"Washed under the blacktop, gone beneath my wheels..."

I wanted to throw up some pictures from last Thursday when the family spent a day in Milwaukee at a Brewers-Twins game followed by Summerfest. My brother Cody is in town for a couple of weeks visiting (he moved out to Los Angeles back in January), and as a belated Fathers' Day gift to my dad we took him to the ball game and to see the Conor Oberst show at Summerfest. The game was fun, though I am not the world's biggest baseball fan, and I happen to be a Cubs fan, so my team wasn't playing. An afternoon spent with beer, brats, and baseball is always time well spent.

Seeing Conor Oberst with his new Mystic Valley Band was incredible, and quite possibly the best concert I've ever seen, no joke. I have always loved his songwriting as he is an incredible lyricist, and the new band is just rock and fuckin' roll. I especially enjoyed hearing "Moab" live, which, if you read back to my first post, you will discover is the namesake for this blog. That song became my mantra while on tour around the midwest back in October of 2008, and hearing it live was very special. "Washed under the blacktop, gone beneath my wheels, there's nothing that the road cannot heal."
With my brother Cody and my mom. Our seats were pretty much as high up as you can get, but at least we were on the shade on a very hot day.

Dad

Eagerly awaiting Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band.

Rock

'n fuckin' roll

More from Spring Tour

I played at the Tribal Cafe in Los Angeles on Saturday night with my brother, Cody Statz, and Phil Yates, a songwriter I played with in Chicago three years ago who now lives in L.A. Above is a picture of my brother playing some of his most excellent songs while sporting Bucky pride during March Madness.

The night of the Tribal Cafe gig was my last in L.A., and afterwards we headed to a North Hollywood bar near Cody's home for a few drinks. My old roommate and current Las Vegas denizen Tony Flanagan is in the middle, flanked by Cody and myself.

San Francisco! I had three gigs in the San Fran area, one in Penngrove, one in Fairfax, and one in San Francisco itself. I stayed with my friend Branden, who I used to hang out with way back in my Freshman year of college. He is a radically cool dude, and showed me all around San Francisco during the few days I was there. Of course, we had to make a trip to Haight Street.

Haight Street and the neighboring Golden Gate Park are filled with hippies, gutter punks, and street people. Here is a group of them hanging out in the Park. You cannot walk 20 feet in this park without someone trying to sell you drugs. Whispers of "great bud", or "excellent weed" were commonplace, and when someone whispered only, "good nugs", you had to wonder how he could compete with the aforementioned "great" and "excellent"?

If you are a child of the 90's like I am, then you will recognize these houses from the opening credits of "Full House". Yes, I am a dork and asked Branden to show me where they were.

What I've Been Up To on the Road...

So I know that I still have a few more posts to finish up from the Europe Trip, but I thought that you might like to see what I've been up to on my month-long Spring Tour out west. I am currently in Los Angeles, and heading up to San Francisco today, but here are some pictures from where I've been so far...The first stop was Chicago, and I got to share a show with some good friends of mine, Flame Shark. We did a radio spot at WNUR before the show, and the picture above shows Justin Jahnke of FS and myself preparing to infiltrate the Chicago radio waves.

Driving through Kansas I decided it was time for a clean-up, so I shaved off most of my facial hair and got a haircut in Emporia, KS. It was the longest haircut of my life, the old guy used only scissors, but he did a bad-ass job.

Palo Duro Canyon outside of Amarillo, TX. I stopped for a bit of hiking on my way through, as my brother and I had enjoyed this canyon last summer on tour. I believe that it is the 2nd largest canyon in the U.S. after the Grand Canyon.

I spent a weekend playing shows in New Mexico: at a roadhouse in Madrid and then a house concert in Placitas. DeeDee (pictured above) and her mom were kind enough to put me up for the weekend as couchsurfing hosts, and they threw one hell of a house concert/party on Saturday night. Here is DeeDee modeling a Mexican wrestling mask AND a John Statz t-shirt. Yes, we both ended up with masks (see my Facebook profile picture).

The house concert in Placitas, NM. I really had a good time and met tons of fun people. Thanks DeeDee and Michelle!