Typhoon's Blog

“…and whatever you do, don’t fart on the bread bag”
-pieter “son of lars” hilton

On tuesday, april 13th, Alex, Dave, Devin, Jen, Nora, Paul, Pieter, Ryan, Shannon, Toby, Tyler and I left our homes in Portland to go on tour with Yann Tiersen. We fit all these people along with two drumsets, three amplifiers, four guitars (including bass), two violins, two trumpets, a toy piano, an accordion, a conga drum, and all our assorted luggage into one 15 Passenger Dodge Van . We received parting gifts from loved ones to whom we’re indebted: thanks Trudy for the delicious coffee cake! thanks Dick for the new (and sorely needed) tires! thanks mom and dad for the homemade cookies and pastrami! Thanks Emily for the cookies! Also, thanks Pieter for finding a laundry bag full of day-old bread behind new seasons.

We drove all day to get to Santa Clara where we would stay for the next few nights with Pieter’s family (nicest people in the world). Thanks Daria, Augustine and Dante for the hospitality! Highlights of this leg of the trip include: in & out burger, drinking mexican beer and hanging out in an empty hot-tub at “the hilton house.” 

“not musicians—magicians!”
-dan the man (in response to us pouring out of our van)

The next day we woke up and ate bagels. After some practice we packed up and drove to Visalia where we would play our first show with Yann at the Cellar Door. For those of you who, like us, had never heard of Visalia before (pronounced VY- Say-Lee-Yuh) it’s a small town in the armpit of california. Very nice folks, though.

Alright. Kyle got tired- now it’s Devin’s time to shine: Arriving in Visalia, we poured out of the van to the shock and awe of the Cellar Door owner. They had saved us a spot big enough for a winnebago. I was one of the last to walk in the venue. I assumed the rest of the guys had already met Yann, so I threw my hand up to shake. He shook hands with Pieter and I and then promptly returned to sound checking. At this point we learned that there was no sound guy for the show and Paul commenced to freaking out. I had a really good sandwich with apples in it. Then we played and there were a few technical difficulties, but in general it was a great first show. Good to get those tech butterflies out early.

Then began our “love affair” with watching Yann Tiersen and his band every night. The band rocks way harder than most of us or most of their fans expected, broken up by a rippin’ violin solo and a couple Amelie-esque numbers. After the first night, we were all pretty head over heals. We watched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the drive back to Santa Clara. “Man I love being a turtle!”

The next day we woke up at our home-base in Santa Clara and went to Mondo Burrito for some mondo-fishos, mondo-beanos, and mondo-meatos with Daria and Augustine.

And now Nora’s perspective: Pieter showed us around the neighbor hood that he grew up in, and we found an orange tree in someone’s yard that was hanging heavy with ripe oranges. They were ripe and delicious, and felt rather ominous.

HEY LOOK AT THAT CAVEMAN WITH THE SWEET KICKS!

TYPHOON MYTH BUSTERS: Can you really Overdose on weed?

Josh and Rebecca.

OCEAN! OCEAN OCEAN! Kelp robes.

where’s kyle? oh, he’s probably taking a “shower.”

quiche qui qui with yann and crew in santa cruz.

scorpion dreams.

“Alex, would you please take your balls out of your purse?”
-wavy “dave” hall

I always like the idea of doing a tour journal, but the task invariably gets juggled around between band members and eventually buried. I want to recount the past few days with appropriate lucidity, but at 2 am (apparently—I think we’re on central time now) on the third consecutive stint of driving through the night, lucidity is, sadly, a luxury not afforded me. I seem to remember almost pissing myself (with equal parts joy and sheer terror) in front of six hundred and fifty Yann Tiersen fans at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. But looking back, San Francisco was the honeymoon: we were fresh from home, kindled with excitement and had some very dedicated friends and family members who came down to see us. I got to stay at the floating home of my aunt and uncle in Sausalito. Others stayed in SF with friends and still more went back to Santa Clara to our temporary base camp. Paul lost his wallet in a cab, but it should restore your faith in humanity that it was later recovered with all the cash still in it.

We all met in Santa Clara and drove to other and, according to one enthusiastic santa cruzian, “mo’ better SC.” That night we played at the Rio Theater. I should mention here that at every venue, we have been met with nothing but the nicest and most competent people; a special shout-out to Mary at the GAMH who gave me a hug and poured me a very large glass of Jameson after we played. Anyway, at the Rio we played to the quietest crowd I’ve ever encountered. I mean, they were quiet in a good way in that they were silent during every song but at every cue they would erupt with the appropriate response: applause and hollering after songs were over and good-natured chuckling following my dumb attempts at humor. thanks, Santa Cruz.

For the first couple of shows we were all kinds of nervous around Yann and his band, but afterwards in Santa Cruz they invited us for drinks at the crepe place across the street. It’s really kind of a mind-fudge to raise your glass and break bread with someone you idolize, but in the end it only confirmed my old theory that “everyone’s just regular dudes.” We all got a little schnockered (with the exception of yours truly; designated for the night) and we all hatched plans to get Typhoon into Coachella as Yann’s 12-person choir. That didn’t really work out (Coachella has pretty tight security and this was a last minute caprice) but the upside is we get to sing with Yann for the last couple tour dates. Let me say here that Yann, Lionel, Dave, Robin, Stephane, Stephane, Matthew & Allen are great folks and we really hope they take us to Europe one day.

The day after Santa Cruz, we packed up our stuff from Chez Hilton in Santa Clara and set out for Santa Barbara. Lots of cities named after saints in california. We played that night at Muddy Waters Cafe to an audience that was smaller than our band, but all five of them were incredibly supportive. It was here that we met Josh and Rebecca (brother and sister) who put us up for the night. They offered us couches, floor space and a really strange (but satisfying) root-beer cake that was accidentally made with wheat gluten instead of flour. I wasn’t hungry, it didn’t look good, yet i was compelled by a drunk curiosity to try it. We slept, woke up, sat in the front yard of the house and did a Typhoon blurb for Josh’s college radio show on KCSB 91.9 Santa Barbara in which we all spoke in unison. I really love it when we do that.

We ended up having 10 guest passes for Coachella, but with there being twelve of us, we really didn’t know how to split them up, so we ended up giving a bunch to the roommates at our host house and sending Paul Laxer with them.* Then Typhoon hit the beach!

Shannon writes now: Texas is mostly long stretches of highway and being that there are eleven of us in our trusty van, Sigourney, we had to find some way to make the time pass. When I was a kid I used to play this alphabet game with my brother on long trips. It’s really simple. The first person starts out by saying, “I’m going on vacation and in my suitcase I’m going to bring….” and they say something that starts with the letter A. The next person says the same thing, including the item that the first person listed, then they continue the list with something that starts with B. And so it goes. Typhoon was so bored that we filled up two suitcases.

Here’s what we brought: We’re going on vacation and we’re packing an aardvark, a bong, a cheeto, a dorito, an envelope, a flautist, Gary Newman, Home Improvement seasons 1, 2, and 3, icicles, jojo’s from the reel’m inn, kimchee, love, my mom, a neanderthal, oppression, a pubic hair brush, quail eggs, the Ramones, sexy pants, Timbaland, umbrella, a vasectomy kit, Wendy Moira Angela Darling, a xylophone, yogurt, and Zimbabwe.

In the second suitcase we’re packing aderol, a bon bon, codeine, diapers, ecstasy, french fried frog legs, grass, h-train, ice cream, jumpers, koala sperm, laughing gas, a meth lab, nicotine, opium, penis pump, q-tips, roofies, seratonin, tranquilizers, an umbrella, a volleyball, whip-its, x-men trading cards, a yo yo, and a zizzer zazzer zuzz.