As they continue their Summer Tour, friends of the site The Mammoths have agreed to give us the inside scoop into life on the road touring across the country over the next few weeks. They will share the good, the bad, and the ugly, all in their own words! Stay tuned as we will update you withe the adventures of The Mammoths every week. With that said, let's go!
July 22 - The Richmond show went well! I FaceTimed my brother from the stage to congratulate him on his engagement. We woke up in the basement of one of Tim’s old friend’s place. Michael was tied up and masked men were sacrificing goats… (jk that didn’t happen). The basement was cool and quiet. The band was well rested. We got a text at breakfast that our show today was cancelled due to heavy rain. We were pretty disappointed because the venue was across the street from the National’s stadium and there was a game that day. We texted our high school friend, Erin, who lives about 3 hours away from Richmond on a farm. She was more than happy to host us for our next couple days off! She fed us food grown in their garden and gave us wine...lots of wine.
July 23 - Erin and her fiance David were up bright and early, milking cows I assume. The band slept until 11am per usual. Our day off was spent sitting in a freezing cold stream on the property. Tyler saw a even saw a bear on his run! We had a fungi appetizer before dinner and hung out on the front porch to watch the sunset. It was magical.
July 24 - After a healthy country breakfast prepared by Tim, we hit the road for D.C. It was again a rainy drive most of the way there. We showed up at 6 for an 8:30 show, so we had plenty of time to eat, warm-up, and hang. The guy who books the venue chilled with us most of the time. This show was probably the best we’ve played on the tour. The room was full and the people were vibinnnnn. After the gig we sold a ton of merch and talked to a guy and his guitarist son from Detroit. He told us he’s been going to shows for 30 years and we are the best club show he’s ever seen. That was a pretty good feeling. We loaded up the van and drove an hour to Baltimore where we stayed with one of Tim’s old friends.
July 25 - For breakfast we stumbled on a cool diner where Guy Fieri has eaten. The waitress was very proud of that fact. Philadelphia was a quick drive from Baltimore. Our band buddies, Mo Lowda & The Humble let us stay in their house even though they’re currently on tour. We burned it down and trashed the place. I hope they read this. Our show was an early one because it was for Sofar Sounds. Sofar is an intimate concert series held weekly in 400 cities across the world. Music lovers buy a ticket to see 3 bands (usually stripped down) without being told who is playing. We played in a tiny coffee shop where they crammed about 40 people all seated on the floor. Our set was completely acoustic with no microphones. We are always the most nervous for Sofar shows because we can’t hide behind amps and wettttt vocals. We played well and went out to a bar with the first act, Aerica Lauren - check her out!
July 26 - I think we drank too much tequila and we’re pretty hungover…Today we play our second Sofar of tour in NYC. Also, Tyler’s girlfriend is meeting us for the weekend. We call her tour Erin while she’s on tour. We keep telling her that we can’t pull over to pee and she needs to use a funnel. Anyway, we made it to NYC and we’re met by high school friends, old co-workers, and cousins for drinks before we had to load in. The venue we played at was called Russian Samovar. It’s a swanky vodka bar where the Rat Pack used to hang out. Apparently Johnny Carson was once thrown down the stairs here for hitting on a mobsters wife (the more you know). We were last on the bill and the vibe was incredible. After we performed the host asked if the audience had any questions for us and they demanded an encore. He later told us that was the 5th time out of 200+ shows he’d ever seen an encore at Sofar. We hung out for a bit at the venue and were served free dinner and vodka by the owner. Today was a good day.
July 27 - We woke up at our high school friend, Logan’s place in Brooklyn. He took us to a bagel shop and a park where we hung for a while before heading back to Philadelphia for a show. Driving around New York in a 15 passenger van kind of sucks. We made it to Philly and tour Erin didn’t have to use the funnel :). Our show was at a small club called Ortlieb’s with four bands on the bill. One of the bands happened to be from Dallas and she was our waitress last summer when we played at House of Blues - small world! Our show went really well and the crowd was incredibly receptive. There were probably only 30 people in the crowd, but they were all yelling during guitar solos and falsetto parts. It was pretty pretty pretttyyyyyy cool. We went out for a night cap to a super hip bar with the sound guy. NYC show tomorrow!
July 28- Today we woke up eager to get to New York. We picked up Tyler and Erin from lunch and headed out of Philly. We arrived in the city around 4pm and all wandered off in different directions. A girl from the Georgetown University radio station was supposed to do a sit down interview with us at 6pm, but she cancelled and said she would email us questions instead. So we met up for drinks with friends… big surprise! The venue was honestly pretty weird. It’s called Hill Country Live and is a knock off of the Texas Hill Country. We played fine for a sit down room. The coolest part was the people who came out to watch us play. Here’s a few... a couple whose wedding we played last year. They are expecting a baby in a October! - a firefighter from Dallas who has seen almost all of our DFW shows - and of course, our friends and family who have been to every NYC show. Tomorrow we’ll hang in Brooklyn then make our way to Chicago on Monday.
Below are our upcoming dates for the week, so if you're in the area, be sure to come check us out!
July 31 - Chicago, IL
August 1 - Minneapolis, MN
August 2-5 - Appleton, WI
FMI on The Mammoths, visit: http://themammothsmusic.com/