Last year, we introduced you to Temple, a Milwaukee-Madison post-punk band that grabbed our attention with its great debut, The Conscience Of The King (download it now!). This year, Temple guys took its Wisconsin-tested 2013 material on the road shortly after new year, as they struck out on a 17-day tour that found them playing 12 shows – and having two cancelled on account of weather – in 10 states.
Temple guitarist John Larkin was kind enough to pen an exceptionally informative and well-written account of the experience. Unfortunately, 17 days worth of diary entries requires a lot of words. You can read the diary in its entirety on the next page, but here are some of our favorite segments.
Day 1: Rockford, IL
“It was freezing cold in the basement – I wore everything I had on outside – so between the first two acts, I started to go upstairs to warm up but was stopped saying that there was just a naked guy meandering between everyone. It was only 9 o’clock so I didn’t think anyone would be that drunk yet. Anyways, it turned out that he was just insane or something. He was showing off his self-inflicted scars and had Charles Manson’s face tattooed on his arm.”
Day 3: Champaign, IL
“The temperature has dropped in the double digit negatives, not to mention the intense wind chill that pushed gusts perpendicularly across the direction we were driving. It was slow going. The van does not have any traction as I found out when, idling through the parking lot, we almost slid into a parked car. We are carrying a lot of weight and our tires are bald. As we continued on, we saw hundreds of orange-tagged cars buried in snowdrifts.”
Day 5: Little Rock, AK
“After awaking to fighting pitbulls in the backyard of the house we were crashing at, we headed to Little Rock. Six hours later, we arrived at the venue, Vino’s Pizza and found that it had been double-booked with some basketball team fundraiser thing. Luckily, we just had to wait till later to start and got free pizza and a few beers.
A hardcore band, Lifer, kicked the night off in a big way. The crowd wasn’t huge but everyone was so psyched and we played one of our best sets of the whole tour. Nouns finished off the night and we went over to their place to hang out/crash. The place they live in used to be a dentist office and there was one of those flexible overhead lights still fixed to the ceiling over the room we slept in.”
Day 6: Shreveport, LA
“Shreveport felt like what I imagine Las Vegas feels like. There were a bunch of brightly lit casinos and we ran into a way drunk lady at the bar before the show who had gotten kicked out of another bar and then got kicked out of the one we were playing. She kept trying to buy us shots. This was at 8 o’clock.“
Day 8: San Antonio, TX
“We decided to go a bit out of the way to see the Gulf of Mexico the next day and it was totally worth it. We drove through miles of desolate industrial chemical processing plant wastelands to the ocean, which was strange to see. I didn’t know that kind of thing existed, nor that there would be so much of it. We got to the beach and found that no one else was walking around it. Everyone just sat in their cars, possibly avoiding some kind of chemical runoff that we didn’t know about.”
Day 9: Austin, TX
“The show was in a bit of a sketchy area. We got offered crack a few times and saw some “deals” or whatever go down. Apparently, a few months prior the building next door was raided by the DEA.”
Day 16: Chicago, IL
“We hurried our gear in and I was told we had to move the van so I went to find parking. After about fifteen minutes of circling around, I found a spot far away and sprinted back. My stuff had been set up and we played right away, which really sucked. In my haste I couldn’t remember where I had parked either so I spent a good 45 minutes walking around looking after. Scowler and Life in Vacuum both killed it and we decided to head home, stopping for one last late-night Taco Bell meal. When I got to my house I tried to open my door with the van key. It’s hard to believe tour’s over.”
Do yourself a favor a read the rest, then do yourself an even bigger favor and download Temple’s album (pay-what-you-want).
Rockford house graffiti
treacherous roads
dental office
remnants
Myles on a bridge
Shreveport lights
chemical plants/Gulf
of Mexico
chemical plants/Gulf
of Mexico
Temple remembers the
Alamo. (Left to right: Myles, Cassidy, Jamie, John)
John plays with dogs
RozzTox
Day 1: Rockford, IL
After the typical pre-tour scramble, we made it on the road around 5. I drove the two and half hours it took through a bit of snow and ice to get to the house at around 7:30. On the side door where we were about to load in, there was a “glory hole” in the place of a doorknob. It turned out to be an all too fitting entrance to the house.
The interior walls of the house were covered with graffiti and the place reeked of cigarette smoke. Also, there was absolutely no heat in the house and it was just as cold as it was outside. I don’t know what they are going to do when that “cold snap” hits on Monday. Anyway we loaded our gear in and waited for a few locals to play before us.
It was freezing cold in the basement—I wore everything I had on outside—so between the first two acts, I started to go upstairs to warm up but was stopped saying that there was just a naked guy meandering between everyone. It was only 9 o’clock so I didn’t think anyone would be that drunk yet. Anyways, it turned out that he was just insane or something. He was showing off his self-inflicted scars and had Charles Manson’s face tattooed on his arm.
Then a tech-y prog-y death metal band played their first show. The naked guy had put pants on and came downstairs to awkwardly stand way too close to the vocalist.
He did the same thing when we played. Man, that was the coldest set ever. We played all right but people were a bit drunk and rowdy. It was weird to see my breath while I played and the guy stood right in our faces the whole set. We had to tell him over and over to back off. We sold a couple of shirts to a guy, who after buying them, took a swig of some cheap whiskey and then puked right in the middle of the floor.
We tried to get out of there right after the set to get to a motel, which is something we had never done before. It was around 11 and we knew that the hotel was closing at midnight so we hurried to get our gear out but found that someone had parked our van in. We asked everyone in the house whose car it was and nobody knew. There was no way we could sleep at that house; it was so dirty and so damn cold. Finally, someone came out of somewhere and moved it.
We roared out of there and made it to the hotel at 11:55 but the main door was locked and it was dark. Perhaps because of the lack of a muffler on our van, the lobby lit up and a crabby woman reluctantly gave us a key for the room.
Day 2: Chesterton, IN
We got up a bit late and with the exception of Jamie, missed the complimentary breakfast. We got out of there and had a coffee and hit the road for Chesterton. This show was looking to be pretty cool and we were all pretty stoked.
When we left Rockford the roads were all right. Once it began to snow it got a bit dicey. The van isn’t easy to drive and the brakes aren’t great and the tires are pretty much bald. After about an hour, the roads were completely blanketed by thick layer of packed snow and the lanes became one. With just an hour to go we got a message that the show was cancelled. We decided to try to make it for Champaign. We figured there would be someone there that might be able to put us up for the night and eventually we got in touch with someone’s girlfriend who had floor space for us.
The roads kept getting worse and worse and the wind was picking up and it was getting dark. Also, because of our late start, it was starting to get really dark. The wind was blowing right across the road and made it difficult to drive. I kept having to steer against it. We were still far from Champaign, far enough where it wasn’t safe to go for it. I didn’t like giving up, but if something were to happen even merely sliding off the road and getting stuck, we definitely would’ve died.
We decided to stay at another hotel, which I didn’t think we would have to do even once. At least this one had a pool. Then we had a couple of drinks and hit the pool with the winter storm raging outside. Jamie for some reason was completely naked. Then we came back into the room and watched Signs.
It’s official. Tour starts tomorrow. It feels like it’s been a vacation so far but we got confirmation that tomorrow’s show at Error Records will go on no matter what, despite everything being closed down.
Day 3: Champaign, IL
The drive today was exactly what we had wanted to avoid by getting off the road early last night. The temperature has dropped in the double digit negatives, not to mention the intense wind chill that pushed gusts perpendicularly across the direction we were driving.
It was slow going. The van does not have any traction as I found out when, idling through the parking lot, we almost slid into a parked car. We are carrying a lot of weight and our tires are bald. As we continued on, we saw hundreds of orange-tagged cars buried in snowdrifts. We definitely made the right decision last night.
We arrived safely to Error Records but are now hearing that there is a “state of emergency,” shutting down all the roads in Illinois. Nobody is allowed on the highways, which means neither of the other touring bands can make it and neither can any of the locals. This seriously sucks. The drive we just made really sucked – like, our lives were in danger and now were finding out that it wasn’t worth it.
Now, it’s official: the beginning of this tour is a bust. It’s really depressing to realize that it’s day three of our tour and two of our shows have cancelled due to this weather. But at the same time, I could see us falling off the shoulder and getting buried by snow in a ditch, which would have ended this whole thing. All things considered, we’re here, it’s warm, and we’ve found a kickass place to stay; I guess that’s all right.
Day 4: Nashville, TN
The roads weren’t much better. The drive to Nashville, which was supposed to be take around six hours, turned into a treacherous nine-and-half hours of 10 mph driving over pure ice. I had to drive the first six hours straight; there were no open exits anyway. As we entered Tennessee, the sun was out and the ice was breaking apart.
We got to the show late and played a bad set. We were all so tired and frustrated and it was unfortunate be played so bad in front of some really cool bands. We played with our pals in Free Throw, Sinai Vessel and two other touring bands: The Wild and You Blew It!, who were on tour together. Another band, Level Up, hopped on at the last minute after another show. All the bands were excellent. It felt good to play a show again.
Day 5: Little Rock, AK
After awaking to fighting pitbulls in the backyard of the house we were crashing at, we headed to Little Rock. Six hours later, we arrived at the venue, Vino’s Pizza and found that it had been double-booked with some basketball team fundraiser thing. Luckily, we just had to wait till later to start and got free pizza and a few beers.
A hardcore band, Lifer, kicked the night off in a big way. The crowd wasn’t huge but everyone was so psyched and we played one of our best sets of the whole tour. Nouns finished off the night and we went over to their place to hang out/crash. The place they live in used to be a dentist office and there was one of those flexible overhead lights still fixed to the ceiling over the room we slept in.
Day 6: Shreveport, LA
It was a short three-hour drive to our next show, so we decided to hang out in Little Rock for a bit. We checked out this coffee shop where a couple of our friends from the night before worked and got hooked up with some coffee and food. We then walked around and climbed up on this bridge over a river. It felt nice to not be in the van for a bit.
Shreveport felt like what I imagine Las Vegas feels like. There were a bunch of brightly lit casinos and we ran into a way drunk lady at the bar before the show who had gotten kicked out of another bar and then got kicked out of the one we were playing. She kept trying to buy us shots. This was at 8 o’clock.
The show wasn’t great and started way too late. Nobody came up to watch us and just sat at the bar trying to carry on their conversations. Good luck .We ended up drinking and hanging out with some cool people. The bartender made Jamie a mean long island and we stayed out late.
Day 7: Houston, TX
We played for a medium crowd that seemed into it but Myles broke his strap one song in and just sat down for the rest, killing a lot of our energy. The other bands were pretty sweet though except for the last band, who managed to offend everyone left in the bar when they played. I just left the room took a nap behind the merch table while they played. We ended up driving a half hour south to stay with our friend Jeffery from Valens and his dad out at their ranch house. I got to do some laundry and shower, which was a nice reset.
Day 8: San Antonio, TX
We decided to go a bit out of the way to see the Gulf of Mexico the next day and it was totally worth it. We drove through miles of desolate industrial chemical processing plant wastelands to the ocean, which was strange to see. I didn’t know that kind of thing existed, nor that there would be so much of it.
We got to the beach and found that no one else was walking around it. Everyone just sat in their cars, possibly avoiding some kind of chemical runoff that we didn’t know about. The water was too cold to swim in but we waded around for a bit and then headed to San Antonio.
San Antonio quickly became on of my favorite nights of tour. We saw the Alamo and hung out with our friend Cruz and had some tacos before our show. The guys at Texas is Funny records hooked us up with a hell of a show. We played with a band called tides., which was one of my favorite bands of the whole tour.
They brought an older crowd, which made us a bit nervous, but everyone was psyched and we sold a bunch of merch. Afterwards, we headed to another show and saw Deer Vibes, who were playing their tour comeback show and damn were they incredible. We got so excited to get to that show that we forgot where we had parked the van and it took us over an hour to find the thing, but we were too happy to care.
Day 9: Austin, TX
We were all really excited to play Austin. We got out there pretty early and hung out with Cruz at a coffee shop and then Jamie and I went on a dinner-date at Bourdin off of Cruz’s recommendation, an amazing vegan friendly restaurant that was similar to Comet Cafe. We met up with our Milwaukee pals in Marcy and Crowdpleaser for the first of four shared dates.
The show was in a bit of a sketchy area. We got offered crack a few times and saw some “deals” or whatever go down. Apparently, a few months prior the building next door was raided by the DEA. The show was really cool though. We played with the Milwaukee folks as well as Weakness, who completely floored me. Such an amazing band. The Marcy/Crowdpleaser guys went to stay with Cruz but he was sick and didn’t wake up to their phone call so they ended up sleeping in their van, which always sucks.
Myles went off to some party but the rest of us went to stay with some friends that Tommy from Weakness knew. They were so nice and gave us beer and pizza. It was refreshing to hang out with non-music folks and talk about things other than music. They also had some cute puppies, who woke me up in the next morning.
Day 10: Denton, TX
I spent the first few hours of the day outside reading in the hot sun. It felt good to be alone for a bit for the first time in 9 days. After hanging out and checking out Austin for a bit, we headed to Denton to Macaroni Island, a rad house venue, to play with Flesh Born, Crowdpleaser, Marcy, and another band. Every band killed it and everyone there was pretty hyped. We spent the rest of the night hanging out and drinking.
Day 11: Oklahoma City, OK
We woke up to homemade breakfast tacos courtesy of Crowdpleaser/Marcy and then headed to Oklahoma City for day three with those guys. Before getting to the show, we checked out the bombing memorial, which was a moving experience.
That was a fun night but due to issues with the neighbors, the show got cut short and Crowdpleaser didn’t get to play, which sucked. It guess it’s more important to keep the space alive rather than having angry neighbors calling the cops. Oh well.
Day 12: Kansas City, MO
We had to replace our tire and then made our way to Kansas City. It keeps getting a bit colder every day we get more north and we were all getting used to the warm weather. Anyways, Kansas City has always been a good time and we were really stoked to play with Milwaukee friends again and our friend Elliott’s band, Gatekeeper.
Gatekeeper opened the show and was seriously awesome: really good math-y screamo stuff. Then Crowdpleaser and Marcy played to a packed basement. Both bands sounded really great and it was a bummer realizing that this was the last show we’d be playing with them. The energy was really high when we played and we ended our set with a cameo vocal performance from our friend Elliott from Gatekeeper. Kansas City, once again, did not disappoint.
Day 13: Day off
This was initially going to be a pretty hectic day. One of our members had a court date early the next day so we were planning on driving back to Milwaukee so he could make it. But, when we woke up, he found out that it got changed, saving us a 10-ish hour drive.
Our next show was in Davenport and we took our time in morning, knowing that it was just a six-hour drive. About two hours in, a bit of snow flurries turned into a full on blizzard, completely stopping traffic on the freeway and welcoming us back into the upper Midwest. We ended up getting stuck in Iowa City for the night.
Day 14: Davenport, IL
We arrived way early in Davenport and checked out the city a bit before arriving at Rozz Tox for the tour kickoff show with our friends Victor Shores and Ice Hockey. Rozz Tox is seriously the coolest venues and the folks that run it are super nice to bands. The show went well and we ended up staying with all those guys at their place.
A late night beer run in Victor Shores’ van ended up taking a not-so-good turn. We were talking about van stuff when we heard a sudden clang and continued scraping noise. We pulled over to find that the muffler had come loose and was scraping the road. Cassidy came and got us in our van. At least it happened before they started their tour.
Day 15: St. Louis, MO
I got woken up by David from Victor Shores pretty early to give the guys a ride to their van and then to follow them to a auto repair place. It was still snowing, which made it difficult to drive and I ended up losing them and getting lost, which really sucks in a strange city. I returned to the house and they said that instead of fixing the thing, the muffler just fell of completely, just like what happened to the Temple van.
We got to St. Louis pretty early to play at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, one of my favorite venues to play. It’s a really cool space that is one-of-a-kind. We were lucky enough to catch a solo performance by Sam from the band Radiator Hospital. By the time he started playing, the room was packed and he stood tall on a few cinder blocks and played an amazing set, ending with a shiver-inducing solo acapella song. After our set, we sold out of all of our tapes. Tour really is almost over.
Day 16: Chicago, IL
After a pancake breakfast, we left a bit late for Chicago after fiddling around with a busted headlight. As we neared the city, we all got a bit anxious for the show because we were running late and when we got to Arby’s (the house), Mothlight’s set was just ending and we were told we had to load in and play right away. We hurried our gear in and I was told we had to move the van so I went to find parking. After about fifteen minutes of circling around, I found a spot far away and sprinted back. My stuff had been set up and we played right away, which really sucked. In my haste I couldn’t remember where I had parked either so I spent a good 45 minutes walking around looking after.
Scowler and Life in Vacuum both killed it and we decided to head home, stopping for one last late-night Taco Bell meal. When I got to my house I tried to open my door with the van key. It’s hard to believe tour’s over.
Day 17: Milwaukee, WI
Tonight was so cool. It was a tour return show for everyone and Life in Vacuum’s final stop before heading back to Canada. Statures opened the night up with a killer acoustic set. Then after us, through some annoying technical difficulties, Life in Vacuum and Scowler both played great sets and I was lucky enough to snag the last Life in Vacuum test press. Marcy once again brought the heat and capped off the night with an intense set.
Milwaukee bands made a serious impact this month. In addition to all the other bands mentioned, Milwaukee’s Falter was also out on the road this month. It’s cool to be apart of a scene that is so supportive and knowing that friends are out there doing the same thing makes it that much more gratifying. I can’t wait to get back on the road.
