Eyes of Cronos East Coast Tour - March 2010

Wednesday, March 10 - 2010 - Ottawa, ON

Time for another tour blog after not finishing the last one. After the last two tours travelling on a bus, we decided we need to keep our massive egos in check. We've opted to do this east coast Canada tour in Jason's parents car with a trailer attached. Our good buddy Craig Rose of Craig Rose management is along for the ride too. Jason made the rounds and picked everyone up and we ride to the rehearsal space to load all our stuff in the trailer. Chris' drums are already inside in a massive road case. This particular case happens to have EXCITER - Ottawa, Canada stenciled all over it. Chris, being such tight buds with (namedrop) Dan Beehler managed to borrow it for the tour. This is the same case flown to England when Exciter opened for Motorhead, as well as when Metallica were opening for Exciter. Apparently Dan's daughter was using it as a dresser until Chris showed up.


The Exciter case and the elusive Craig Rose
The drive to Ottawa flies by pretty fast. Craig brought along his Brian Vollmer of Helix book that he just got in the mail and reads aloud all the best passages. One of the highlights was when Brian describes his "old lady" in '81 or something going to the doctor about a rash on the insides of her legs and the doctor's official diagnosis is "whisker burn". That has us all laughing for HOURS. After a few "on the fly" mix tapes were cranked, we arrive at Mavericks. Chris makes sure to point out "AIDS lady" who frequents the area. The boyz from opening band The Mistress (with shades on and hair blowing in the wind) have already spotted us and help us throw everything into the club. Decay and Chris go and look for a parking spot while Craig and Ian put the cabinets on the stage and then think about going over to Vertigo records before Jason gets back so they can score all the good records. We decide to wait for Jason anyway. The used metal section is pretty sparse this time of year, and we skip over all the new gatefold reissues. Ian gives in out of desperation and buys the BLACKOUT (Belgian biker poverty metal) record that has been sitting there for the past 5 years. Back at the club the first band is still soundchecking... Breaking the Law. Craig, Ian and Chris go out for some food at Castle Shawarma and come back to the club to catch the end of Breaking the Law. So now Craig watched merch while Ian and Jason go back to Vertigo Records to hang out with Uncle D and drink some soda pops. Uncle D gives the boys a handful of slighty warped Exciter and Motorhead records. Upon leaving the store, Jason says "Ian! Keep the Exciter records on the inside in case Dan Beehler's out there and thinks you're a big fag." We arrive back at the show just in time for The Mistress' set and rock a few beers by the merch table. Things start getting rowdy when the Aggressor boyz show up. There are nipple twists all round courtesy of Chris' brother Brian.


The Steve Bros, and Decay's shoes make the rounds again
There are a shit load of people at the show now and it's looking really good for a Wednesday night. We tune up and try to get onstage as fast as possible. Tonight Ian debuts his new custom made white V (Wes Spetifore guitars, Vancouver!) and the band debuts a new song, a fast shitstormer called... something I can't remember right now. After the gig we fire all the gear out and head on over to Chris Steve's house to eat a delicious meal prepared by his mom Mary Steve. We stop halfway to fill up with gas, and Jason goes in to pre-pay. The attendant says "You know, I can smell alcohol on your breath, are you sure you're okay to drive?" Jason replied "It's ok dude, I just played a gig." We fill up and hope to escape before the cops show up. It's pretty easy to spot a Lumina with four longhairs pulling a trailer. Chris takes over driving duties and we hightail it to his house where a massive meal is waiting for us, including a dessert of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Everyone finds a spot to sleep and unrolls their rotting sleeping bags which haven't been aired out since the Enforcer tour last summer. And now here we are, eating more cookies and looking up another record store to hit on the way out of town. Until Quebec City!

Thursday, March 11 - 2010 - Quebec City, PQ

On the way out of Ottawa we stopped in the fitness district to check out Legend Records. There was a bookshelf with two rows of metal. For our convenience, all the prices were on the insides of the records. We didn't stay too long because someone in the store dropped multiple bombs and we had to get out before we were gassed. Craig managed to grab the Blind Fury record before the rest of them disappeared into brown smog. We hit the highway soon after and ate banana muffins and chicken sandwiches. After 5 or 6 hours in the car we arrived in Quebec City and looked for Le Scanner Bistro down all the one way streets. Bands in Montreal are usually something to talk about, and we hoped to be playing with a STEEL BAGUETTE or a "heavy acoustic hardcore project formerly featuring members of ex-VOIVOD side project AUT CHANCE". We finally found the Scanner and backed the car up in the parking lot across the street. We went inside before the promoter Fred showed up and drank a couple pitchers of Boreale. With the car on such an angle it would be nearly impossible to get the massive Exciter road case out of the trailer. Luckily the opening band S.D.B. (Suicidal Drunken Bastards) were nice enough to lend Chris their drums in exchange for using our speaker cabinets. Once the bar started filling up with bangers (including the legendary Metal Richard) Le SUICIDAL DRUNKEN BASTARDS began their set which even included a cover or Poison's "Look What The Cat Dragged In" which was actually easier to recognize than when Poison play it live. Our set was plagued by amp malfunctions. Between every song Craig and Ian had to try different combinations of pedals and cables to find the source of the problem. Later on we asked Fred where we could get some food and were led to Ashton's Poutine Palace. Everyone's cheese curds were squeaking as they ate, apparently the sign of a good cheese curd.


Fine dining at Chez Ashton
We got back in the car and Craig took the first shift for the all night 14 hour drive to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia 'by. Around 6 am we stopped in some frigid cold town for gas and toilets while Craig tried to explain to the French cashier with the raging mullet that he just wanted a receipt and did not actually like his mullet.

Friday, March 12 - 2010 - Halifax, NS

We rolled into Dartmouth at around 4:30 and headed over to CD Heaven for our all ages instore performance. Pentagraham AKA Crucifuck from Hellacaust met up with us shortly after and we piled our gear into the middle of the store. Craig and Ian went for a delicious meal at Subway. The rotten old cooze behind the counter barked at us "Alright what is this?" I guess "what is this" meant "what is this shitty sandwich you ordered?" Well why don't you ask the crater faced slob next to you who made it? Huh? Meanwhile, Chris continued to set up his drums at the store while Jason and Crucifuck headed over to the liquor store to buy a couple cases of Alpine Premium Lager. We were alright to drink in the store as long as we had our drinks in plastic cups, but Jason opted to slurp his out of a straw from a Subway cup. We put on the Skull Fist cd for the kids in the store and listened to it about 8 times in a row until we started playing. It was pretty cold in the store and we had to play with snot running out of our noses. The band played a diverse set of material and even played a few requests from the kids. Well more like waited until somebody yelled out a song that was next on the set list. After the set we sold a few shirts and collected money from the donations box being passed around. Aside from some bills we got a lot of pennies and even some Trinidadian money that might be worth something. Now it was time to pack up and head over the bridge to Halifax. We paid the 75 cent toll with pennies and drove about 20 seconds until we got to Gus' Pub. There wasn't much going on so we dropped the gear off and walked over to Mike Fedora from Terratomb's house. Mike was watching Three's Company and had just dropped acid. He began playing cassettes to test us on our knowledge of W.A.S.P., Ratt and Def Leppard. We drank a few Alpine's and admired Mike's Spiderman obsession. He even had a knitted Spiderman quilt on his bed.


Chilling at Fedora's Funhouse
After watching an Asphyx video while Graham restrung his guitar, we headed back to Gus' and set up merch. Pretty soon the place started filling up. Last time we played Gus' you couldn't even walk through the place to get to the bathroom and this was no different. Some girls came up and told us how they only eat Kraft dinner like it was hard to believe. The opening band was kind of hard to see considering the ampount of people but I believe there were at least 2 goatees and 1 du-rag. The highlight was definitely the song about Einstein with the chorus of "E equals MC squared" (repeat). Black Moor were up next and ripped up some harmony leads. Hellacaust followed and the place went nuts. NecroJohn, Hell Bastard, Crucifuck and Hell Spawn were in top form. Jason had been sleeping in the car until now and came back in a little dazed after inhaling exhaust fumes while the car was running. Chris had to bang on the window a few times and got no reaction. It was only until he texted Jason that it was decided he was not dead. The Cauldron set went over pretty well considering how tired and snotty we were. Jason even managed to do some quality stage banter featuring such classics as "Have we got any wiggers in the house tonight?" and "This one goes out to these wiggers here." Afterwards we packed up and left the car parked behind the bar while we headed over to Crucifuck's house to unroll our sleeping bags. Jason and Chris headed over to a party down the street at Hell Bastard's house for a couple hours. After a few showers the next morning we walked back to Gus' Pub to get the car. There were lots of sirens approaching from down the street, and behind them could be seen the biggest gathering of losers for the Halifax St. Patrick's Day Parade. We couldn't get the car backed out fast enough and had to sit through the entire thing. The Fire Marshall unnecessarily blasted the horn at us as he passed and began to laugh. Other things in the parade were people in sumo outfits and a car with cardboard taped to the side and an inflatable Easter bunny on the roof. After the last stragglers of this senseless parade had passed we drove over to Crucifuck's restaurant and had a quick bite before heading over to Taz Records. Ian grabbed BRAINFEVER - Face to Face while Craig grabbed among others, that LION'S PRIDE record that's been sitting there since the Goat Horn days.


Face to face with a shitty parade
Saturday, March 13 - 2010 - Saint John, NB

We headed out of the town of Halifax around 2 or 3 and stopped at a mall to pick up a crate of decongestant medicine. Ian and Jason were getting really sick by this point. Since Craig and Chris were doing fine, it was Craig's belief that Ian and Jason were secretly making out. The source was probably closer to those French microphones in Quebec City that have been screamed in by every baguette wielding band this side of Paris. By the time nightfall had approached and at least two games of travel Scrabble had been played in the back seat of the car, we had stumbled upon Saint John and aye, the Bay of Fundy. Luckily, because Saint John is such an overcrowded and thriving city, they felt it necessary to only have one way streets. It took us a while to figure out exactly where the club was. We all had a strange feeling we were being watched on the deserted streets. Suddenly Jason cried out "Look!" and pointed to a pair of Cronos eyes staring at us. We knew we had arrived. We parked on an extremely steep hill and loaded everything into the place before the brakes gave out. Once everything was inside Eric from Sunspeed showed up and invited us over to their jamspace for a few beers until the doors opened. Jason needed to catch up on some sleep from all his pardying the night before and slept in the car while it was running again. Eric led the rest of the boyz to an old church that was used for bands and cheerleading practices. The main part of the church was locked up and falling apart. Sad Wings of Destiny was played on low volume while candles were lit and Mooseheads were drank. Chris, Ian and Craig headed downhill to the liquor store and picked up 3 cases of Alpine Premium Lager. It was so steep and freezing out on the way back that it was decided a better idea would be to find something to eat on a perpendicular street. To our joy, a Subway was in sight. Loitering outside were a couple Rusted Dawn dudes who couldn't decide between Subway and Tim Horton's. The weird sandwich making chuds in this one had this thing they would do, where when putting toppings in your sub would keep asking you what else you wanted on it even if you said "That's it". If you wanted to eat sometime that year you would have to say "CLOSE THE FUCKING SUB". Ian and Craig sat down at the table and talked about how great their subs were. Then Chris came over with a massive sub with every possible thing crammed in it with 10 kinds of sauces coming out the sides. He said "She wouldn't stop asking me what I wanted on it!" Laffs were had all round. Back at the club we set up merch next to Rusted Dawn and caught up on years gone by.


Craig Rose Management: not impressed, Justin Rusted gets cozy wit Chris
The bartender didn't charge us for beer all night and kept refilling our pitchers of Alpine. By the time Jason came back from his little nap we all had a good buzz going. It wasn't until 1:30 or later that we hit the stage. We burned through the set and were only interrupted once by some gargantuan chick with a really low voice screaming something at us. All night she could be heard saying "I know not everyone likes me, but I don't care, it's just the way I am!" During the load out she stood in our way on the steps talking to some dude so Craig started trying to knock her over with all kinds of drum cases. I bet people see that chick walking down the street all the time in Saint John and think "Oh God, her again." We decided to drive straight to Fredericton after the show since Jason's sister lives there and invited us to stay at her place. So off we went in our car with penises drawn all over it in the dirt by Rusted Dawn.

Sunday, March 14 - 2010 - Fredericton, NB

We pulled up to Jason's sister Ellen Decay's house in the sticks of Fredericton really early, around 4 or 5am. We woke her up along with three crazy dogs who had their eyes on Craig and were ready to party. Craig had a way of getting them so riled up they'd start fighting each other and releasing farts. Everyone claimed a couch or room and slept the next 12 hours away. Instead of seeing the sights the next day we all played Mario Kart and took it easy, except for Craig and the dogs. By 9 we got got in the car and started driving to the show. The car started whining and going really slow and eventually broke down in some kind of highway intersection. We got out and tried to push the thing back on the side of the road but it was too hard with the trailer attached. Pretty soon every good 'ol boy in town was jumping out of their pickup to help us out. They all discussed the situation and said stuff like "Deeba dee 'by, dis here car eh, deeba deeb, yee's a pullin' too much weight 'by." Once it was on the side of the road we called CAA to tow it to a garage. A cop showed up and said some more deeba deeb stuff that we couldn't understand. Pretty soon Jeremy and Tom from Rusted Dawn came to the rescue and we loaded all our necessary stuff in their van and went to the show. Jason and Craig were going to ride with the tow truck drive to the garage, but ended up getting a ride in the back of the cop car for reckless endangerment and pulling a class 2 trailer with a Lumina. But as it turned out, the cop was a huge fan of David Wilcox and let them go on the condition that they sing a duet of "Layin' Pipe" for him. Everyone met up the Nicky Zee's bar and many $2.50 pints of Alpine were drank in celebration. The crowd was pretty raging for a Sunday night in Fredericton. We played a quick set, only stopping for Jason to blow his nose in between most songs.


Ian's new guitar with Coor's Light, the official beer of wigger slam
After the set all the gear was piled up outside while we waited for Ellen Decay's bud with a pickup to show up. Ian used this downtime to start a new business venture selling Alpine Premium Lager out of Ellen's trunk to drunk funboys. They were willing to pay any price because the only way they were getting those senoritas back to their pads was with the promise of quality beer (and a sick speaker setup for my ipod!) We planned to leave at 8am the next day but the car didn't get fixed until 11. Fortunately for our cheap asses it was only a transmission line that broke and cost $75 to fix. We thought about telling them it was a rip off but decided to pay up because time was a wasting and we had to be in Montreal for the big gig that night! We bid farewell to Ellen while Craig had a tearful goodbye with the dogs. Before we left we discovered Ian left his box with pedals and cables at the bar. After a few phone calls and a chat with a hip local, some guy with a bunch of rope and sunglasses who looked like he knew what he was doing came and opened the bar. We grabbed some weird looking pizza from "Best Pizza" and hit the road to Montreal... but would we make it in time?

Monday, March 15 - 2010 - Montreal, PQ

So we finally made it to Montreal around 9:30 after a restless drive across Quebec. After drawing goatees and du-rags on all the guys in every page of the BW&BK magazines that Jason brought, we had nothing else to do but start ripping them out and sticking them up in the car. Actually almost everyone in that mag has short hair and a goatee so we didn't have that much work to do. That guy from DOMINICI who looked like Tom Jones in a leather jacket got the most laffs. The Metalian boyz were already set up on the stage so we managed to borrow their bass cab and avoid lugging our fridge up the stairwell. We got some help from our bud Matt Wrath and then cracked a few Boreales once we were settled in. Pretty decent crowd for a Monday night in Montreal where there are 35 metal shows going on every night of the week. Ian from Metalian though, definitely one of the best singers we've played with or seen live. Good set as always. There were only two bands tonight so we were up next. We got about 3 seconds into Dreams Die Young when Chris' kick pedals exploded, so we had to jam D.T. for a couple minutes while he got it sorted out. We packed up shortly after the set and piled back into the car, which started having some problems again. Metalian hooked us up with some transmission fluid or something while we waited for those bangers Matt Wrath and Nick "You guys should play Goat Horn" to come back from scoring after hours Chinese beer. Chris took off with Mary Steve and planned to meet up with us at 11 the next morning. Soon we were on our way to Matt's while Nick advised where we should park. We asked him if it was safe to park in the area to which Nick replied "Yes, this side of the street is better, there's much less dog shit." We walked to Matt's and promptly flipped through his record collection to crank some Hallow's Eve "Tales of Terror", which Jason managed to snag off Matt because of some t-shirt trade gone bad a few years ago. Next up Jason offered to buy Matt's receiver for $100. While he was at it he offered to buy his couch for $50 and his golf clubs for $30. Everyone was really hungry so we ordered some poutine for delivery. Matt wanted to buy one giant one for everyone but since we were all sick and didn't really want to do that anyway, we each got our own regular sized poutines.



The boyz eat their poutine. Matt refuses to sell his poutine to Jason. Jason finds a Hexx record he wants to buy
Pretty soon we were digging in and cracking a few $10 beers to wash down the food. Craig was the first to crash and went to sleep in Matt's computer room while Jason went to sleep under the kitchen table. Ian held out the longest with Nick and Matt to make sure he got the couch. Matt went off to work around 7am and could be heard saying "Fuck I'm still drunk!" while walking out the door. The rest of us got up around 10 and made sure to unplug Matt's receiver before leaving. We did the Montreal record store rounds and scored some Silver Mountain, Overdrive, Nasty Savage and Venom records before trying to meet up with Chris. We stood outside of Subway on St. Denis and watched Chris go driving around the block about 3 times until Jason finally did that funny run he does and chased the car down. Next thing we knew we were on the road home which was completely uneventful. Mainly because I'm sick of typing. The end.