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"Coffee... again?"

Santa Rosa>>  We make a minor mistake while trying a "shortcut" from Clear Lake over to 101. Lucky no one puked on the hair-pins. We roll into Santa Rosa in the late afternoon and are shocked by all the cars and people and stuff... whoa, civilization! Per usual, we roll by the club... another coffee house! This one if really big though, and the stage is enormous for a coffee house. Turns out the place is a regular all-ages venue there... cool. We were fortunate enough to have Kelly from 20 Minute Loop (who are from there) set up the show there, and we are playing second to last, which is perfect. We get a hotel just down the street... but it sucks cuz its suburban strip-mall land, and you can't really walk anywhere, so we are stuck. Beer anyone? We get over to the club to load in, and there are already some kids there... now, when I say kids, I mean kids. They are awesomely grand in all their indy punk-ness, though, and its fun to see. We park the van right out front and mostly sit in it. The first band is great... they are young, have tons of energy, and the drummer has written all over his drum kit with a pen. The bass player dives into the audience now and again, and the kids are really getting into it... its still light out. The next band, 31 Knots from Portland, are really good... a nice surprise. They are sort challenging in a June of 44 kind of way, but not too skronky. Rebecca (Mikes girlfriend), Karma and Doug (mates from AM Magic) show up representin' SF... good to see folks from home. We set up... Mike is happy and Kurt is not. Kurt has been asked to play a really tiny kit, and Mike has been asked to play through one of the bands' full-sized Ampeg rig (you know, the one that's like 6 feet tall). We only have 30 minutes, which is fine by us, and we rock as best we can. The kids seem to be into it, although the really short kid with the mohawk isn't dancing anymore... what can I do little buddy? We finish up and clear the area for 20 Minute Loop. They play in SF a lot and I've actually seen them before. A quick beer in the van and back inside to see their set... wow. These folks have chops o' plenty, and are really nice on top of it. Show's over and we are in the middle of strip-mall hell, so we decide to head back to the room and drink beer and watch TV. Thank god we don't have any more days off.

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