We have been totally out of touch with the outside world for the last month because we are on a crazy tour. It’s not that there hasn’t been anything to talk about, its more that we have been so busy that we just haven’t had time to blog.

Lewis and I left a little over a month ago and started off with a couple of Mates of State shows in Austin TX and then rehearsals with Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s in Indianapolis.

Margot is really an amazing band. There are eight people. In the band, including a percusionist, horn player, violin/lapsteel player and keyboardist in addition to the two guitars, bass and drums. Amazingly, despite the clutter on stage from having 8 muscians (10 including Lewis and me!) and a ton of gear, the music itself never feels cluttered.The songs are super pretty and really lend themselves to the orchestral treatment and everyone in the band plays a crucial role.

They are able to sustain themselves as an 8 piece by all living together in a big house in Indianapolis (where housing is SUPER cheap) and traveling together in a big black school bus which they rebuilt into a tour bus. They’re really good at building stuff. On top of that they are great people.

Jon drove out with our friend Brandon to meet us at the first show in Iowa and we’ve been going full force ever since. Its been pretty eventful and there’s no way to fit all of the juicy details in here so I’ll just mention some the big highs and lows.

Lewis and I recorded strings for the new Pete Yorn record with producer Mike Mogis on our day off in Omaha.We did 6 songs in one day and totally just got it randomly when I called Mike asking for a place to sleep!

In Denver we almost slept in a dorm room until a drunk frat boy tried to fight us and a girl puked in the bed. We decided to pay for a hotel instead.

We played for a thousand people in Indianapolis for Margot’s home town show! And we totally killed it!

We got free pants at cmj. This deserves a full story. Basically cmj is this crazy music industry showcase in New York city where all of the “cool” clothing companies give bands free clothes to try to make themselves look cooler. You kind of have to look around for it but its totally there if you want it. We heard from someone that they were giving away free levi’s jeans at some place at bowery and delancy so we went there. When we got there there was a long line of people trying to get in. I found out that we were supposed to rsvp, which we obviously didn’t do but we decided to try anyway. There were 4 of us total- me, Lewis, my girlfriend Ting and my friend CJ. I went first. They asked me for my first name so I told them. “Anton Lockwood?” they asked me. “Yes”. I was in. Lewis went next. “I’m his plus one”. Lewis was in. Now we just had to figure out how to get Ting and CJ in. Lewis had a great idea. After a couple of minutes we went back out and said “these two are our plus ones”. It totally worked! Suckas! Once we were into the club it was only a matter of showing them our band badges to get upstairs. Ting had a badge that said she was in Judgement Day and CJ had one that said he was Tyler Watkins from Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s. And then we got two pairs of free jeans each.

Now for the really bad part. Our van got broken into while we were playing our showcase in New York.It was parked right outside the club on a pretty busy street but it didn’t matter. Luckily none of our gear was stolen but both Jon and I had our laptops and hard drives stolen. My hard drive had the latest versions of the new Judgement Day record on it. Most of it is backed up in other places but we did loose some parts.I guess we’ll just have to do those parts over better.

While we were cleaning up the broken glass Lewis wandered across the street and started talking to a bum. The bum told him to call the police because he needed to go back to the insane asylem. So Lewis did that. While the police were there we told them about what happened to us and they had us fill out a report. Then they called in an evidence team to dust for finger prints. Seriously! That really happened. Best goddamn police work I’ve ever seen.

We’re back on track now.I bought this phone that let’s me write blogs on it so that’s how I’m writing this. After New York we had to drive down to Florida to meet up with Dredg, who we’ll be touring with for the next month. There’s a crazy story from the drive down here but I’m just going to save it for the next blog. I promise it won’t be another month before we post it. Now that I have this phone I’m going make much more of an effort to keep the blog up to date.

Thank you to everyone who has come out to the shows, given us places to sleep and helped us spread the word about this tour. It really feels like its paying off. One more month to go!

-Anton and Judgement Day