In the mean time

Once again, it has been a while since I wrote my last post. Quite a bit has happened in the mean time. I'm going to keep this brief, but here's the skinny on SG happenings:

1. We have a new singer. His name is Daniel Erb, and I can't wait to introduce him to the world.

2. Me and Ben S. have been doing P90X just about everyday. Expect us to be ripped on the next tour.

3. Will got his job back at the UDF gas station. Not much else to say about that.

4. Benji's been logging in some serious time at his studio Central City Recordings.

5. The band Smash Mouth used our gear to practice before a show in Columbus. Srsly.

6. We will soon have our t-shirts for sale on our myspace page. If you couldn't come see us on the road to pick one up, this will be your chance to buy one.

7. We will be back on the road touring again very soon. Details to be released shortly.

That's about it. I'm going to continue to update this while we're home. I promise.

Sick

I am writing this from a very small university in Albany, NY called Saint Rose University. We are playing in one of the university buildings tonight with some friends of ours in Aficionado. It's been a while since I've sent out an update, so here's a quick recap:

Last I left you we were pranking in Wyoming. We spent a night in Boulder, Colorado at Ben S's cousins place the next night. He made us a delicious dinner, and it was the first time I have ever had brussel sprouts. The next night we played a mediocre show in Colorado Springs. To make up for the crappyness of the show, I remembered I had some Marriott rewards points saved up from what seems like a lifetime ago and was able to swing a room in a nearby Fairfield Inn. It was nice to have a clean shower and some HBO to cool every ones nerves. I also stole a shit load of bagels, single serve strawberry jelly's and plastic silverware. Well, I don't know if I would consider it stealing. They do refer to it as an 'all you can eat buffet' not specifying when or where you eat it. We left Colorado Springs and headed straight for the mountains. A few weeks prior to this, we were struggling with a gap in our tour between CO Springs and Illinois. Ben Miller remembered that he has a cousin who lives in Frisco, CO and decided to give him a call to see if he could help us out in any way. Well, as it turns out, Ben's cousin is not just a restaurant owner in Frisco, but owns the living shit out of the entire town. The next thing I know, he has booked us a gig with a $200 guarantee, secured a 2 bedroom condo for us, and promised to feed us at his restaurant. This was the highlight of the tour. We spent two days there, kicking them off with a meal at Chris's(Ben's cousin) restaurant. I had a filet mignon, 2 margarita's, a glass of wine and a shot of top shelf tequila. My meal alone had to be at least $60-$75, not including the appetizers we all shared. This set the tone for the remainder of the weekend. We left Frisco refreshed, and slightly hungover. We made our way to Illinois for a show in Champaign, followed by a show in Madison, Wisconson. Neither were exceptional. Our show in Chicago was decent. It was nice to see some familiar faces, and the venue we played, Martyr's had the nicest green room we've come across thus far stocked with free beer and bottles of water. We left Chicago and headed for Ohio. Dayton was a great night. There were tons of friends in the crowd, we got half price food at the venue and played great. We drove back to Columbus that night to sleep in familiar beds, although not for long. I pulled up to my parents house around 6 in the morning, and had to wake up at 11 to do my taxes and eat lunch with the fam before we left for Morgantown.

That was only a few days ago, and not much has happened since. Oh, except that I'm sick, and have probably infected everyone else in the band. You're welcome guys.

April Fools Day

One of the most successful April Fools Day pranks I've ever executed. We were driving towards Colorado from Montana, and got stuck in a huge snow storm. We pulled over the van in Bolder, Wyoming and found a Super 8 hotel to post up for the night. Once settled, myself, Austin and Will ventured over to a Mc Donalds across the street from the hotel to get some grub, and swung by the gas station next door to scope the beer situation. Apparently in Wyoming, you cannot purchase alcohol in gas stations, and liquor stores close at 10pm. It was 11:15, and our only option for a quick nightcap was to stop in a bar located in the hotel across the street from ours. We got our fill of cheap beer and great conversation with some locals whom we managed to sell 3 CD's to. At around 2, the bartender brought it to our attention that it was officially April Fools Day by closing Will's tab and stating that his card had been declined, and asked if he had another. Will’s face dropped and he replied, “Uhhhhhhhhh, no. Uh Oh.” Then the bartender laughed and said, “Gotcha! April Fools Day!” Now fully aware that it was official, we all came to the conclusion that we need to get the guys who were back at the hotel, as they would surely be as unaware of what date it was as we were. We plotted our scheme. It was flawless. The bar tender picked up the phone and dialed. “Um yes, is this room 108? Ok, well this is officer Spielger down here at the Jackson County Precinct, and I have a William Vokac in custody. We picked him up for public intox and disorderly conduct. He told us this is the room he is staying at, and I want to let you know that you can pick him up from the station tomorrow anytime after 9am, and bail has been set at $5000.” He hangs up the phone, turns to us and says, “All your friend said on the other line was “Okey Dokey”.

Myself and Austin immediately leave the bar to head back to our hotel room to complete the prank with Will straggling behind us. We take a moment outside the door to straighten our faces. The key went into the door and we walk in to a dimly lit room with three very concerned, and awake prankees. “What the fuck happened,” one of them asks, to which I reply, “I don’t know, me and Austin walked outside, and the next thing we know we see Will being cuffed and put into a cop car. How do you guys know, did Will call here?” “No, but the cops did. His bail is set at $5,000. The tour is over, what the fuck are we going to do?” At this very moment Austin loses his composure and bursts into laughter. “What the fuck is so funny about this,” one of the guys sternly asks. “What’s so funny about this is that today is April Fools Day,” I said. “Gotcha.”

Montana, who would have thought?

I am sitting on the floor of the van right now, out side of an apartment complex where the other guys in the band are sleeping nice and warm and cozy. I got stuck with van duty last night, which simply means that I had to sleep in the van to prevent someone from stealing/towing/ticketing our vehicle. I'm not sure what my presence would do to prevent any one of those things from happening though. All I know is, my phone is dead, I have to pee really bad, and there's a bus station directly to my left preventing me from doing so into an empty Ocean Spray bottle. This blows.

The show last night in Billings Montana was spectacular. It was probably the best show we've had thus far. We've had some rough nights these past few weeks. Who would have thought that Seattle Washington on a Saturday would suck so bad? We had literally 4 people in the bar, none of which were watching us play. The door guy dug us though and bought a CD. Last night though, the room was packed, the stage was great and people bought CD's and T-shirts. Also, a girl from the bar offered a floor for us to crash on and bought us pizza. Montana rules.

LA

Our official CD release show was on Monday, in Los Angelas, CA at the infamous Viper Room. It was a weird/great show. For having not played in 10 or so days, we killed it. I was having issues with my bass rig cutting in and out though and Benji had to use their house kit which is always a bit awkward. They also had this curtain pulled across the stage while we were setting up, and right before they drew the curtain to unveil us, the sound guy got over the PA and said "The Viper Room is proud to introduce.....SIX GALLERY!" and then the curtain pulled and we were all just standing there in front of the crowd, not quite sure what to do. We jumped into our set though and all was well.

We are still in LA right now. We had a meeting at the Century Media Records headquarters yesturday, and another industry meeting early tomorrow before we head off to San Francisco and make our way up the coast. I think today we are going to be bums and head over to Venice beach for the day.

The other day I found myself in a Walmart family bathroom, wearing absolutly nothing but a pair of shoes, staring at myself in the mirror. I realized that, given my current situation, my life is pretty awesome right now.

It's been a while my friends. Updating this blog is proving to be harder than I had anticipated. Especially this past week. The last place I wrote you was in NOLA, which we left for SXSW last Wednesday. A few days prior to that, and actually the last time we played a show, we met a bartender at the bar we played in NOLA. Her name is Squirrel and she promised to give us $50 if we drove her to Austin. We agreed that this would be a good idea, being how strapped for cash we knew we would be having to drive from NOLA to Austin, and then from Austin to LA. The drive to Austin wasn't too bad. Squirrel took a sleeping aide/pain killer/muscle relaxer. I'm not sure which it was, but it knocked her out for the majority of the drive. We arrived in Austin really late on Wednesday night/Thursday morning and slept at a Walmart parking lot for a few hours before having to be at our first party. Our marketing guy, Mark Shapiro, was throwing a day party called 'Full Metal Texas'. The doors opened at noon, and we arrived a little early to a line around the block. We found Mark outside the venue and he hooked it up with some wristbands and drink tickets and walked us to the front of the line. The show was very cool. One of my favorite bands, Darkest Hour played, there was an unannounced performance by Dillenger Escape Plan which was probably the best hardcore show I've ever seen, and Mark kept feeding us drink tickets. We left that party around 5ish and headed back to the van for some snacks and a nap. Me and Austin decided we wanted something a bit more substantial than peanut butter crackers or tuna, so we walked back uptown and found a barbeque stand. While waiting in line the incredibly intoxicated guy in front of us turns around and says "Woah, killer stache dude!" He was referring to the hair I have been cultivating under my nose since we left. I told him "thanks" and hoped that he would return to his place in line. Instead, he rambled on about mustaches, and how sweet he thought mine was, and continuously hi-fived me and Austin. This was briefly interrupted by his friend from the front of the line apologizing for his drunk friend, and asking what we wanted. Austin, without skipping a beat says "Chicken plate". We were amused by the drunk guy for a little while longer until his friend brought back two heaping plates of chicken barbeque, potato salad and baked beans. He said, "Here, this is for putting up with my drunk friend, thanks!" and then him and his drunk friend walked away, oddly without any food of their own. That shit made my day. We killed the food and crashed in the van for a few hours before having to be at another party around 10:30 being thrown by the website, Purevolume. We walked up town, and it was the same deal. A line around the block, Mark Shapiro with wristbands, and drink tickets. We got in in no time. There were a bunch of bands, most notably Andrew WK (although we left at around 3am and he had still not played), an open bar and free Taco Bell. They were sponsoring the event, and there were waitresses walking around all night with platters of tacos and burritos. I shit you not(literally, for at least a few days after). I must have eaten six bean burrito's over the course of the evening. The next day, we planned on taking it easy. We had to sleep at Walmart again, and were extremely sleep deprived at this point. We had to be at a show around 4 to see our label mates, And you will know us by the Trail of Dead, and hang once again with Shapiro and the head of our record label, Thomas Waber. After the show, we hung out with Conrad from Trail of Dead in Shapiro's baller ass RV for a few drinks. We left SXSW that night around 11:30 to get a head start on the drive to LA. I'm not going to draw out the next few days, but for a quick recap, it snowed in Texas, we crashed with our friend Farrah in Tucson, I got a cold, we slept in the van some more and didn't shower for 4 or 5 days. We arrived in LA last night and headed straight to a practice space the guys in Tenacious D were kind enough to let us use. Dan went to high school with John, their current touring guitar player, and he let us in to run our set. The radness of the situation didn't quite settle in as we were all so incredibly exhausted. I did manage to snag a little keepsake from the space. My own pick of destiny.

New Orleans

So we've been hanging out in New Orleans for the past 4 days. Our managers girlfriends parents own a building with two apartments, and one is uninhabited. They have been kind enough to let us crash here until we leave for Austin. As much as we all love this town, I think we are starting to get a little restless. Not playing shows for so many days in a row sucks, and I think we are all looking forward to getting to Austin to find some gigs. Some friends of ours in The Builders and the Butchers are crashing with us right now. They are on tour with the RX Bandits, and are playing at the House of Blues here in NOLA tonight. It should be a rad show! We also saw the final cut of our music video this morning. I think we are all stoked on the final product. Keep an eye out for the release of that here in the coming week or so. We had a review in the Dutch version of Revolver Magazine, and they gave us 4/5 stars! Very rad! We also have a review coming out on the AP website sometime this week so keep an eye out for that too. Things are really starting to pick up on the press side of things, and we can't wait till the album hits stores.