Hello. In an attempt to bring a new voice, perspective, to the Parenthetical Girls web log, I, (Rachael), will be updating while we are on our West Coast Tour. A tour which we have dubbed "Triple Threat:" after a meandering sidewalk discussion on this oft-used mostly Hollywood term. What is a triple threat anyways? Sing, dance, act... Solder, bird-watch, babysit? Who knows. We're it, though. (It's funny, because there are 4 of us, remember.)

Anyhow, our tour started yesterday, essentially. We left Portland around 10:30 AM, early enough for Brenna to conduct an internet biology experiment at her childhood Bothell home, and Zac to get a haircut from the infamous J. Tsiakals before the show. Upon our arrival in Seattle, we were offered the opportunity to hop a free ride up the spine of the space needle, by virtue of my old friend Rachel H working at the cafe up there. We lost our steam, though, when we realized that something had gone awry in will-call, and our names had not been "listed". It turned out alright though, because that gave us a chance to browse in the gift shop, and stop at the Seattle coffee shop Starbucks. If you're wondering, the haircut was a total success, and the biology experiment's outcome is yet to be determined.

So, our Seattle show was at a bar called the Sunset Lounge, opening for the bands Racetrack and Tullycraft. It had been touted in the Seattle press as our "CD Release show," and although this was not the case, we went with it. "Our second CD Release show." A lot of people showed up, actually. I assume this was to see the much beloved Tullycraft, but still, it was nice. At the beginning of the set, Zac asked that the audience "hold their applause until after the show." We didn't think that they would actually do it. We played well, though, I thought. The next day in the Slog, the audience was described as "awestruck". What? Were you guys awestruck? Ryan, Cori, Rachel, lady who bought an album sight seen after having "totally missed the set," all of you people were nice. No drink tickets, but a cooler full of Miller High Life and Rockstar energy drinks. Zac pounded like, 9 of them for the impending after show drive back to Portland for a last night in our own beds before the onset of tour. We missed Tullycraft, sadly.

Eating Pho backstage at the Sunset.

Anyhow, like I said, we drove all night,. After approx. 3 hours of sleep, and gathering up last minute items that we had a day to remember forgetting, we met at Matt and Brenna's for an 11 hour drive to Oakland.

I suppose it was a fairly uneventful 11 hours. Watched "Live Forever" and 2 episodes of "Entourage" on Zac's computer, tried to repair a purse, stopped in Weed, CA (which we found out later you're NEVER supposed to do), had some trouble with the van overheating. Weed, did you give us car troubles?

Our Oakland show was at an art space called "21 Grand" with the bands "BARR," "Lucky Dragons," and "Snowsuit*." We'll be playing a few more shows with Luke and Brendan, and we couldn't really ask for better acts to have to watch for a handful of consecutive nights. David from LA, and Jamie were there. A lot of cute young people were there. We ate Monster pizza slices for dinner. Lucky Dragons played a cool set- he has this coil wrapped in yarn, infused with theremin-y bits that respond to touching the arm or hand of the person holding the coil. I guess it may as well be magic for all I know how to explain it properly. Then we played. A not so long story made shorter: we performed poorly. Due in part to technical difficulties, due in part to stopping in Weed*, we’ll say. Regardless, the audience was kind...one young boy told me as he was leaving that our errors were "refreshing." Well, thank you young man, thank you.

That night we stayed at Jamie's and drowned our post show woes in Saparro quaffed from the mouth of a conch shell a la Matthew Barney's latest. Very ritualistic, we had to wipe the piece our mouth touched exactly three times after each turn. Turns out I become freak folk with a conch shell in my hand, and Zac appears to be summoning Hell's legions.

Anyhow, all's well. I'll be updating two shows at a time, ideally. Soon: San Francisco and LA @ Silverlake Lounge. We're on our way to LA right now, van full with hitchhiker Fishbeck and technology pieces. We've got a lot of technology in our van.

The previous entry: (UPDATE: MORE TOUR DATES!) The Long List of Shit That Fucks Up My Face.
The next entry: Tour two: Hemlock and Silverlake.

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