Saturday, March 25

Our three days in New York end on a somber note. As we depart the city, we get the news from Hannah of the shooting in Seattle. The van ride to Boston is reflective and melancholy. We miss our friends in Seattle and hope that everyone is coping as best as possible. We send our condolences to the families and friends of the victims of this terrible tragedy.

The Cops arrive at tonight’s venue, Great Scott, to see a welcome and familiar face in Eli Anderson. Eli is a friend and former co-worker of Michael’s at Sonic Boom Records. Last year The Stranger named Eli the sexiest record store clerk in Seattle. We exchange warm embraces and catch up. Eli recently moved to Boston and is working at Great Scott. Tonight we play with two bands on Monitor Records, Big Bear and Part Chimp, and Sub Pop’s newest signee, Oxford Collapse. The folks in Big Bear are extremely nice and invite us to an after show party at their practice space.

The show is well attended but the Bean town crowd seems to be subdued on Valium. All bands play, well but the crowd is a dud. It feels like we’re performing at a golf match. Come on Boston, undo your top buttons and have some fun. The owner of Monitor Records is working the merch booth and turns out to be the most pretentious asshole we’ve met on tour. Dude doesn’t even respond to our initial greeting. Whatever, bro. In spite of this, the other bands and people at the venue are super cool. We still have fun and play our expectedly raucous live set. We pass on the after-hours party and cut a couple hours off our long drive to Pittsburgh.

Sunday, March 26-Monday, March 27

Pittsburgh is a night off with our good friend Kelly Maxwell, who greets us with hot tray of lasagna and bottles of red wine. We enjoy a relaxing night off, do laundry, and catch up on email. We wake up feeling refreshed and make our way through some winding hills into Columbus, Ohio. We’re greeted in Columbus by Dave’s dad who has graciously set us up with a sweet suite at the Double Tree, which is directly across the street from the Ohio State Supreme Court. We grab a delicious and healthy bite at the North Star Café and head to Little Brothers, where we play tonight with I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness.

We open the show to a small but enthusiastic crowd. The show is sparsely attended, but after all it is a Monday night. The Austin gents in ILYBICD are good dudes and both bands play strong sets. After the show we move the party two doors up to a hip bar called Surly Girl. There we drink martinis until close with Little Brothers’ sound engineer, Tara, and good friend Jonathon Chin, owner of Workbook Studios. On the way to the hotel we make an ill-advised pit stop at White Castle for greasy sliders. We wake up the following morning with high anticipation for our show tonight in Athens, Ohio. Athens is home to Ohio University, the alma matter of Dave and John—and it’s also home to some of the craziest and most creative people we know. The stop in Athens always leaves us with some interesting stories. Tonight should be fun.