ease the medic|columbus ohio indie rock

072: 2009-04-21 | Columbus, OH @ Skully's w/ The Life & Times

071: 2009-04-10 | Columbus, OH @ [Formerly Andyman's] Treehouse w/ The Rosehips, Rollo, Nuclear Children
Naturopathy benefit show at another cool venue -- one of Esquire magazine's 50 best bars in America. I had tried to find this venue a couple times before and failed. The sign on the door says "Hard to find (cuz the address is wrong), Harder to Leave (cuz the ground's uneven and you're drunk). We were worried we were going to be too loud, but I think the tree absorbed a bunch of the sound.

070: 2009-02-07 | Columbus, OH @ Carabar w/ The Garrison, Healing Sixes
What a cool venue! The food is awesome, the beer selection is interesting, and everything was an awesome price.

069: 2009-01-31 | Columbus, OH @ Skully's w/ Forgotten is Forgiven, Seven Story Coalition, Zero Times Tardy
Seven Story Coalition, not to be confused with Seven Storey Mountain, Seven Storey, or Seven Story Fall, is an emo band.

068: 2008-08-31 | East Ridge, TN @ The Warehouse w/ Winter Makes Sailors, Dead End Stanley.
Different venue named the Warehouse than our show the day before, and totally not a warehouse. This was a well-organized and well-staffed event at a clean venue in a strip mall. The staff was clean, friendly, and cool. We were tired, smelly, and disgusting by the time we arrived here. We arrived right after eating at Bea's. Earlier in the day, we stopped by the Alabama Fan Club and Museum. Bea's probably didnt help with our smell.

067: 2008-08-30 | Tuscaloosa, AL @ The Warehouse w/ Winter Makes Sailors, Bear Head, Modern Ghost, Winter's Haven
Quite literally a warehouse. Probably the hottest show I've ever played. Got awesome pictures and video that I will post someday. Sean had some good stories to tell after this show.

066: 2008-08-29 | Tupelo, MS @ Musician's Playground w/ Winter Makes Sailors, The Squids, The Dharma Bums
Ate tacos with the singer for the Dharma Bums. MikeF found absinthe at the liquor store across the street. Visited Elvis' birthplace. Spent a lot of money for some junk in the gift shop. One of us lost a wallet there, and the staff of the gift shop called every hotel in town until the found us. Amazing hospitality.

065: 2008-08-28 | Dayton, OH @ Dirt Collective w/ Winter Makes Sailors, The Salt March, Black Wolf Fight
Dayton rules. As I remember, a couple guys from Black Wolf Fight dressed like clowns, and not in a figurative sense. We didnt sleep much on this trip and I'm writing this 6 months later, so don't hold me to that, it could have been a hallucination. After the show we drove all night to Tupelo. Sometime in the middle of the night we were served by some really tough girls at a Waffle House. This was the first night of the "Ease the Medic / Winter Makes Sailors Southern Rock Tour."

064: 2008-08-09 | Columbus, OH @ The Newport Music Hall w/ The Nerve, The Kyle Sowashes, The Sailing, Life In Black and White and I Need a Medic.
We were hoping this would be our redemption show after our last Newport experience, which was plagued with technical difficulties. In addition, we were headlining this show, which put on some added pressure. Well... it wasn't without it's technical difficulties. Something was wrong with Mike's guitar, and there was a bunch of confusion about what was going on, so Adam and I asked Sean Gardner (Sowashes) had to help us out, which he did by informing us that Mike's guitar had six strings. It turns out there were two problems: (1) Mike's tuner broke on stage, and (2) Our communication skills are lacking.

We remembered the Newport stage as being huge, so we thought it would be a good idea to bring some stage props. Today's theme: Camp Ease the Medic. We brought a tent, a (fake) campfire consisting of wood, bricks, a smoke machine, and red lights, and we all brought our fake Christmas trees. Adam's had tinsel on it, so I think the overall scene may have not made any sense at all.

063: 2008-05-31 | Delaware, OH @ Private Graduation Party
The sound was really good and we played well at this outdoor show at a state park. Somebody made us an Ease the Medic-themed fruit plate. How awesome is that?

062: 2008-05-17 | Columbus, OH @ Wheels for Wheels Benefit at Skully's w/ Vanity Theft, White Devil, Big Nasty, Book Mobile
This show was to raise money for Loni Marie, a supporter of the local music scene who was injured in a car accident. We were able to raise enough money to have a car modified such that she could drive around, to and from work, giving her new freedom since the accident. This is what her mother had to say:

In 2002, I received a phone call that all parents fear; “Your daughter has been in an accident, and it’s bad”. Upon arriving to the hospital I learned from the doctors that my nineteen-year-old daughter, Loni Marie, was in a coma and was diagnosed as being paralyzed from the chest down.

Loni was told that it would take a full year for her to be able to dress herself. Doctors stated that she would need to move home with me and be there for a long time before she would ever be able to regain independence. I remember being by her side in the hospital after giving her the news that she was permanently paralyzed, and Loni’s only question was “Mom, what can I do now?” My response was, “What can’t you do but get up and run down that hallway right now?”

I have to say that in the weeks that followed, I learned more about life, inner strength, determination and digging down into the depths of yourself to find the true power of your spirit. The child that I thought I would be teaching became my greatest teacher.

Loni moved back home and was there only 3 months before she had adjusted to doing everything on her own. Loni moved to Columbus, got a full time job and has not let this change in her life slow her down.

The last piece that will complete Loni’s independence is to have a car modified in order for her to drive again. The Wheels for wheels benefit show will help Loni to gain this freedom. The show is at Skully’s Music Diner on Saturday May 17, 2008 with doors opening at 7:00pm. Loni Marie will be one of the artists performing along with Ease the Medic, Vanity Theft, White Devil, Big Nasty and Book Mobile.

I can honestly say that Loni is my greatest hero. She taught me how to find hope when you think there is nothing left. With hope there is always more to find. Loni showed me how to really live and to truly take every moment of my life and experience it instead of just going through the motions. Loni has touched so many people with her love for life and her determination to not let anything stop her. I told Loni that I was honored to know her, let alone to be able to say that such an amazing person was my daughter and my hero.

061: 2008-05-03 | New York, NY @ The Annex w/ Top Heavy, (Michael Fredo?)
We've driven all night before many times. Most of the time it is to get home from our Saturday shows, but on a few occasions (Morgantown to Greenville in Feb '08 and Detroit to Muskegon in July '07 are two memorable ones that come immediately to mind), we have driven all night to get to another show. This always has resulted in us being completely exhausted. It's very difficult to get a reasonable night's rest during an all-night drive in which you're rotating shifts of drivers and navigators. Of course, it's impossible to be safe if you're not working in shifts, so there's no other option. This trip, however, we did much better than most... to the point that we were able to pull all-night drives twice in a row without much difficulty. The secret was the combination of sleeping masks with earplugs... Recently, we obtained four complimentary Mack's sleeping masks. They keep out all the flashing streetlights overhead, the headlights etc, and this makes a huge difference to your quality of sleep. The earplugs reduce the road noise, snoring of other band members, music, navigation to a level where you can sleep through it. What a difference it makes! It allowed us to drive all night on Friday to get to New York City, and we drove all night on Saturday to get home from New York City. Here's the resulting numerical breakdown: From the time we left home to the time we returned was 44 hours. At least 25 of these 44 hours were spent in the car. We were in the city for about 12 hours. Four of those 12 hours were spent in the venue. One of those hours was spent ferrying all of our equipment four and a half blocks to the place we parked, because there was no place to load out at the venue. More than two of those hours were spent trying to park a van with a trailer in the city, during which we were forced into Brooklyn twice, and nearly forced into Brooklyn a third time, by aggressive public transportation drivers and random street closings. Unbelievably, we were basically back in time for lunch on Sunday. This was our second time driving in Manhattan with a trailer, and Mike is now confident that he can now handle driving with a trailer anywhere. I'll upload video evidence for why he believes this. Other than parking, driving with a trailer in the city isn't too bad (anymore). Some old friends came out to the show, and it was awesome to see some friendly faces in the crowd.

060: 2008-05-02 | Cleveland, OH @ ROC Bar w/ Violent Suburban Marriage, Subject to Blackout
This was the second show of the 25 year reunion of the hardcore punk band Violent Suburban Marriage. They were awesome dudes, and we had a lot of fun hanging out with them afterwards. It turned out that the beer cans they chucked at us while we were playing were some kind of misguided display of affection. We're hoping we can bring them down to Columbus for a Bernie's show or something. The venue was right on the river, allegedly where it caught fire, so we enjoyed some Burning River Pale Ale in honor of that historical footnote... Sometimes we live dangerously on these weekend rock excursions. Or, I should say, we eat dangerously. This time, the danger came from a trip to Hot Sauce William's Barbecue. Anthony Bourdain recommended it from his trip to Cleveland. It was well worth the visit -- the barbecue was amazingly delicious. The sauce was both sweet and vinegary, a take on barbecue somewhere in between Kansas City and Carolina style. The menu was huge, and bizzarely lacked both iced tea and mac & cheese.

059: 2008-04-19 | Columbus, OH @ Skully's w/ The Hanks, Junior Revolution, Blastronauts
The bass player from the Hanks travels with a mini humidor in the van. This left a big impression on us.

058: 2008-03-01 | Myrtle Beach, SC @ The Sound Garden w/ Chicken Day, Stagger Lee
Chicken Day were high school punk kids and the singer sounded a lot like Misfits-era Danzig, so of course we dug it. Chicken Day's guitar player's older brother sang for Stagger Lee. I think there may have been another brother in one of the bands too. I think it was also someone's birthday. In any case, the show was a family affair. We shared our love for Journey with some cool new friends and heard some amazing stories about the Bulletboys from people who were at the venue the night before, when there was some sort of altercation between them, the club, and the fans. We tried raw oysters for the first time while in Myrtle Beach, continuing our streak of dangerous eating choices while on the road. (See February 29th and December 1st for more iffy road food decisions.) A closing thought: If someone needed to create a mathematical model of Myrtle Beach, they could do so using cyclic boundary conditions, because every block contained the same exact elements, always including: 1) A pancake house, 2) a themed mini-golf place, and 3) a place that sells cheap t-shirts and towels.

057: 2008-02-29 | Greenville, NC @ The Turducken House w/ Height, Band Marino, Boy Without God, The Guilded Moons
I think this was the best show we have ever played. It was not because of our performance (good but not our best), not because of the number of people (it doesnt take too many to fill a living room to capacity), not because we got paid more than the cost of the gas to get to the show (we didnt), really, not because of anything other than that the scene at the Turducken house was full of the friendliest, coolest, most fun people we have ever encountered in our collective years of playing music. The crowd was responsive, interactive... basically anything and everything you can think of to say that they were perfect. When we showed up, we were immediately invited to join a game of flip-cup with our hosts. I don't have time at this writing to fully say everything I want to about this show, but I do want to say that this scene in Greenville is really something special and we're very thankful to have been given the opportunity to take part in it. There were other things that made this an awesome place to play: We were (maybe I was) determined to get some good Carolina barbecue while we were on our "Ease the Medic Flies South For The Winter Tour". Carolina-style pork barbecue, which uses a vinegar sauce rather than the sweet tomato-based sauce found almost everywhere else, is something I miss from my time living on the east coast. We lucked out finding the amazing Parker's Barbecue Restaurant. It was as authentic as it gets for Carolina soul food. The portions were enormous. I ended up taking everyones leftovers, which resulted in my consumption of five pork barbecue sandwiches over a two day period.

056: 2008-02-28 | Morgantown, WV @ Fuel w/ Crooked Elm

055: 2008-02-02 | Columbus, OH @ High 5 w/ Vanity Theft, Halophane, Ghengis Green, Queen Mae & The Bells

054: 2008-01-15 | Columbus, OH @ Skully's Music Diner w/ Junior Revolution, Weatherman
What a great turnout for a Tuesday! The Junior Revolution was awesome. Probably my new favorite regional band. We played in front of The Cat Sitter DVD, and MikeF wore short shorts and grew a (weak) mustache, for losing the 2007 Ease the Medic fantasy baseball tournament.

053: 2007-12-01 | Louisville, KY @ The Brick House The Pour Haus w/ Suspected Terrorists, Boxmaker
We arrived in Louisville early enough to go to see this place in the daylight from the interstate, and also to pay a visit Lynn's Paradise Cafe, where Adam and I enjoyed the local specialty, "Hot Brown." Typical conversation: "Hot Brown what, exactly? Nevermind, I'll take one!" You only live once, right? Well, chances are you'll live longer if you don't order the Hot Brown. It's essentially an open-faced turkey sandwich that has been waterboarded by a bucket of cheese and laid to rest at the bottom of a trough of cream sauce. It's deadly delicious with a beer that's been aged in a bourbon casket. With a foreboding heavy feeling in our bellies, we headed to The Brick House. We were met by John, who was running the WXBH community radio that evening. John informed us that there was no heat and nobody there to work the show, and that the community center was run by anarchists (There has been some internal debate in the band as to whether the 'anarchists' remark was a joke or not, given that there was a decidedly un-anarchist list of 'rules' on the wall). John was extremely helpful, making a half dozen phone calls on the spot to help us figure out what was going on. There was some finger-pointing, and none of the three local bands or the other out-of-town band show up before the show is supposed to start... which is really odd, since the person who booked the show contacted us two days before with load-in information and set times. Now, we've played at several Christian community centers and have always been impressed with their organization skills, but not frequently impressed with their openness to different musical stylings. We are now fully aware of what kind of disasterous consequences there are of the opposite -- no organization, but a total openness to musical styles: no show! Finally, our new best friend Kristen (I hope I got the name right) shows up and leads us on a several hour quest, in the cold, looking for another place to play a show. Kristen could not have been more helpful, and we're extremely thankful to her. Plus, she suggested we should try to set up a show with Second Story Man, which features a member of Minnow, who we originally contacted to see if they'd like to play with us when we came down to Louisville. We checked Third Street Dive (absolutely no bands tonight), Rudyard Kipling (you can borrow our PA if you find a different place to play), Lisa's (private party), Wicks, and some other places that I can't remember. Moon Taxi agreed to let us open for them at The Hideaway Saloon, but we chickened out because the clientele were all wearing sweaters and we didnt want to piss off Moon Taxi by driving out their entire possible audience. Also, we were told that the managers have been known to literally pull the plugs on bands that get too loud, and frankly, we have no volume but loud. Finally, we landed the second band slot at The Pour Haus by buying some one of Boxmaker's cds. We got to play a Metroschifter cover for at least one guy who knew the song, and MikeF and I finally fulfilled our dream of pretending to be part of the Louisville hardcore scene circa 1995. MikeF happened to meet the old drummer for Rodan at the show, which was totally an awesome coincidence. We played for the drummer for Rodan! I didnt find this out until we were driving home. MikeF has all the great almost-famous encounters. I only have one -- the time I met the girl who's father owns Bon Scott's old house in Australia. We caught the first couple songs of Suspected Terrorists before leaving to drive back because a couple of us had to be back in Columbus by 10am.

052: 2007-11-30 | Columbus, OH @ Bernie's w/ RTFO Bandwagon, Stealing Bismarck, Marvin the Robot
Rules? There are no rules, so why wear shoes? Someone didn't during RTFO's set! This was a fun show. I like RTFO, and not just because I work with their bass player. I think it would be awesome to play a house show with them. Stealing Bismarck sounded great as well. There was a fifth band on the bill that, in the end, didn't play.

051: 2007-10-13 | Blacksburg, VA @ WUVT Benefit, Champs Cafe w/ Lee Street Riots, The Potentials
It was the first time I had been to Blacksburg in 2 years, and had only been for short visits in the past 4 years. A lot has happened since I left. I used to play at Champs probably about once a month when school was in session, it was my favorite place to play in Blacksburg, and I think the number of shows I've played there is probably approaching 20. It was great to see it again. It was also pretty incredible to run into Len Comaratta there -- he was the glue that held the radio station together when I was there and it sounds like he's still playing that role. When we arrived in town, we stopped at Rocket Music to get strings and just happened to get Adam's amp repaired by Dan while we stood there (how awesome is that?). We toured WUVT after the show and got to meet some really cool people who are just starting their stints at VT (Brian & the rest of the events staff) as well as some more seasoned folks with interesting stories to tell about my old band after I left (Rana, Len)... We played first because The Potentials had a strong preference for playing second. When we finished, it way totally quiet. I commented to Dan J., one of my former bandmates from the 'burg, that it was like a library in there. He replied: "SHHHHH!". After the show we enjoyed some fish tacos and met some guy on the street who said we looked like a band. It was the second time this weekend we got recognized as a band, and possibly the second time EVER that we got recognized as a band. It was a great weekend all in all. Thanks again to Dan J. and Mary for letting us crash on their floor and making us pancakes. Check out Dan's band here: www.myspace.com/theeditorialwe.

050: 2007-10-12 | Pullman, WV @ Ritchie High School Post-Homecoming Game Bonfire/Birthday Party
"The band that opened for 3 Doors Down" is what the flyer at the high school read, or so I heard. We weren't having success finding a show on our way to Blacksburg this weekend, so Adam asked his sister if there was any chance people would come out to a show near his parents' house, and it turned out she was having a birthday party / post-homecoming game bonfire. We showed up and rocked the front yard. It was a lot of fun, and we ate pancakes in the morning.

049: 2007-09-22 | Grand Rapids, MI @ a private Sweet 16 Party
We didnt have any luck finding a show to play on Friday, but that was ok because MikeF and I, and our respective spouses, were both moving this weekend. Since I had no choice but to move on Sunday (due to an evil landlord situation), we were forced to drive back all night after the show. On the way up, we ate at the legendary Tony Packo's Hungarian Hot Dogs. The pickles lived up to the legend, and we enjoyed sitting beneath a hot dog bun signed by Vince Neil. When we arrived in Grand Rapids, we set up in MikeF's brother's backyard to play MikeF's niece's Sweet 16 party. We even got some chaparone participation when we played "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)". Everyone loves a little Journey. We ended the evening with a jump in the inflatable castle. It was a good day.

048: 2007-09-11 | Columbus, OH @ The Basement w/ The Receiving End of Sirens, Envy on the Coast, Emanuel, Middle Class Rut
Due to circumstances, we werent able to practice at all between the last show and this one. I'm not sure any of us even picked up a guitar... I know I sure didn't. That said, we played fairly well. We even played a new song. Once again, there was a great crowd at the Basement for a Tuesday night. We were very impressed with Envy on the Coast, they were fantastic. Jeremy, their bass player, hooked me up with some strings at the last minute, which was awesome of him. He played an Aguilar amp (I've always wanted to try one), which had impressive tonal clarity for all the bass it put out. We met cool people, Adam showed off his Atari skills, and had fun. Good night...

047: 2007-08-24 | Springboro, OH @ Garage 1919 w/ Anthem for Romance, Trinity Alone
We didn't get stuck in a freak snowstorm on this trip to Springboro. This was our first show as a full band since June. MikeF's niece and nephews came to this show. Both of the other bands turned their amps around. We had never seen that before and the sound guy also found it puzzling... wouldn't that make it more difficult to hear yourself on stage? We wondered if there's some hip touring band doing that right now. A couple months break from playing punk shows and we're out of the loop?

It was good to play a show again. We all wished we had another show after this one, for Saturday... it would have made for a better weekend.

We've been Simpsonized by MikeF. Eric wonders if looking like Milhouse's dad is by coincidence or by design.

046: 2007-07-08 | Brooklyn, MI @ Finch Fest '07
MikeF and Adam both come from big families. Around 4th of July weekend, MikeF's family all gathers in Brooklyn, MI. Today we had the opportunity to play for a large portion of the Finch family out on the porch. We played a full set (acoustic, minus MikeB) for more people than we play most of our shows for, so we're going to count this as a regular show... even though it was for a very friendly crowd.

Mike's nieces and nephews wrote this sign for us. It reads: WELCOME EASE THE MEDIC (-1).

045b: 2007-07-07 | Grand Rapids, MI @ Division Ave Arts Collective (DAAC) w/ The Besties, Poison Control Center
I'm going to list this show and the one below as shows number 45a and 45b because they were impromptu and we showed up uninvited. We played two songs at the DAAC right before The Besties took the stage. Thanks to Marisa from the Besties for letting us use your amp for the bass. The Besties were cool. Their guitarist is a model for American Apparel, and a huge poster of him is up on the wall at the Columbus store on 5th Ave.

045a: 2007-07-07 | Muskegon, MI @ Pere Marquette State Park
After we packed up at the Summer Celebration, we wanted to go see Lake Michigan. We got in the car and aimlessly drove in that general direction until we found the large body of water. We ended up in Pere Marquette State Park, where there was some kind of MTV event going on. Adam went up and told the MTV workers that we're the band that's supposed to play and sorry we're late. We almost got away with playing, except we showed up as they were packing up the equipment. I cooked up some tacos on the beach while Mike and Adam put on a show for whoever stopped by. We actually played two shows -- one for a couple super laid back kids and another for a middle aged couple.

044: 2007-07-07 | Muskegon, MI @ Muskegon Summer Celebration w/
This was the anchor date for this particular weekend for the traveling rock squad. We played acoustic again, for the people taking a break from the day's heat and those eating their lunches. The Summer Celebration staff treated us great, especially Loel K., who I'm very sorry if I'm mispelling his name. We had a great time and couldn't resist coming back with the souvenir pictured below.

We drove all night across the state of Michigan. At around 4:15 in the morning, we saw signs for a beach so we headed that direction thinking there may be some chance we could find a place to camp out. We were at least partially in luck: we found a parking spot next to a beach (which closed at dusk) with a sign that read "24 hour parking". We emptied our stuff from the van so that we could lay the seats back, then packed it all in and caught a few hours of sleep before families started showing up at the beach and people started walking their dogs around the car. It was weird -- nobody acted like we were the least bit out of place, even when any of us took a bath in the lake.

043: 2007-07-06 | Warren, MI @ JonasStock, at GS360 Hall w/ (31 bands total on this day)
We arrived late (with permission from the guy running the event) because we had to work late. It was a typical drive up to Detroit -- totally calm and kind of dull until you get into the Detroit area, when crazy stuff starts happening. We got lost on the way to the venue, but not extremely lost. Just lost enough to take us through some scary areas. We ate at a pizza place next door to a liquor store. While waiting for our pizza to be ready, kids were setting off bottle rockets and smoke bombs right next to the car, which had us at least a little on edge. Although we played terribly, kids seemed to appreciate our set because we were acoustic and weren't hardcore or screamo. This may have been GS360's last show. The staff told us they were having problems making enough money to keep the place open. Unfortunate, because it was a cool place, in an old bank. Again, the kids in this part of the country amazed us -- an all day music festival in an old bank and the bathrooms were still clean. On the way back, we went through the same scary area and snapped some pictures of an auto body shop called "G-Spot Collision" and a store selling pretty much ONLY rims called "HOT WHEEL CITY" that lit up the sky.

042: 2007-06-25 | Columbus, OH @ COMFEST, in Goodale Park w/ 177 other Columbus bands
The Community Festival in Columbus is a big deal. It's huge, and it's exciting. We played the main stage at 1:45pm on Friday afternoon. There were more people there than we were expecting, actually a really good crowd for the time slot. It was cool to be on main stage -- admittedly, most of our peers were on the "Off Ramp" stage, next to the Neil Ave / Goodale exit from I-670.

We were inspired to cover a little of Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold" as a medley with our "Murder of Saad" at the show. On Thursday after practice, MikeF, Adam, my brother in law, and I went to see the Nuge at the LC. It was amazing. We showed up fairly late and the Motor City Madman had already played for an hour. We still managed to catch a little of Fred Bear, some song I didn't know, Stranglehold, Cat Scratch Fever, the Star Spangled Banner, and Great White Buffalo. The only Terrible Ted song I wanted to see but didnt get to enjoy was Call of the Wild. Owww! Uncle Ted donned an American Indian headdress for his encore and shot a flaming arrow through his hollowbody guitar. Also, he played in front of a mural of himself riding a raised middle finger, over a sea of small raised middle fingers. And he interruped one of his own solos to yell "Millions of f*%^ing buffalo!" into the microphone during GWB. Acronym coincidence, anyone? We saw two people fall down drunk, one of which continued cheering when down. It was almost 24 hours before I saw anyone that drunk again... Comfest was pretty crazy.

There was video being taken of Comfest at the time, and someone filmed the show. If you know where we can link to, or get a copy of this video, please let us know.

2007-05-27 | New York, NY - CANCELLED
Somehow someone was able to get into our trailer and steal Adam's guitar (a '96 cherry quilt-top Epiphone Les Paul upgraded w/ Gotoh tuners and EMG pickups in a contoured guitar case with identifying stickers: Stop Racism, Death in the Midwest, Refused, etc) and Mike's backup guitar (a late 90's black Gibson SG Standard in a backpack-style gig bag). IF you happen to see these for sale anywhere, please notify the NYC Police Department and us.

The theif left the trailer door closed in such a way that we suspected they may be planning to return later to take the rest of our equipment, so we cancelled the show and started the drive home. A result of cancelling this show is that it remains that none of us have played shows on more than 3 consecutive days.

041: 2007-05-26 | Bethpage, NY @ Mr. Beery's w/ Tiger Piss, My Summer
This show was fantastically fun. Tom even broke out his top shelf bourbon for us and -- could you guess -- it was from Woodford Reserve (see 2007-04-21).

040: 2007-05-25 | Philadelphia, PA @ Mill Creek Tavern w/ The Tressels, Beat the Devil, Saudi Arabia

039: 2007-05-24 | Pittsburgh, PA @ The Smiling Moose w/ Persona Grata, School of Athens
Another great show. Persona Grata was incredible, and The Smiling Moose was a great venue. No cover, bands get paid out of the bar. What a great idea. I wish every bar was like that. We ate at Primanti Bros again, and this time it was waaay better than last time. It was excellent.

038: 2007-05-15 | Columbus, OH @ The Basement w/ Limbeck, The Forecast
This show was broadcast live on the internet by The Palestra College Music Network. Turnout was great for a Tuesday night! Limbeck was alt-country, kind of like The Rounders (who we played with in Dayton earlier this year). The Forecast was totally Rainer Maria, Braid, Hot Water Music, etc styled stuff, only more together than any of that crop of bands. They had stickers for a lot of bands we're familiar with, including Schatzi, which I was excited about. I saw Schatzi back in 2000 or so, somewhere in Houston. I brought my younger siblings and that was their first rock show. We had a great time talking to Joe.

037: 2007-05-05 | Columbus, OH @ Don Pablo's Triple 5 Cinco de Mayo Celebration, in the Olentangy Shopping Center Parking Lot w/ Gil Mantera's Party Dream, Earwig, Bruce in the USA, Olde Cellar Band
Bruce in the USA is a Springsteen & E Street cover band from Las Vegas. I'm extremely disappointed we didnt get pictures with the Boss. There was this incredible moment in their set when he said "I love to come out east here because people are real... nobody's out here pretending they're someone they're not." It was genius. We covered Journey's "Separate Ways" again, just like at the CD release show. Adam tried to get Bruce to sing it with us, but he wouldn't, saying it was out of his range. I tried to get a couple guys from the E Street Band to do it. One guy claimed he didnt know the words (to which I replied, "We don't either!"), another guy said they were trying to round things up and go to their hotel rooms. Gil Mantera was weird... We'll post a video of it soon. Totally a party dream.

036: 2007-05-04 | Athens, OH @ Baker Theatre, Ohio University Campus w/ Red Wanting Blue, This Story
It was mom's weekend at Ohio University and everyone was wearing shirts that read "this is why I'm hot" with arrows pointing to, in most cases, their mothers. Everyone at OU was really nice to us, and there were even people who carried our equipment into the venue for us. This is the first time this had ever happened. This Story was a folksy rock group from Ball State University in Indiana with a lot of members, including a guy who could rock the xylophone in ways I had never before seen. After the show, we sat at our merch table all by our lonesome while Red Wanting Blue got mauled by their fans. Somebody left a Kurt Vonnegut novel on our merch table and MikeF claimed it as his own. We had an amusing sentence in the Athens News from staff writer Eric Leighton: "The Baker Theater on Friday offers a free concert featuring Red Wanting Blue and Ease the Medic. EtM is out of Columbus and tosses out mid-tempo moody rockers that play with the time signature a bit, otherwise are kind of radio rock [emph added]."

035: 2007-04-21 | Evansville, IN @ Wired Coffee House w/ Counter Clockwise, Memories of Tomorrow, Ashes
As a band, we're not very rock n' roll offstage. We brought MikeF breakfast in bed because he slept in later than the rest of us and we didn't want him to miss out on the fantastic Belgian waffles at the hotel. Later in the day, we went for a guided tour of a kentucky bourbon distillery. Even though we were underdressed compared to the rest of the clientele, we were models of good behavior. We stayed within the OSHA yellow tape that marked the safe path through the facility, unlike most everyone else on the tour. To learn to fully appreciate bourbon, the tour guide passed around a glass from which we were supposed to smell the contents. The tour guide told the group not drink out of the communal glass. One old guy found a way around this: pour the bourbon into his hand and lick it up! After our tourist stop, we drove through Louisville during the Thunder over Louisville celebration and got to see part of the airshow from the interstate. There were a lot of people there. Once in Indiana, we stopped at Carefree Food Mart in Leavenworth for gas. The restrooms were surprisingly clean, given what we found on the shelves: "vintage" food products! Seriously old food items from the days before born-on dates, sold at modern convenience store prices. We arrived in downtown Evansville to find it was a very cool little city. MikeF went for a skateboard tour around town while we hung out at the venue. We played second, for a small but very receptive crowd. It was the best kind of crowd -- they came and stood right up front next to the nice, low stage. Adam had some amp problems so we had to modify the set and play Greta Van as a 3-piece (Thanks to Counter Clockwise, who let us borrow an amp head to finish the set). After the show, MikeB and Adam went to a floating casino, where MikeB walked away a little bit richer than he was when he walked in. Allegedly, the crowd was surpressed a bit because of a rival show going on across town where we heard there was a violent fight. Glad we werent there!!! Memories of Tomorrow was had the energy of old-school hardcore, theirs was a fun live set. Musically, they were similary to Misery Signals. Later, we made delicious veggie tacos in the alley behind Wired with Joe, the guy who runs the venue. Thanks to our new friends Sarrah, Melissa, and Jordan for driving all the way from Owensboro, KY to see us. It was great to meet you, and we hope to see you again soon. It was Jason's first show... glad he had a good time. We drove back to Louisville for the night and accidentally stayed in the wrong hotel. Who could have guessed there were two Extended Stay Americas on the same street? That's where we saw the amazing Ruth's Chris Building.

034: 2007-04-20 | Dayton, OH @ Nite Owl w/ Akillis Green, Switchblade Serenade
I have misgivings about writing anything about this show at all. Not because it went particularly poorly or because of the Nite Owl employees -- quite the contrary, the Nite Owl is actually one of the finest, fairest places we have played in terms of their treatment of the bands. We have found the people working the door, the sound guys, and bartenders to all be fantastic and honest people. The atmosphere in Dayton is incredible (see movie below). As far as writing about the show, let me start by saying I am a Virginia Tech alumnus. The week of this show, something horrific happened at my alma mater, in a building where I spent a lot of time. Two professors who wrote me letters of recommendation to get the job I have now have offices in the building where the worst part occurred. While pulling into the alley behind the venue, there was a loud BANG. My first impulse was to think it was a gunshot, probably because that had been on my mind all week, but I quickly rationalized that it was too low in pitch and too booming. MikeF's reaction was to immediately hit the brakes because he thought we had blown out a trailer tire. We looked around, and saw a group of cops standing around what looked like a potato gun. We were probably a little nervous and shaken when we pulled up by the venue. Gunshots had been on my mind all week, and like many alumni, faculty, staff, and current students, I was fed up with the awful job the news was doing covering this tragedy. They were very persistent in trying to blame the university administration and the campus police. Anyone who has gone to Virginia Tech and another university will tell you that Tech has an incredible, efficient administration and an extremely safe campus. Now, the Virginia Tech Alumni association asked all alumni to wear the school colors on this date, in a show of solidarity and in remembrance of those lives lost, so I wore a Virginia Tech shirt to this show, despite misgivings that a bar show may be neither the time nor the place. Only three people said anything to me at the show. Two people commented reverently on the tragic and random nature of the event. The third, the drummer for one of the bands, came up to me after their set, pointed at my shirt, threw his head back in mock laughter, then said "Funny shirt to wear today!" I told him that I went to Virginia Tech, and he responded "That's even worse!" His shocking lack of internal reflection is what really stands out in my memory of the show. Akillis Green is sloppy drunken country-fried punk with a fixation on bestiality. Switchblade Serenade was rawk, in every sense of that spelling, and cool dudes. We talked to them for a while before the show. Adam, MikeF, and I discovered that we could connect the audio on a laptop to the car stereo, so we watched Borat in what felt like surround sound. On the way to the hotel, we saw the legendary Jesus statue at Solid Rock Church off of I-75 in Monroe, OH. It's believed to be the largest statue of Jesus in the world. The image, found on Google image search and RoadsideAmerica.com, is courtesy Judy Pochard.

033: 2007-04-13 | Columbus, OH @ Skully's Music Diner w/ Vanity Theft, Stealing Bismarck, Kola Koca Death Squad, Jinx Palm
A pedestrian was hit by a car in front of Skully's tonight. We don't know if it was someone who was there for our show or not, but we sincerely hope they were ok. I left the venue for a few minutes toward the end of Jinx Palm's set and got locked out of the back gate. I went around front to get back in, and had to explain to the door guy that I was in the band. It was a hard sell. He told me I didnt look like a bass player, I looked like an accountant. I told him I might be both... Joel from Cringe.com came out and took pictures for Ear Shot Raw (which are the pictures you see here). You find other pictures from this show on the Cringe website, including pictures of all the bands from this show except Jinx Palm -- who has Ear Shot Raw photos fron '04 that only share one band member with the version of Jinx Palm that played tonight. We served as designated drivers for a bunch of the people who came to the show. Actually, I was the only band member who didn't drive anyone home -- they put me in charge of the equipment. We almost lost MikeF's keys, so it was a late, chaotic load out. MikeF's friend Dave shot video of this show. The day after this show, MikeF, his wife, and I acted in a short zombie movie Dave directed. We'll let you know if when and if either of those videos ever become publicly available.

032: 2007-03-30| Columbus, OH @ White Castle House of Crave w/ Flowerdagger, Paper Airplane, Darkhorse
This show was sponsored by Debunkify, which is a part of the Ohio anti-smoking initiative. The posters they made were really cool -- they had a burning unicorn and a dragon on them. We stocked up on free beer coozies. We also might have got a chance to play a high school graduation party out of this one, which sounds like a lot of fun. Hopefully that will actually happen.

031: 2007-03-04 | Columbus, OH @ High 5 w/ Driver Side Impact, The Grace Accord, We Look South, Five Days Till Dawn, Dusty Innoceti
This was a way-early matinee show where we played 2nd. We played pretty terrible as I recall, without as much energy as we usually put into the shows. We took video of the show, but very little was salvageable: in the first song, a guitar cable fell out, in the middle of the set a guy was standing directly in front of the camera, and one of us missed an important cue in the last song. Here's a link to what was left. We sold a couple shirts to a guy with a huge roll of cash. It was good to see DSI again. We played our first show ever with those guys. They've changed a lot since then.

030: 2007-03-03 | Springboro, OH @ Garage 1919 w/ Vanity Theft, All the Day Holiday
Two bands cancelled at the last minute, and it was unusually cold out. To warm up, we tried playing pool and foosball, and found foosball was way better for getting your fingers warm than pool. Seth runs a great venue, with good sound, a nice low-level stage, lights, and even a smoke machine! All the Day Holiday traveled with vintage TV sets with wood paneling. Watching them struggle to lift and move those things reminded us why we don't travel with any fancy stage sets or 8x10 cabinets -- to minimize the heavy lifting! Vanity Theft is an all-girl rock group, like an updated indie rock Bangles. There's something very 2nd-wave emo about their songs, something that we like a lot... Some of Brit's guitar licks are straight out of the Braid songbook. Sean Gardner of MeltyMelty, after seeing them at Skullys on 4/13/07, called them "The Get Up Girls" (a reference to Get Up Kids -- pick up "4 Minute Mile" or "Somthing to Write Home About" and you'll know what we're talking about). Their EP, "Symptoms", sounds great. You can tell the engineer dug what they were doing. They are, in my opinion, the best songwriters we've played with so far (other than Skynyrd). After the show, the roads were extremely icy. Vanity Theft invited us to go out to Steak & Shake with them, but before we found the restaurant, we had several frightening reminders of the dangerous road conditions. We saw several cars that had run off the road into the ditch. Adam and I watched a pickup truck, going much too fast, almost hit an ambulance, swerve and lose control, spinning into the lane of oncoming traffic, crossing the road again in front of us, and almost running through a Radioshack. When we finally got to the interstate, we watched several accidents occur in front of us. We found a safe place driving between two school buses going 15-20 mph. At that rate, it was going to take us all night to drive back, so we stopped at the first hotel and gave up $80 to make sure we made it home alive. In the morning, the roads were completely clear and safe. We recorded video of this entire show on MikeF's digital camera. It's posted on YouTube as a four-part series, which plays below as a playlist.

029: 2007-02-16 | Dayton, OH @ The Nite Owl w/ The Rounders, Broken Ground
The Rounders were nice guys.  Like Aberdeen City nice.  The singer helped us set up and take down.  They play slightly modern honky tonk, and they're damn good at it.  The stage was a weird shape and Mike played his drums in a window display, but we decided that we actually liked the stage and that the uncomfortable-ness of it worked to our advantage.  When we put the equipment in the trailer on the way to the show, MikeB put the lock on upside down and it had to be knocked off with a hammer:  Crisis averted.

028: 2007-02-15 | Columbus, OH @ The Basement w/ Misery Signals, The Human Abstract, Kill What I Adore
MikeF and I went to the Mastodon show a few days before this show to see Mastodon, of course, and to hand out flyers for this show.  The only time there was any moshing was duirng "Blood & Thunder."  Other than that, it was pretty mild.  This show was also pretty mild.  We thought that since we were playing a metal show we might get stuff thrown at us.  Actually, only one guy suggested we were sissies by jumping up in front of the stage and hanging his wrists limp.  Most of the rest of the crowd sat down, I supposed due to our relative mellowness when compared to the other bands.  I borrowed Kill What I Adore's bass equipment because I couldn't get my car out due to a massive snowstorm two days before the show.  The Human Abstract was ridiculous tech-metal-prog-screamo stuff.  You've got to see them to believe them.  I didnt get a chance to ask where they went to music school, but it seems unlikely that they didnt have music degrees.  Today was Mike B's birthday.  He got a parking ticket and his heat broke at his house.

027: 2007-01-27 | Bedford, PA @ The Noteworthy w/ Hotspur and Safari So Good
It was nice to finally play a show in Pennsylvania because it allowed us to stock up on Yuengling.  It was also a good opportunity to practice driving overnight in freezing rain through the mountains with a trailer.  According to MikeF, one of the Ramones said you never pass up an opportunity to sleep in your own bed when you're within driving distance.  Our gall for traveling all night in this weather earned us some free cookies from the manager at Eat n' Park, where we stopped for a late night dinner.  The Noteworthy is an indoor skate park and all-ages venue.  It's huge and a great thing for local teens (so support it!).  We wish there was something like this around where we lived when we were younger.  We got lost on the way to the show because we were singing along to "Eternal Flame" by the Bangles, thanks to MikeB.  You drive I-70 straight from Columbus to Bedford, but we somehow got off the interstate...  We premiered a new song at this show.  The song is probably the most upbeat we've written, but has no name yet.  Currently it is just titled by a gesture that resembles a cartoonish shrug accompanied by a tenor mumble of indifference: "Meh?"  That's not to say we were indifferent about this show.  Quite the contrary -- we met some cool people, which is what playing shows is half about:  MikeF and I were eating some great soup (courtesy of Moe, who runs the Noteworthy) and talking to Rich Hoover (more on him later) when Safari So Good was sound checking, and heard a song that sounded familiar.  Mike thought it was Metroschifter, Promise Ring, old Jimmy Eat World or something, I thought it was Texas is the Reason -- but we were sure that it was late 90's emo.  It turns out the guitarists were huge Texas is the Reason fans, and their bass player used to play with Breaking Pangaea and had eaten spaghetti at my apartment in Virginia back in 2002 when we booked them and The Exit at the Solar Haus.  It was cool to see a band making new music with some of the same inspirations as us.  The pictures below are by Rich Hoover.  Rich adeptly picked up on HUM and Swervedriver influences on our music, and also happened to have a lot of the same musical references as we did.  MikeF and I were talking about Swervedriver on the way to the show, and I mentioned that I hadn't even heard their name mentioned in at least 5 years or so.  Rich's myspace tagline is "I make your crappy band look good" and indeed he did.  You can see more of his work at www.showstopperblog.com or www.concertphotozine.com.

2007-01-01 | Happy Holidays from Ease the Medic
Thanks to everyone who made 2006 a great year for us.  Read all about it in our 2006 shows blog (link).