Day 25 of 500 Days

Or something like that.

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I can't remember exactly where I'm at, but I've been hitting it awhile. Polishing up and reposting the old tour blog while trying to hit a weekly pace of 4-5 posts at a stretch without too many days off in between.

On the first go round, I posted daily for years. I may be a bit older, but I think I still got it.

Mostly.

Sometimes the yard needs mowed.

It's incredible how much I remember, yet how much I've forgotten.

I can remember the fake wood paneling of a Latrobe pizza joint we visited in 2002, yet can't remember certain career-defining shows in their entirety.

They read like a story someone else is telling.

But time in general is also telling.

It's almost heart-stopping to go through it all again and realize how much time we spent on the road, how much time we spent in the studio, how many times we tried and tried and tried, and how long ago it all was.

It was an entire life.

Brazil started when I had returned to the States after a brief flirting with EU-living in Belgium, and then several stints across the US selling merch for The Juliana Theory. I went back to finish a remaining three semesters of college, and formed a band in the meantime.

I'd sold merch for other bands, promoted shows for other bands, worked for other labels, and I wanted to give my own band the ol' college try. So to speak.

It was a young me at the post-adolescent, pre-adult season of life where we try to answer the big question of what am I going to do with my life?

Brazil was my ten-toes-down answer.

So reading back through it all has been a trip. It's an entire lifetime in and of itself, growing from a simple "we played two new songs and got paid $40" account to something truly literate and cathartic by the end.

Speaking of the end, there are approximately thirty concerts I never wrote about about at our career's finale. I can only hope I can figure out a way to jar my memory to do them justice.

Usually a few Google image searches will do the trick.

But another thing I've noticed in writing about these pre-Internet shows is that a lot of the obscure flop houses and dives we played back then were never caught on record. It's as though they evaporated into the mists of time.

And with some places, if I'm lucky enough to find an address on an old flyer, Google Maps reveals they've long been razed and modern steel and glass condos have been put in their place.

Thinking of the gorgeously dilapidated mansion-turned-squat in Cincinnati that is now a sparkling new medical pavilion. Not just the house, but the entire block.

Ozymandias, something something...

So anyway, if you haven't followed the Substack yet, check out the link below. Written posts are always free, but if you subscribe you'll get access to audio versions of all posts, plus the annual rollup of all of these blog posts in audiobook form as well.

See you on the road.

Or the memory thereof...

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What I’m reading: Sociopath: A memoir (Patric Gagne)

What I'm listening to: It's the Long Goodbye (Twilight Sad)

Read the Brazil tour blog at the Substack: