King City Speed Trap

good morning

2008-10-16T05:59:00.000-07:00

aside from some of the most intense heartburn i've ever had due to two sessions of pizza consumption, i feel absolutely incredible right now. many factors have contributed to this. the factors: i showed up to work tonight slightly (and noticeably) drunk at 9pm. that wore off as my work drunks have always seemed to do, but around 10:30 i drank a Monster and a Coke. those of you that know me well know that i rarely ever consume caffeine. the stuff makes me crazy and makes me sing a lot and talk way too much. my colleagues and i spent the whole night talking about and singing the theme songs of shows like Fraggle Rock and Small Wonder. we even had a small discussion about Chicken George from the mini-series Roots. for a Trader Joe's shift which obstructed all chances of having any fun on a wednesday night, this was all in all a "hella" fun time.

so since there was no opportunity to get sleepy from the five beers i drank prior to work, i guzzled down the caffeine and got to make a lasting impression on the morning crew at my store. this got me thinking about the whole world of people that exist that no one really thinks of and most of us take for granted. over night shifts are rare for me, but these shifts make the world go round. grocery stores would not exist without people working over night shifts. its crazy really.

i shake hands with a few frightened morning folk, get into my ice 9 car and put on the only thing i want to hear after a night of loading shelves with beans; the first album by the Deftones entitled, "Adrenaline." Now in my opinion this is one of the heaviest albums ever recorded. disagree if you want, but whatever, this is my note. its also one of the few, if not the only, "metal" albums to be recorded entirely in standard tuning. for the non-guitarists out there, standard tuning restricts you from an entire note of action. your average punker knows that lower pitches on guitar generally lead to heavy tunes, and it is this small detail of the record that makes it so interesting and incredible.

i made it through the first three songs in my eleven minute drive from work to home. i live 3.2 miles from my store and its pretty much all uphill. its difficult for my poor little car to make it up this hill, but at 5:07 i saw one of the leanest and happiest dudes ive ever seen running up this hill (broadway terrace as its come to be known around these parts.) i bike up this thing almost every day and i hate my life once i get about 1/4 of the way up it. basically this inspires me to now end. i want to run (figuratively of course, im cracked out but im still exhausted.) its 5:43 and in about 25 minutes the sun will be rising and ill be hiking up my hill to look east.

i know i have plenty of endorphins moving through me from the steady flow of exercise and the steady flow of caffeine but i feel the most alive ive felt since moving up here. that's that!

the end/beginning

2008-08-21T17:07:00.000-07:00

yeah yeah yeah. its the end of August. Last update was in April. Im busy alright. Besides, who the hell is reading this?

So Jordan Miller was next in the chain of drummers. It was only natural really. It fell in to place and was beautiful. We did what was supposed to be our final weekend's worth of shows beginning with a house show at Jacob Blade's place in Newbury. I was amazed at how fun the whole thing was. I think it was the first show since we released the EP as well so i had to do my awkward banter between songs of shameless promotion. It was a nice feeling though because there was really nothing to promote. We FINALLY finished our stupid little EP and all i wanted was for everyone in the world to hear it. There was really no band to push with it because the intention was to simply break up after that weekend. Whenever you announce a show as a "last show," however, everyone shows up and is ready to love your set regardless of what the last few months of shows were like. Its confusing dammit.

Saturday night on the other hand put me right back in the mindset of before the Friday show. I had booked a show at the Cobalt months before thinking we'd be doing this split-up, and kind of as a joke. I hadn't been in that room since Ember was around and hardcore was actually interesting. We show up and things were exactly how i expected. Lots of kids that were far too hip to watch a band that wasn't wearing tight black jeans, and quite possibly the biggest assholes i have ever encountered controlling a back door. We played to maybe 12 people, half of which were blood related to Jordan, but it was this night that two new members joined the group. Kelly Hackett filled in on shaker and Eric Johnson had an explosive performance on the tambo (we badly needed a tambo player.)

So for all of you that ask why I don't want to do this band anymore: shows like this are far too common these days. I remember being 16 and wanting to watch every single band at a show just because i was curious but Im starting to realized that these little dudes around here already think they know what you sound like based off of your shoes and your guitar. Although it was kind of ridiculous and very fun, we needed one more "last"show.

We set up a night with about three days notice at the Miller house. I couldn't have asked for a better house show. This is the way shows should be. I've met a lot of amazing people in this area since moving back here a year ago and somehow every single one of them were there. I don't feel like i need to describe too much about that night because if you are reading this, you were probably there, but i will say that it was probably one of the best nights I've had in Westlake Village.

So what now? Jordan and I are moving in together, thats what. We haven't really talked much about it but I know we'll keep playing maybe not under the name King City Speed Trap but under the same musical intention. I can't wait to start new. I love all of you new peeps that I've had the privilege of meeting this year. Thank you for helping me expand this from a little acoustic project to something tangible. That being said, i'm gonna keep playing alone because i love it and i cant really imagine not doing that at this point. I'm also going to try and update this a little more often than twice a year. I've been watching reruns of Californication and it has inspired me. Godspeed! you black emperors!

three shows

2008-04-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

yeah yeah. so its been a while but i think only mike reads this so whatever. joel morgan from little league and indian giver has taken over on drums for now but while joel is busy with his other projects, i've been busy with recording and max has been busy picking berries. the EP has not been completely yet (of course.) the loss of Qualls has left us with a lot of delays with getting things done (no hard feelings or anything but delays are delays) so we took a small break and then recruited an old friend Taylor Voeltz to complete the thing.

anyway, Joel came with us up to Santa Cruz for one of the best shows we've played so far. we returned to Cafe Pergolesi, a place the old lineup has played a million times before. for some reason a whole mess of people actually showed up and left me thinking, 'where were all you guys when we were actually living here?' it was jammin' and couldn't have been more perfect. the next night we played a bar in SLO that the guys weren't even allowed to come in cuz they are such little babies but we found a way to hide them in a corner of some booth. that show wasn't nearly as great. the bartender actually asked us at one point to play quieter, thats not something you'd want to ask a drunk Tyler though. basically we probably won't be booked at this place ever again. all in all the trip was amazing.

a few weeks later we played the Collision benefit concert in Thousand Oaks. we were kind of out of our element and i was literally the oldest person there, but it was a great turn out and very successful as far as the cause was concerned. all the proceeds went to benefit orphans living with AIDS in Africa. a few hundred kids from the area showed up and we had a lot of fun. so now things have slowed down. i will be doing acoustic shows here and there but for the most part playing another show with the band will be indefinite.

...recording

2008-01-21T23:31:00.000-08:00

figured i'd update this since its been a few months. basically the three of us are really busy. we played a mess of shows over december and january while working our hectic christmas hours at our shitty jobs and somewhere in there finally began recording the second KCST release entitled "Scattered." it will consist of 3 brand new songs and one really old one that was never really played with the whole band until recently. the record will have some killer artwork and eco-friendly packaging and will hopefully be release by the end of february if not before. our boy Ryan Scott formerly of Denise Fleming (har har) has made some nice t-shirts for us too and we're selling those cheap at shows so check em out.

our next show will be at the Verity Room in canoga park on january 31st at 8pm
the line up couldn't be better

king city speed trap, comradery, the vice club and (the triumphant return of) the eye the ear and arm. hope to see you all there

day 4 and 5

2007-11-23T12:21:00.000-08:00

we woke up late on the floor of jeri's living room, making this our first night of real sleep. mike and i badly wanted to climb to get some exercise so we went to "the spot" which in my opinion has got to the be the best climbing gym in the country. we climbed hard and then i got back and tried to play guitar and freaked myself out cuz i couldn't even grip the neck, but as the night progressed my strength came back. the laughing goat cafe was beautiful and everyone was overly nice. they had really good tea as well. i kinda realized that people dont really like to pay for cds anymore for some reason so i gave the rest of them away at this show making "between trees" officially out of print. then we proceeded to get drunk at a micro brewery a few blocks down at a place called mountain sun. the beer was excellent and the music was perfect. brian got on the drums for a song also.

after a bout three hours of sleep mike and i departed boulder at about 6:30am. i was in a jam band mood after the previous night so i blasted some phish for the first 300 miles or so. in a nutshell mike and i drove 1200 miles in one sitting stopping only for gas and a brief jog in the salt flats of western utah. it was exhausting but i loved it. thanks a lot southwest

day two and three

2007-11-18T01:37:00.000-08:00

so we drove forever and ever through new mexico and it was nothing, nothing, nothing and then suddenly appears this huge chunk of lights and asphalt called albuquerque. we checked in to our baller status motel 6 and then watched south park and ate chicken wings until heading downtown to play the second show. downtown alb is a lot like LA cuz theres nowhere to park. we set up shop at the atomic cantina and suckered the bartending into giving us free tecate tall boys. apparently you get more drunk in albuquerque because of the altitude, which made for a fun set. there was a band called mr. gnome that had been on tour for five months straight that we loved very much.

the next day was nothing but driving. we stopped in a few random places and thought we were being followed by some sketch ball. we also realized that high altitude makes it harder to skate. finally after 1,000,000 hours of driving we made it to boulder where we met an old friend jeri. mike, jeri, jeri's boyfriend brian and i went out to see the sites of boulder, consumering several beers and dancing to james brown covers in the process. boulder is amazing and i want to live here. now im eating tillamook cheddar and getting stoked for tomorrow (a day with no driving.)

mini-tour, day one

2007-11-15T23:31:00.000-08:00

i'm sitting in a super 8 motel room with an empty boone's farm bottle to my left. ive got two of my best friends in the room so life couldn't be better. eastern california and western arizona are terrible and boring and the 10 east is one big straight line. i began to change lanes just to not get bored. mike and i sang a lot of at the drive-in and tried to scream like girls and then we picked up collin and i guess i played a show somewhere in this whole mess. played the trunkspace with some good acts but i was far too tired to really feel great about the set. it ended up being very short and i suppose a decent way to start the trip off. mr. diversidero blew our minds (they sound like queen mixed with black sabbath mixed with tenacious d) and everyone was very nice and attentive. we returned to the room and ordered pizza and had a junk food night with some malt sangria. tomorrow we depart for albuquerque and im looking forward to some solid mexican food. till then....

Travels

2007-10-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing about people's journeys and it is making me want to leave town so badly. I learned something when I was traveling with my homeboys Amestory: touring is better than anything. Yeah, its stressful and tiring but it sure beats selling groceries and paying bills (I guess bills still need to get paid.)

So my good friend Nick just sent me an image from Mexico that makes me smile to no end. Go get yourself the new Radiohead also. Pay more than zero pounds for it!

night

2007-10-10T01:00:00.000-07:00

im updating this solely because i know no one reads this and i find it amusing cuz i've had a few beers tonight. so living back home is extremely boring but i've got a new group together already. my man ryan qualls will be blowing everyone's minds on drums. i've played with this kid in 2 (technically 3) other bands and its weird that it has taken me this long to sit and down and write some serious music with this guy. on the four string i have stolen max (don't yet know his last name) from the jazz/indie group indian giver. im stoked to say the least. we will have our first show together november second at the verity room in canoga park with our buddies swordfights. a week beofer that i will be playing my last so-cal acoustic show (for a little while) on the 23rd at the verity room as well.

other news: i can't wait to get the hell out of this place so im taking a trip east next month to play a few shows:

11/15- phoenix, az. trunkspace
11/16- albuquerque, nm. atomic cantina
11/18- boulder, co. the laughing goat

if anyone knows of any rocks to climb around these places, let me know. in twelve hours i will begin an eight hour stint of stocking milk and yogurts on a shelf. somebody please pay me to play guitar asap! samuel smith oatmeal stout is the best thing ever created...

south

2007-09-03T20:43:00.000-07:00

the news: finally a new song has been written after months of writer's block. the reason: i've moved home, which has inspired some ironic lyrics and awkward melodies. my lease ended at my place in Santa Cruz and after a hell week of moving i have come back home to write and get as out of debt as i possibly can. Justin did a few trips with a bluegrass/punk group called The Curse Is Cast and Cameron is now singing for a group called Mountain Animal Hospital. i loved playing with these guys so much but i just couldn't bring myself to stay in that city any longer. i feel like im on hiatus from anything real at the moment. my parents have an endless supply of junk food and beer and a huge tv with literally hundreds of movies. i will most likely become fat and lazy. if anyone ever sees me looking like a typical out of shape Westlake guy, give me a swift punch in the face and tell me to go home and write a song. i really don't think this will happen though.
Anyway, good luck Cameron and Justin. i love you guys and wish you the best. I will be back up north for some acoustic shows sooner than later. In the meantime i'll be at a new place called The Cage in Agoura, CA on the 29th of September. until then...

The Return

2007-06-29T01:28:00.000-07:00

First of all I want to thank everyone who was a part of this trip. Especially my parents, Cameron's parents and Justin's mom. Also all the bands that shared the stage with us and all our homies for housing us. Although I think the three of us are pretty mentally drained from a few awful shows, the trip all in all was a truly great thing. I don't want to eat doritos for a long time though. Anyway, here are some pictures.

All this crap and three humans in a Volvo

Alex from KCPR

Cameron honestly snaps his fingers 100 times a day

This wall was asking for it

The Verity Room, Canoga Park, CA

We're a hardcore band now

Just because we're on tour doesn't mean we can't keep fit, Ventura, CA

We found a bunch of right-footed sandals in a dumpster behind The Alpine

Trucks falling in love while stuck in traffic on the way to Fresno

The long, beautiful drive to Reno

This face pretty much sums up how that show went