THE MUMLERS’

Triple Tour Extravaganza

Between August 12 and September 28, 2008, The Mumlers set out from San Jose to play 22 shows up and down the West Coast, from Seattle to San Diego. We played in cushy venues with fancy sound systems, house parties where the cops came, dive bars that pay in contraband, record stores with microphones that deliver powerful electrical shocks to the nose, pirate radio stations that operate in defiance of the federal government and, in one case, a secret locale that cannot be revealed. Rather than call this one tour, it makes more sense if we call it three.

The first seven shows were the Bigfoot Lives River Rat Isaac Hayes Memorial Tour. We planned this tour with our friends Painted Cakes from Oakland, and they traveled in the same van as us and played all seven of the shows too. We wanted to play in small towns and swim in a lot of rivers.

The second leg was the Bay Area Make Dat Loot Tour. Since more people have heard of us in the Bay Area, we’re able to book shows where we can make a little bit of spending change. This was great because we got to play with friends like The Morning Benders and Two Sheds, and also met some good bands we hadn’t played with before like Buildings Breeding, The Paddle Boat, Chelsea Wolfe (the goth Beyoncé) and Birds & Batteries, to name a few.

Our friends in Japanese Motors had a Monday night residency for the month of September at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa and invited us to come play with them, so we decided to make a trip out of it and play some other dates while we were down there. In homage to Van Morrison and as testimony to the fact that I, Will Sprott, am a word nerd, we called our trip to Southern California the Austral Week. We pinned on a couple more Bay Area shows to the end of the trip because they were offered to us and they seemed like neat things to be a part of.

A few weeks before we left,

we made posters and sent them to all the venues. It was always a good feeling to see them put to use when we pulled into town.

We went swimming every day on this tour. Here we are before playing our first show, taking a dip in the Navarro. The show that night in Caspar, Calif. was one of the best! We played with a great band called El Paso Chapel.

Two bands in one tree! Painted Cakes and The Mumlers in the commodious hollow of a giant redwood.

Here we are in Eureka with Amy (standing), who booked our show at the Lil’ Red Lion, and a drunk girl with a balloon on her head.

We played at Bop Street Records in Seattle. This record shop was amazing! They bought our record and put it on the wall next to Nilsson, Coltrane and Black Sabbath.

After the show in Portland, Eli [Reitz] from Painted Cakes wound down with a ride on a bearskin swing set.

One of our favorite bands we met on tour was Grouper. Here she is playing at a house show in Olympia, Wash.

On August 20, we were supposed to play in Meyers, Calif. but during the course of our daily river mission, we got two flat tires. By the time we got it straightened out, it was getting late and we had to cancel. But we decided to go into Nevada City (since that’s where we were) and see if we could play on the street. We ended up finding an open mic at the Crazy Horse and they let us book out an entire hour and play. It turned out to be a blast and they invited us back!

Since we mixed our record at The Hangar in Sacramento, this show at Old Ironsides was a bit of a reunion and we got to catch up with some friends.

Here’s DJ Sonic Sam of Pirate Cat Radio in San Francisco.

We had a rabbit stowaway on our journey to Southern California.

They have some strange street names in Souther California.

The Ruby Room in San Diego had a game where you pin a mustache on our drummer, Andy [Paul].

We replaced our Northwest river routine with a daily swim in the Pacific Ocean when we were down south. Here we are on Venice Beach.

You never know who you’ll meet. We played this house show in Santa Monica and Ruthann Friedman came (front right). Go put her name in the Google machine and learn something.

www.themumlers.com