The drive was even longer than on the day before, through Wyoming and Montana for 13 hours. We got to Great Falls, Montana before sunset and there was already a big crowd of people in front of the venue. We drove to the back and started taking the gear inside. To a clothing store. Yes, the show was in a clothing store! I guess they still put up shows regularly, the space was simply called the Venue. Our backstage area was the department where they had all those Duane Peters™ shoes stacked. Two other bands played, Ass End Offend and Diogenes. We played last and there were well over a hundred people present. It wasn’t the best show on our part but it didn’t suck either, some of the kids seemed into it too. There was a pretty nice pit going on at times. But I also think some of them were definitely not into us, we really divided them. At least that’s the impression I got.

We loaded the stuff back into the van and drove to get some beer for our guide before going to eat at one of

the organizers place. A lot of people were there drinking beer and watching movies and we spent an hour or

two there, lots of really nice people.

We went to sleep to one of the guys moms place who had told us stories about having a bit of trouble at home but said us staying there was totally ok. His mother was in the military and her boyfriend was a biker/bodybuilder type and as we got there it got clear that we weren’t exactly welcome by everyone… But we stayed quietly in the basement where he lived and sneaked out quietly in the early hours of the morning. It was a long way to Seattle.

Day 18: Fire walk with me

Again it was a pretty long drive from upstate Montana to the west coast of Washington state, namely Seattle. This day was really exciting for me and the other David Lynch freaks in the band. On the way was this little place called Snoqualmie Falls, the town where they filmed Twin Peaks! I was extremely stoked to get there and it was pretty much what I expected. We recognised a lot of the places used in the outdoor shots like the school, the big log in the opening credits and of course the Great Northern hotel which was right next to the waterfalls. The nature itself was some of the most beautiful we saw in the US. The only letdown was the Double R Diner which had been damaged in a fire in the 90’s and gone through a lot of changes. It was now decorated with all kinds of kitschy motives: guitars, Pepsi signs and such, the main theme being the cartoon character Twede, that yellow bird. It was pretty mindboggling: here is the diner where they filmed one of the most legendary TV-series of all time, and they make it the Twede diner? Actually, now that I think about it it’s kind of appropriate… Very Twin Peaks in a way. They had some stuff about the TV-series next to the toilet.

After the trip to Lynchland and Robert finally finding out I was a total geek we came to Seattle and the Punkin House. At least I think that’s what the orange run down looking building was called. It was a pretty big house with a comfie basement where the shows happened. Also playing were the Wrangler Brutes, Big Business and Iron Lung, who we were going to play the next six shows with. Iron Lung is an amazing powerviolence duo originally from Reno, but now relocated to Seattle. The guys, Jon the guitarist and Jensen the drummer were already at the house when we arrived. At this point I was suffering from severe sleep deprivation and actually ended up introducing myself to Jensen twice. I was kind of embarrassed when I realized my mistake.

Iron Lung played first and I missed them. Maybe that’s because they played for like five minutes. I think we were next and it went pretty well, everyone was in a good mood afterwards. I checked out some of Big Business but couldn’t really concentrate since I was too tired and the basement was so crowded. They were also a two-piece and sounded very tight. I missed the Wrangler Brutes because I was sleeping in the car. The others told me they were fucking amazing.

We slept at Jons place and I got my first decent sleep in several days…

Day 19: "No, you cannot go there. You’ll get killed."

The show tonight show was Portland, OR which meant only a couple of hours of driving. We spent the day exploring Seattle which started with a visit to a great record store called Singles Going Steady in the center of the city. This was to become a tour tradition, Robert knew a good record store in almost every city so whenever we had the time we would hoard insane amounts of records. This was one of the best places, I think I got like twenty lp’s there as did the others. We also ate at an excellent Ethiopian restaurant, a first time for many of us.

The drive went easily chatting with the Iron Lung guys for a couple of hours. When we got to Portland and the venue called Porky’s it was already dark. The show was a last minute thing, it had only been advertised for a few days. Three bands were playing, Iron Lung, us and a straightforward punk rocknroll band called Coldbringer, with John of From Ashes Rise singing. In the end a lot of people showed up, including Shari from Harum Scarum, a great melodic hardcore band from Portland who we played a couple of shows with on our Scandinavian tour last winter and their roadie from that tour. We had a lot of fun playing and the venue was a pretty nice bar actually. Iron Lung were last and this time I got to see their whole set. I’d say they were the best band we played with on the entire tour. Jon, a smallish bearded guy with glasses who looked like an intellectual type, normally very well mannered and nice, going absolutely berserk while belting out extremely noisy and heavy riffs with a killer guitar sound. Jensen, a tattooed big man pounding the shit out of his drums while screaming into the microphone with a look on his face that would make a grizzly bear shit its pants. Assuming it was wearing a pair of course. Another thing I have to mention about the Iron Lung show is the guys chatting between songs: Jensen talking in a very laid back manner about accidents he’s had or whatever while John makes little comments like "O-oh…" and then, without counting blasting out another salvo of lethal, extremely tight powerviolence. What a great band. Some of us got a bit drunk after the show, Mikko and Robert had to basically drag me, Vellu and Jussi out of the bar.

Driving to Johns place me and Vellu were horrified and appalled to find out that we couldn’t buy any more beer because the gas stations weren’t open. The only place selling alcohol was this bar that John absolutely wouldn’t let us go into, he said we would be lucky to get out of there alive. We kept insisting that we need to go there but apparently he was serious about it. So we finished our last cans sitting on their porch, it was a pretty nice evening. We talked about all kinds of things, touring Europe and the US, music and bands. It was also the first time on the trip I heard about people converting their cars to run on vegetable oil, apparently some American bands toured with those. Later on I actually got to ride in one. I think it was like 3 am when we went to sleep.

Day 20: I shot some pictures in Reno, just to put them on the internet

After just falling asleep I was woken up by some twisted individual saying we had to go to Reno. It was 6 am. The drive took a brutal 13 hours with a couple of stops, again it was already dark when we reached our destination. Coming into Reno was a lot like coming into Vegas, descending from the Nevada mountains to a valley of endless lights from casinos and hotels.

The show was another basement show, again there was a good bunch of people there. There were two neighbouring punk houses, one was for eating and sleeping and the other called the Proxy House was where the rock happened. The people here put shows on regularly and it showed, everything worked really well and they were really cool to the bands. I have to mention the insane amount of great food that was very welcome after the grueling drive!

A local band called Arabella played first, I got there when their set was halfway through. The thing I remember the best was them playing the song Warsaw, a cover song which we had done every night of the tour. But they did the Warsaw version and we did the Joy Division version so it wasn’t exactly the same thing.

Next was Bafabegyia, sounded good even though I didn’t catch too much of their set. We had bad luck with this one, the drums kept falling apart. A lot of looong breaks with us arguing in Finnish, probably leaving the audience pretty puzzled. Not the best show. Iron Lung were amazing again, they had a hometown crowd and they might have been even better than in Portland.

There was supposed to be a party after the show so we got some beers with Robert, Tiia, Jussi and Vellu but it dried up pretty quickly, leaving us Finns to behave like idiots until 4 am.