Give the Gift That's Worth a Damn

Nine dollars local, twelve dollars postage paid - message our myspace or fire one off to these.magnificent.tapeworms@gmail.com. Out of medium yellow, and other size and color combinations won't last long. Small through XL.

Animation Fantastication

I guess we impressed front man Josh of Egg Chef when we played with them in Belleville a week ago - he asked if he could use our music for a music video assignment! He took our track Plastic Planet and a bunch of plastic toys and had the two concepts make video love, yum yum.

Thanks for the vid Josh, hope ya got a good grade!

Nasty in Knoxville

We played the Poison Lawn house on Sunday the 6th of December while on our tour that just wrapped up. Our camera disappeared at the previous show, but I promised pics by way of Steve Barrett, the friend of Clan of the Cave Bear that took photos of the whole show and burned a bunch to a cd. Thanks, Steve!

So here ya go!

Out Like an Even Bigger Lion

The last four shows of the eleven day December tour were pretty mondo. The Flying Monkey Art Center in Huntsville was so amazing, and so hospitable. The owner of the nearby Bandito Burrito gave us a discount for being touring musicians! We didn't get the Juan Big Deener, though. The art center was part of an old factory - we loaded our gear onto carts and got into a creaky old world elevator where you have to line up with the floor juuuuust right. There were dozens of artist booths and even a record store. A dude jumped at the chance to buy some beers for us. Abstract Artemis opened with a raunchy rock n roll set, and then we followed up. Despite being exhausted from recording until four in the morning, we gave it everything we had and got people to start dancing. The aforementioned Daikaiju closed the show out. They were amazing - very energetic stage presence, tight ass surf riffing, and true to the kabuki masks they wore, very theatrical. We chatted for a while but ultimately split for Carbondale, a mere 5 hours away.

After blaring Heavy Days and eating some Arby's, we were home. We slept a sleep of wonder.

Thursday we woke up not long before the evening's super duper special event - Southern Illinois Roller Girls playing their debut public scrimmage. There were lots of hard hits, thrills, and spills. At the end of the night, Hell's Elves creamed Santa's Slayers. Special shout outs to Muchos Bustos and The Great Gashby for nailing MVP on their respective teams! The party continued at PKs, where Secondary Modern and ourselves played loud as fuck sets to everyone pounding dollar rails. Alex and I did this thing where we stared at Danny with really big eyes while he was drumming. He saw us and missed a beat. We laughed. We are dicks. Our set was fat and lush and people sang and danced and requested more. It was actually really ideal. I'd like to play all of our shows that well. There was the requisite Lost Cross after-party. All was well in Carbondale, despite our absence.

On Friday we dragged ass towards Belleville. Illegal Tone Recordings is a studio and venue run by kind-hearted souls not afraid to dedicate themselves to the money pit that is the all-ages venue. No smoking or booze, but you can get three of those individually wrapped Twizzlers for a quarter. We missed Drizzlin' Shits :( But, we caught punks Egg Chef and sweet indie kids Fragile Farm. Dan tried to get a bunch of his friends in the area (he's from nearby East Alton) to come out... and none did. But a bunch of the kids that saw us at Poppa Dell's were there, and all was well! We played and danced and knocked things over and humiliated a bunch of high school girls. It was awesome! Afterward we shot the shit for a bit and then got amazing food at Hy-Ho, a local staple. Oh yeah, we got interviewed for some zine by Martin. More details when he reminds us exactly what that was about.

Just fyi, we noticed there are a shit-ton of bars in Belleville. So if ya wanna get drunk...

The Saturday show in Memphis was the titular bigger lion that we went out as. We had to to play first of four, which was a drag, but it just meant we could dance our asses off and flirt and drink free beers and enjoy the Beer 30 Ice we got at a gas station in Arkansas. What time is it? Beer 30! Mikey and Kyle and Gally and Maggie and the whole Memphis crew were out in full force, and we made new friends too. We played a good set, although shy of our PKs and ITR efforts, but still worthwhile, and then The Safes ripped it up, followed by Mikey and new backing dudes cranking out awesome Modern Convenience tracks. For the uninformed, we love Modern Convenience. The Angel Sluts closed out the night with a careening front man that got the whole bar surging around, a drunk wave belting out punk with full force. We hung out and made new friends, but decided ultimately to split town that night. After eleven days, five hours of driving could not separate us from home. But it's not an insult Memphis - we love the fuck out of you, and we'll be back in full force to retard your brains once more, probably inside two or three months.

Anyway, that's another tour in the books. Check back for when we get a minute to put up those pics from the Poison Lawn show last Sunday. Later!

Truck Stop WiFi is Expensive

We've been out of the loop for a while, sorry kids. We played the Asheville show after our last post. The venue was way to classy but the people got into it well enough. A zoology grad student bought the last thirty of our old buttons with the slide of the tapeworm on it. Thanks Maureen! Then we talked about beer and food - there are bunches of breweries in Asheville and the guys that put us up are avid gardeners.

Woke up. Golfed. Realized the camera was missing/stolen. :(

Sauntered on towards Knoxville via the scenic route. Also known as the ten mile an hour roller coaster. Fucking rock slides. But we got hella good super cheap food at a deli in Newport. The Knoxville punk house was a veritable mansion. Used to be a store, got converted into residential. Very nicely decorated and the show room was almost sound proof - no cops in two and a half years! Hell yeah! We played with Clan of the Cave Bear, Dude Fucking Whatever, and Odd Order. Everyone was awesome, be sure to check Clan of the Cave Bear in Carbondale on Friday the 11th. Some dude crashed into our shit during our set and then passed out and slept through the last band, waking only long enough to vomit. Even though our camera was stolen, a friend of Clan of the Cave Bear took bunches of pictures and gave them to us. I'll post them later - my laptop doesn't wanna read them.

We woke up in predawn light and loaded out to cut to Zeke's studio. We spent Monday laying instruments and Tuesday we redid some shit and did overdubs and extra stuff and vocals and got really exhausted and tired and Boogie chewed up my contact case and Alex got really drunk and Joseph played ringmaster for the three ring circus flying around this tiny cabin. We worked about twelve hours a day and smelled really bad while we were at it. P - U! But we got a lot recorded. Phew! We might have some rufff mixes of a Gnarly XXXMas and Roller Derby Girl to give away when you buy our bombass shirt or drinks for us on Thursday. Preferably the shirt. Or the drinks.

Tonight we're playing with Daikaju in Huntsville. Looks like it'll be insane. Gotta hit the road!

Innauguration Blog

Nashville a few days ago. Show was canceled, we got our shirts, and hung out with Big Gay Ray. Slept at a truck stop.









Atlanta two days ago. Killed a fifth and shreded a gnar. The WonderRoot is a supercool! We got recession burritos at El Myr - they were about baby sized and full of pork. Burrito and pint of Pabst: $FIVE. We played with Tam Tam, Lagues, El Fossil, and Street Violence. Awesome performances from everyone and late night burritos (tour is a burrito) and beers at Street Violence's house.





Hung out the whole next afternoon calling and email to replace our canceled show. Chilled with the Florida kids until near sunset. They went to Tennessee, we went and had GREEK PIZZA with FISH. And spent too much money at Criminal records. We visited the place we would have played at in Athens but they hated us so we went to Zeke's place in the woods. Weeeeeee! There wasn't any running water, but we were well toasted by his spaceheaters.

Woke up and golfed.

We just ate expensive vegan food (FUCK!) and we're getting ready for the show tonight in Asheville NC at New French Bar. Come to the show! It's with The Atkins Riot! and No Shoulders. Our camera just fucked up, so we lost today and yesterday's pictures. Oh noooo.