olympia tour diary

As you may or may not know, last night New Century Schoolbook played in Olympia, WA. And here's what it was like :
We drove up in the afternoon (fortunately me, Johnny, Marlin and Zach all had the day off though Steve didn't and had to drive up later) and met up with Johnny's wonderful friend Ian, who was letting us sleep at his (big, fancy and totally awesome) house. We stopped by the fish tale brew pub to have some beer and food and then stopped by Le Voyeur to ask when we should load in. They pretty much said we should do whatever we wanted and so we decided to walk down to the water and come back later.
Later happened, and we met the other bands, Dos Prompt, who were playing their first show (and I hope to hear more of them) Shoebox Scrap, and Jenny Jenkins, who organized the show and was totally friendly and helpful.
Dos Prompt opened, and played some delightful music with the help of laptop, bass guitar, and uke with vocals. My favourite was "This is what it feels like.. when you're masturbating.. on the internet.. to someone masturbating." I almost died laughing.
Shoebox Scrap, from Inland Empire, CA followed with some mellow guitar songs. then we went on. And sorry Portland, I really love you, but in Olympia, when we asked people to slow dance, they DID. So they are better audiences and you all really need to redeem yourselves. Jenny Jenkins closed with some gorgeous vocals and ukelele. All in all the night was quite enjoyable. Everyone in the audience was super nice, including the other performers. However, there is one gauche behavior I must call out - right before Jenny went on, a girl asked Shoebox Scrap's travelling partner if she could please move their merch so "our friend could sit there". Never mind the fact that her friend never came to sit there, it's hella rude to ask a band, who came all the way from California to make music for you for no money, to put their merch away to make room for your friend's butt. (this is totally my opinion, Shoebox didn't say anything. But I feel pretty strongly about it.)
I am proud to say that not counting CD sales, we made a whole five dollars from donations, even though Jenny sent the jar around five or six times, and though it was touch and go for a while, I managed not to get too drunk, bone any groupies, or get in a bike crash while I was in olympia (although I did get in one before I left) and on the way home we met a baby and a cat.

P.S. Dear Portlandites, if you want to show me and the rest of New Century Schoolbook that you can slow dance and be as cool as the folks from the frozen north, or if you just want to hear some good music, we are playing tonight at Exit Only (1121 N Loring) which is an All Ages Show and Sunday at Kelly's Olympian.
<3 Love you
Amber Dawn