The Appreciation Post

By T. Blake Littwin | Photo by Graham Marley

Consider the road. Consider four weeks of touring. For lesser bands, it can be the beginning of the end. Small differences become irreconcilable feuds, precious funds are hemorrhaged away on fuel and fast food, and lofty musical aspirations fall by the wayside like discarded candy wrappers. Now consider Boston’s The Appreciation Post, who is embarking on its “Too Fat For Porn Tour.” They have a reliable van and an arsenal of razor-sharp punk-synth songs (courtesy of their EP The Brighter Sides). But the question remains - how do they handle the road?

The obvious first step is getting tour dates lined up. “We generally split up the booking duties between Roger, Nam and myself,” says guitarist/singer Jim Keaney. The three members use several different approaches for setting up shows. “We book a couple of ways, searching for shows that are already happening and asking if we can get on, or finding bands that we think we would fit with,” says keyboardist Roger Lussier. “Also, on this particular tour a bunch of dates were booked after we put the routing up on our website, promoters/bands/etc. saw the dates we were looking for and tried to help us out.”

While the band has toured before, this trip will present an assortment of new situations to overcome. The biggest change will come in the form of stage and van space. “This tour in general is a change of pace for us because it’s our first stint of more than a couple days as a four-piece,” says Lussier. “I know for sure that this will mean more sleeping room in the van - ‘The Appreciation Post: spoon-free in the van since 2008.’”
The Appreciation Post are not concerned with the perils of facing new crowds in new locales. In fact, leaving the confines of Boston offers the band to play to a younger demographic that is often hard to reach through at 21+ shows. “We probably do better in some places other than our hometown,” muses Keaney. “Massachusetts doesn’t have many all-ages venues and those are the shows we like playing. Also the shows we are best received at. All 17 shows/days on this tour are all-ages shows, so we’re really pumped about that.”

“As far as people who are seeing us for the first time, we just try to have fun on stage and feed off the energy of the audience,” adds Lussier. “That usually gets a pretty positive response.”

Beyond the chance to spread their music to the far reaches of America, going on tour also tightens up the band as a musical unit. “Touring makes us better players for sure,” says Keaney.” After about a week on the road, we enter the twilight zone. It sounds clichéd, but you really do lose sense of time, and living in a van makes everyone a little loopy. I imagine this is sort of what happens when you’re put in ‘the hole’ in prison.”
So how does this quartet maintain their sanity during the long stretches of driving and the weeks of hygiene-free living? “After the first couple days I just put it on auto-pilot,” says drummer Ted Carlson. “Lots of music is always a good thing to have, I prefer the up-tempo numbers. I’m also kept alert by cheers from the back of the van as we win eBay auctions for vintage gear we cant afford.” Bassist Nam Le thinks that the “major adjustments really are just sleeping in the van, living in dirty clothes. I keep myself busy by looking at internet smut on my Sony Vaio,” while Lussier reports that, “the three of us who aren’t driving play a sport that we call “Van Ball.” There are no rules, but it’s pretty fun.”

www.myspace.com/theappreciationpost