Ela Tour Journal: Day 1 and Intro

Download: The Clash - "Lost In The Supermarket"
Download: Al Green - "Tired of Being Alone"

For those of you who have never met Ela, let us introduce you. They are a lovely indie-rock band from Minneapolis (that's where we're from too) and they have just headed out on tour with Minus the Bear (Suicide Squeeze, very cool). A couple of weeks ago, they approached us with the idea of running a mostly-daily tour journal featuring photos, videos, live tracks, mix tapes and crazy stories about the touring life that they are embarking upon with the rapidly-growing-in-popularity Minus the Bear, and we decided to party. Granted, we have a disclaimer in regards to the label they are on, which is also run by MFR editor Ian. But, in the end, we decided it was just too cool to pass up the chance to document a Mpls band who had this opportunity. And so, day one:

Ela is peter, bill, knol and me. i'm sean. this is my blog entry.

We left St. Paul at 2:30 after stopping at Ellis drums for sticky
sticks for Peter. The long drive to Bismarck, ND wasn't shit. I can
confirm that buying snacks for tour is just bullshit for me because it
just means I eat 8 lbs of granola and peanut butter the first day and
then eat whole chickens from grocery stores the rest of the tour.
Little people know that if you eat the chicken in the store it's free.
They also have to not notice you eating the chicken.
We listened to the new Kanye West record. It's all decent except
for "barry bonds", which is, as they say in rap slang, one spicy
meatball. Lil' Wayne for president. We listened to Dungen and also the
new Common record. We're going to keep it pretty rap on this here rock
tour. Heiruspecs often keeps it pretty rock on our rap tours, so it's
only fair.
We stopped at the absolutely wonderful store of WalMart in Fargo,
ND. WalMart creates the great democracy amongst people when someone is
all "I want Garth brooks CDs!, and tampons, and a water bottle, and
tylenol, and a gardening plot, and 3 new tires". It sucks. and what is
a gardening plot? A girl tried to clown me in the parking lot. Comedy
comedy. I am wearing a fully members only 5x black and white floral
design senior citizen shirt. The kind with form fitting bottoms and
sides. It looks tongue in cheek on a skinny rock guy and it looks
semi-special needs on those of us endowed with gorgeous man curves. I
walked past two female Fargits in the parking lot and gave them a
smile. The girl rocking a mustard stained Marilyn Manson t-shirt said
"I don't think you should wear that shirt anymore". I asked her if she
thought it was too old for me. She said yes. I told her that she
should wear her shirt everyday. Hizaa. Lame walmart justice is served.
but that's the whole deal.

When we got to the hotel me and Peter went swimming and hot tubbing.
It was completely hetero since you asked. And now I'm sitting my ass
on email in the lobby watching Carson Daly make an ass of himself. And
I'm still wearing the senior citizen shirt. I feel like I could kill
in shuffleboard and 4:30PM clambakes in this outfit of up high
sweatpants and black and white hawaiin. I don't think I can spell the
word Hawaian. fuck. Hawwwian. perfect. Tomorrow we play with Vampyre
Hands and Thunder in the Valley in Billings, MT. st. paul/minneapolis
rock stand up.