumpoff… Joe’s fantastic Steinway. We played and shot the shit till the sun came up. I probably should have slept some more, but it’s not every day I get to put my hands all over such a finely designed piece of machinery. Well, there are those long showers. I disgust myself. Alright. I’ll talk to you guys soon and share my musings about my first visit to the hole: Jackson, WY.

Bar Hunt Recap Day 2 Spokane

this shouldn't take long. these were words i uttered before taking the stage at one of the weirder stops on the Bar Hunt Tour.

i'm kidding. i never say that. even when there are 3 people and they all work at the bar, i like to hear myself talk so i still rap it up like there's no tomorrow. this shouldn't take long cause it's one day on a tour that was more than 2 weeks long. although, i have to say, this was a fairly eventful day so Im probably completely full of shit.

the drive from seattle to spokane is short. it's a good thing too cause i still felt shitty when i woke up the day after my sober seattle kick off. this could have been because i slept on a couch wrapped in kublakai's snuggie. yes. kubi has a snuggie. i think it's funny too.

right. so before leaving seattle, i made arrangements to pick up a box of freshly printed Spork Kills t-shirts, which i will be making available to the general public over the weekend. the people at the printing place were sweethearts and did a wonderful job with my goods. if you're ever in need in the seattle area or otherwise give Good Times Printing a try.

on the way out of the print shop, either because i'm weak, clumsy or both, i tried to open the door with arms wrapped around my new box of shirts in a hugging fashion. of course, i stumbled a bit and ended using my knuckle to catch the heavy swinging door right on the edge and created a nice bloody gash complete with translucent flap of skin on my index finger. that felt great later when i was playing ugly truth on stage all sweaty. the nice people at Good Times did give me a band aid, but i was a little bummed that it didn't have some cute girly graphics on it like bears or hearts, or bears with hearts. either one would have made me happy.

Street Teamer, Brandon from Phoenix rocks the new garb:

we got to Spokane and after loading into a venue that has changed names and owners like 7 times in the last 2 years we went looking for coffee. oddly, even though Spokane is only a few hrs from seattle, it's not littered with specialty coffee shops so we had to do the good old fashioned Mel's diner variety. i drank like 9 cups of coffee in 20 minutes and on my walk back to the venue found a bag of crack on the ground. i live in Brooklyn, people. That’s Brooklyn, ny with all the famous projects and the big ugly rep and all and i've never found a bag of crack on the ground before. i knew this was gonna be a weird night. since no one on my tour was a crackhead, i was faced with the dilemma of what to do with this crack. For some reason, i couldn't bring myself to just throw it away. At the same time, as much as I wanted to keep this bizarre souvenir, i wasn't down with getting pulled over and cavity searched either. i decided the smartest course of action would be to stick it in one of those street corner free newspaper dispensers. this particular box provided Spokane's pedestrians with real estate guidance and crack. well it provided crack now. Kubi and Midnite interrupted me saying that it might be a little irresponsible to leave that in there cause some innocent person or kid might happen upon it and use the drugs. since i couldn't convince myself that finding free crack was a good enough motivator to get someone straight who’d never done it before to try smoking rock cocaine, my ruling on the fate of this particular bag of crack was upheld. i mean, come on! who would open that thing and go "well, i've always thought this $5 per pop rock candy was a poison that would leave me jobless, homeless and toothless but since i happened on this one for free, i'm gonna give it a try." i thought it might give someone a good story. "i was looking for an apartment in Spokane and i found crack instead."




when the show started i was so fired up from the 12 cups of black coffee and the ground score that i found myself bouncing maniacally at the front of the stage to each opening act. there were a couple of kids that were shockingly bad but then some pretty average guys and one dude who was really pretty good. i decided to tell the good kid that (huge mistake) at the end of the night but we'll get to that. lemme describe the set up in this loan default waiting to happen. sorry BLVD but it's just simple statistical likelihood. besides, i liked the name Zombie Room so much more than the Boulevard. GENERIC. Why don’t you just call it Venue? anyway, there was a railing that separated the 21+ drinking area from the anything goes, watch the show area and you weren't allowed to bring your drink past this railing to watch the performance. that means that The Let Go and i spent the entire night posturing, pointing and glaring at a room a full of drunkards some 20 feet away. i couldn't tell at all whether or not they were so rowdy because they liked what they were hearing, hated what they were hearing or didn't hear it all and were just plain drunk and rowdy. my money was on option 3.

despite my doubt, a few of the hooligans crept over for my set and they were appreciative so i felt better about the whole thing. i still think it's a piss poor live show design, but hey, far be it from me to stop these guys from losing another nightclub. i closed with Just A Friend as is typical and everyone came out of their slumber to sing along. There was a gigantic Art major bouncer guarding the entrance to the dancefloor and some d.b. walking past on his way to the bathroom muttered under his breath, "this guy fuckin' sucks." the gentle art giant told the guy that if he didn't like it he could get the fuck out. he was digging it so much he defended my honor and then cam over to tell me about how the little fella scooted off with his head buried in his shoulders. Haha! what does one say to a 6'9" art major when he tell you he likes the singing, piano playing rapper in tight pants? Right you are, sir!

the few i suckered in:

i sold some merch and managed to get through the whole night drink free despite several offers to liquor me up. my voice was still a little hoarse but i was holding up alright. i could see that i might have to keep this sobriety thing going if i wanted to retain my top notes and breath control. i wanted that, so i was prepared to stay dry. even without the usual liquid courage, i decided i was going to be a nice guy and tell the opener i thought was the best that he did a great job. Now, you all know how nice guys finish.

so, i walk up to this dude in his giant, 1994, fall out of a plane and survive pants and say, "hey, man... you were really good tonight. you can spit." that was my first mistake. instead of saying thanks and acting humbled that the headliner came up and told him he was great, he unloaded on me with his personal philosophy about how only the metaphysical, lyrical, verbal and such and so forth could lead you to such excellence.

Standard issue metaphysical uniform:

alright, i thought, lemme offer some helpful live performance hints. i even put it in a sugary coating... "i'd love to see you really go for it and give some emotion to the performance. you'd be unstoppable like that," i say. this was untrue. he would have been better, not invincible, but i thought if i laid it on thick he'd give less attitude and more gratitude. Anyway, he peers at me through these dead blue-grey eyes and reaches his fingertips in my direction saying, “yeah, well, the reason there were more people watching my set than yours is that you don’t know what people in Spokane wanna see. You have to give them just the raw blah blah blah (I’m paraphrasing here). They don’t wanna see you dancing around and getting all into it and blah..” With a serious face and tone this guy tells me this. Unfuckingbelievable. Some of you probably want to know this friendly bastard’s name. well, fuck that. I gave that kid all he’s gonna get and he more or less spat in my face while he handed me his CD. Sometimes I think I deserve it for being naïve enough to expect that you get back what you give. This is not a universally true maxim. Sometimes it just happens to work out and people get all fired up like see… give good energy, get good energy. What happens when life shows you the complete douchebag that gets everything he or she wants? Crack open a copy US Weekly now and then and see what I mean. No! You dicks! I don’t read US Weekly… anymore! Don’t laugh at me. My ex used to leave stacks of that trashy rag in the bathroom. That’s all for today. Bozeman, MT tomorrow.

The Bar Hunt Tour Recap

i promised myself i would do this because we had so many amazing back to back nights. i know people typically do this sort of thing as it's happening, but you're gonna have to rely on my fantastic retention to enjoy the experience. fortunately, i was on the wagon for the better part of this tour so i managed to keep it all well contained. we'll do this a few days at a time so i can give some detail and pics. here goes...

JFK.

sucks.

it's like my first landlord.

old.

ugly and.. 

it comes with heaps of bullshit complication. and the bars are expensive. anyone who's ever read any of my blog posts probably knows i hate flying. it's a terrible thing to hate something so much that you need to do in order to survive. typically i treat this unfortunate mixture of circumstance with alcohol. i used to drink Guinness after Guinness at the airport bar but i was annoying the shit out of the people sitting next to me with my boy-like bladder. i'd since switched to whiskey when someone told me that your doctor, provided he's not a total douche bag or a mormon, will write you an anti-anxiety prescription if you hate flying like i do. that person was right! this is the part where i get dum-b. firstly, i don't trust that this little pill is going to fix this particular problem and secondly, i don't know how long it will take to start working so i figure i should grease the rails a little. 

i'm still here so you know i didn't drink too much, but just in case you were thinking that i don't know what a bad idea this is... i know. a double dewars neat and a sam adams to wash down my valium and i'm on the plane in high spirits. dude, i've never had such a relaxing and uneventful flight in my life. i scarfed down some indian food (thankfully, that's what they give you now when you request a veggie meal, and it's not bad!) and completely passed out. when i woke up, i could see DirecTV dishes on suburban rooftops through the thinning clouds. mission accomplished. i've yet to find a way around the whole arriving hung over and mangled thing cause the valium produced a very similar effect. no biggie. i've got years of experience operating at 60% capacity. 

my dear friends type and midnite of the let go pick me up at the airport. we head immediately off to a local watering hole where one of my favorite human beings, Murder Dice, is pretending to work. it was a cute, tucked away little hipster bar. i lost count after the 5th or 6th Guiness but the next day, which was to be the first performance date of The Bar Hunt tour i felt a new kind of shitty. enough so that bar hunting would have been last on my list of things to do. i Pho'ed it up with Type and still had the cloud looming over me. by the way, if you're not Vietnamese or adventurous enough to have found your way into a big bowl of Pho (pronounced "fuh", like "what the fu..."), then you're missing all the good things in life. 

soundcheck at High Dive in the Fremont area of Seattle. i haven't even played a show and i'm already hoarse. serves me right for spending my pre-game rest boozing until the sun came up. alright. until the clouds came up. actually, as i recall it was uncharacteristically sunny for the first day of the Bar Hunt tour. of course the clouds did turn out for the show but happily so did a nice little chunk of the Seattle hip hop crowd. no thanks to Mel, who hasn't written, called or booked me since 06. for the record, i've had 2 successful Let Go co-billed shows filled with lyric quoting fans since the barstaff bonanza you threw me. i know you're the promotional toast of the town there so im a little hurt that you've neglected your old friend louis. i mean after all, i pet your little min pin and let him flirt with my darling Chihuahua daughter, Astra! 

High Dive was a fantastic kick off complete with good openers, good attendance and a boozed up birthday girl who was immortalized hypeman-ing my set by Griff J. thanks, Griff. you're the goods! i took the night off from drinking to preserve my voice and inadvertently started what would become a nightly tradition... or would it? i'll leave you with that cliffhanger. come see me tomorrow for the next day of Bar Hunt silliness. thanks for reading. xo, louis