A video shot in Portland’s Chaos Cafe after we each slept about 4 hours in the van or tent. Brady explaining how we performed Montel Jordan’s “This is How We Do It” the night before. And, apparently, we were coffee happy.

I never found out what the name of this duo is, but they were pretty rad. I now call them “The Glowstick Girls.” Enjoy:

And don’t forget to go to Brady’s blog and Tyler’s blog for more tour re-creation excitement! There’s an awesome commercial we created for our new merchandise out there. Instead of borrowing it for my own blog, I’ll make you go search for it on theirs. But, believe me — it’s awesome.

And here’s the best video I’ve ever filmed! You may have to watch it thrice: once to watch the background, and twice to understand what our friend in the foreground is saying (and how it’s some of the most neo-hippie stuff I’ve ever heard).

Bye bye, Portland. We hardly knew thee.

Riding in a van loses its novelty pretty quickly.

We’re at the EconoLodge in Boardman. Who could be bored when you’re a block away from the Shell station and it’s variety of Budweiser and imported Mexican beers? And EconoLodge’s free wireless internet? And Brady in a dome cap?

- Andrew

Wow — so much has happened since I last blogged! I’ll blog quickly about it now and try to follow up with more details.

Hall of the Woods:
Saturday night’s venue was Hall of the Woods. It’s exactly what the name says: a concert hall seemingly in the middle of the woods. We drove up and up this windy, wooded street and spied the big blue barn-like building on the right with a huge crowd of young neo-hippies outside.

Liam and Tyler made the mistake of petting a big black lab that was patrolling the place. They soon realized that the dog stunk to high hell.

Great Burrito:
Liam wanted to go into Olympia to meet up with a friend (Carrina) for dinner, and Tyler and I went along with him. We got tossed out of one place because Carrina had to bring her two kids (4-year-old Caleb and 18-month-old Joya-Claire) with her. But we found our way to Great Burrito, and they weren’t kidding — their burritos were pretty great! And although Caleb was pretty upset about having to hang out with strangers at 10pm, I think he eventually grew familiar with us and we had a good time eating and chatting.

Return of the Stinky Dog:
When we returned to Hall of the Woods from Olympia, Tyler and I had a funny encounter. We had just pulled in, and a car pulled into the “driveway” (read: clearing between trees) behind us. A woman got out and asked if we had seen a black lab running around — she had lost hers. Tyler said, “Well, there is a lab here, but I don’t think it’s yours.” She said, “Is it a big, fat lab?” Tyler said, “Um, yeah. And it’s … well … a little stinky …” The woman exclaimed, happily, “That’s my dog! He got into something…” So Tyler went inside, found the dog, and somehow coaxed it out of the building without touching it. The woman was happy, and so were we.

Mikrofest VIII:
We were playing a big music festival called Mikrofest VIII. There were about 25 bands, each given 20 minutes to play. That’s still a long, long time. Although I don’t particular think any of us fit in with the crowd, it was amazing to watch and do our best to get into the groove. Lots of flavors of punk music existed there: punk-rock, punk-folk, punk-noise, punk-hip-hop. My favorite was a group called Sewn Leather — I wanted to pick up their LP but they took off before I could get my hands on it.

There were also other performing groups besides bands, including a song/dance duo that covered themselves in glowsticks. I have a video — again: if YouTube and time permits, I’ll upload it for your viewing pleasure. The end of their set was particularly awesome because they danced around while taking off the glowsticks and throwing them around the stage and crowd (which were essentially the same thing) and everyone was dancing and tossing around the glowy colors. Neat!

Our Set at Mikrofest:
Giving Calico 20 minutes to play is, essentially, a death sentence for our music. We ended up playing four songs, which took 33 minutes. It was really the shortest set would could do. We started with three Calico classics, then unleashed our first cover song: Montel Jordan’s “This is How We Do It.” We had never practiced it, but mostly discussed it quite a bit and decided to let it fly. We started out low, then built it up to a load disaster (a pretty good standard for cheesy covers, if you ask me). The crowd went wild! After we brought it back down, a few people said, “Bring it back up!” So we did. Thanks, Mikrofest.

Camping Outside Olympia:
After all that, we were offered a few houses to stay at, but we decided we would rather be on our own for the evening. Our set was supposed to happen at 10:30pm, but we went on at 2:00am, and we were pretty bushed. So Tyler found a campground about 5 miles from the venue and found our way there. We set up Liam’s tent to the lights of the van. Liam and Brady slept in the van, and Tyler, Sean and I huddled in the tent we erected. (It was very manly, putting that tent together in darkness.)

We bet on it not raining and didn’t put the rain fly on. So, of course, it rained. Tyler was the first to wake up, and he quickly threw the fly over us and we went back to sleep. Liam called us at 7:30am from the van to wake us up. The three boys got out in the drizzle, packed up the tent, and climbed back in the van. Again — quite manly.

Portland:
So we got to Portland in plenty of time to get breakfast at Chaos Cafe before playing at noon at Chaos Parlor (they’re adjoined, if you couldn’t tell). Cute places, great service, excellent food. Kind of crappy crowd, though. Our friends in Alack, Alas, Alaska had played at Mikrofest, too, and joined us at Chaos Parlor to play a little opening set. Two local friends of Calico showed up, and two strangers wandered in. We decided to play a good, long set — 1.25 hours. Good times and lots of videos to upload about this one, too. (I discovered neato functions with my new camera, so I went a little overboard, but why not?)

While listening to Alack, Alas, Alaska, we discovered a MySpace message from Brady’s friend who said we could play a show at her house tonight. I guess she decided we couldn’t. But A,A,A said we could join them at the house concert they are playing tonight. So Sean went off with his buddy for some good times, and Brady drove the rest of us to the Alphabet District. Brady and Liam went walking around, and Tyler and I stayed in the van for a little nap.

I woke up after about a half hour and wandered to this coffee shop (Coffee Time). I got a call from Brady: I guess the bill is already too full, so we can’t play. So we’re out of a show, out of luck, out of patience, and out of here.

But we’ll eat at Beau Thai first. And we need to find Sean. Then I’m hoping we’ll get to another campsite in a few hours, pitch that tent (I’m gonna put the rain fly on this time, I think) and finish up the trip back to SLC tomorrow.

There you have it. Honey, I’m coming home!

- Andrew

Seattle is one of my favorite places to visit, and today was so wonderful! We slept in late (thanks to our great hosts Jamie and Tyson), getting up in time to walk with Jamie to get coffee at Lasko’s (or something like that ) and a little pastry at Pike’s Place Market before she went to work.

She pointed us in the direction of Macrina’s for breakfast. What a tasty little spot! Eggs, veggies, potatoes, fruit, and fresh-squeezed orange juice — just what I needed. The five Calico boys are a goofy bunch, and we’ve had a great time hanging out, making jokes, and getting each others’ nerves.

After breakfast, we walked back to Pike’s Place Market. We tried to find a bolo tie for Sean, but nothing fit the bill. The produce looked delicious, and the little pear and honey I tried confirmed it. A street musician was playing some great stuff (if YouTube would work for me, I’d put a video here for you to see, but it doesn’t seem to cooperate). We didn’t see any flying fish — the place that tosses fish around was surrounded by tons of on-lookers, but none of them were buying fish (you gotta buy them so they will fly them!)

We also made our way to a great musical instrument shop that mostly has ethnic percussion and odd instruments. Sean, Brady and I attempted a trio on their chimes. It was slightly successful… more practice needed.

More and more walking through Seattle’s Belltown and Capitol Hill districts. We went looking for Jivetown Records, but it seems to have moved. We ended up hitting happy hour at Konnect, a trendy bar that sold us $2 drafts and $2 sushi rolls. The sushi recipes were very unique: spicy tuna with cinnamon goyza strips; peking duck with green onion — yum!

We eventually made it back to Jamie and Tyson’s place, took a dip in the hot tub, and now we’re all showered and ready to head down to Olympia for tonight’s show. Our original venue lost its lease a coule weeks ago, but they got us a show at an all-day music festival called Mikrofest. More details to follow!

- Andrew

BONUS RANDOM PHOTOS:

What a long day! We drove for what seemed like an eternity (in actuality, about 7.5 hours) from Nampa, ID, to Seattle, WA. The views were so gorgeous:

We stopped at a gas station that had a wide variety of fried foods to offer, as well. Sean and Brady got the fried mushrooms. Sean’s were right out of the fryer, so he had to blow on them to cool them down. It kind of looks like he’s kissing a fried mushroom in this picture, but he’s just blowing on it…

We eventually got to the Pacific Ocean, Seattle, and Jules Maes Saloon, the oldest bar in Seattle (established 1888).

The front of the building was an old saloon-ish restaurant and bar. The middle section was a small arcade (pool table, skee ball, and four pinball machines, which I spent some good coinage one). The venue was at the way back. Here’s a picture of Sean and Tyler enjoying a cool beverage right after the long trip:

After reviving ourselves with beer, we wandered down the street to Georgetown Records, which has an adjoining comic shop with an astounding collection of graphic novels. Here’s some jokers standing outside of it (facing away — that building falling apart in the back is not the comic shop…)

Then back to Jules Maes for some eats (Tyler and Sean split a BLT; Liam got a grilled cheese; Brady got fish n chips; and I got a BBQ buffalo burger with tater tots — wowee zowee!) Jamie and Tyson (our gracious hosts for this evening — thanks, you two!) came down to catch the show.

Our crowd was a little sparse. (Not as sparse as this picture — it was taken during the soundcheck — but close.)

Still, we played a pretty good set, and I recorded it all, so maybe someday you can hear it: Calico, Live from Jules Maes Saloon. And then we’ll add you to the number of people “present.”

I never got the name of the opener, but he rocked out on a guitar for a while and sang a pretty good impersonation of Conor Oberst. Hazelwood Motel played after us — all three really great people playing great music. Thanks for the show, friends.

And now I’m listening to the patterned breathing of a sleeping band. I hope to join them soon. Hopefully we’ll get to Pike’s Place Market tomorrow and I’ll have all sorts of great pictures to show you. Then down to Olympia for a show that’s part of a festival called Mikrofest. I’ll let you know how it goes.

G’nite –

Andrew

We slept at a neat apartment just across the street from Flying M — M’s employee Caleb put us up for the night (and his roommates Diana and Joe). Their vinyl collection rocks! And when Diana asked if it was okay that she play Patsy Cline, I told her about the Salt Lake City wonderland known as Frosty Darling, where Patsy can be heard any day of the week.

Brady and Sean got couches. Liam and I got cushions on the floor.

Tyler wandered off to sleep in the van and woke up with typical van-sleeping-related aches. In this instructional video, he teaches us how to stretch it out:

(video still uploading to YouTube … but it’s coming, I swear)

So now we’re back at Flying M (it’s a beautious black hole sucking us back in), eating morning macaroons and drinking fruit purees (mine’s peach; Tyler’s strawberry).

It’s a cold and drizzly day. Stay warm and dry, little puppies.

We’ve got a seven-or-so-hour drive ahead of us to Seattle. I remember camping in the Cascade Mountains five years ago and waking up to some of the most beautiful scenery: tall pines for miles; a foggy morning; the earth exhausting it’s own morning dew like smoke billowing skyward. And Seattle: one of my favorite places to be — I want to walk around Pikes Place with my buddies and rediscover all the nooks and crannies of the countries best public market. (Salt Lake City is talking about the possibility of starting a public market downtown — I hope it comes together, because it would be an awesome thing).

Enough sappiness. Time to roll.

- Andrew

Don’t forget to check out Tyler’s blog and Brady’s blog, too!

Flying M is a great place (look at the last post for a picture)!

We played a nice set with lots of my favorites. I forgot to record it, though — yipes! I’ll get the next one, I swear.

We met lots of fun people, like Emma and Chelsea who are here talking to us as I type this (and whose legs are featured in the photo above). Don’t ask them if they are sisters, though … they’ll laugh real hard and point out that one of them is a “giant Asian” and the other “a midget Jew.” But they’re so lovely together.

We sold some merch — today was the first day that anyone could get their hands on a copy of the new album, lucky punks. It’s great to have two albums, four t-shirts, and a bunch of buttons for sale.

Thanks, Idaho, for a fun night!