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Bio:
PRELUDE:
Let me now tell you of particular tour adventures which have transpired on this, the fall U.S. tour. Each blog will be a new adventure. Like hobbits or buildings or German shephards.
(check out the new video "12/15/07")
ADVENTURE #9
December 15th.
6pm EST.
Times Square New York MTV TRL Studios.
The Myriad, The Material, and Them Terribles.
You finish the adventure. Only you can decide.
ADVENTURE #8
The Arizona desert.
A torrid place rife with rattlesnakes, Gila monsters, and imminent death by way of desiccation. Did I mention coyotes? Well, all the townsfolk know that they'll getcha when yer not lookin'! Lights and livers!
We'd always know the desert was a bad place. We'd always feared it. When we'd roll through we'd take precautions: plenty of spare tires, plenty of agua, plenty of courage, plenty of ipod. ...We would not be caught unawares. We thought ourselves so dern smart. Hoodoo hubris, if you will.
However, one day, our radiator perish'ed and our engine overheated to the point of scorched metal whilst rolling steadily through a mountainy area of the desert. Boom. We were stuck. No cell phone reception. No nothing. Just our guts and juicy brawn to get us through. We bivouacked out on a rocky incline. Night was falling. Coyotes were singing their sad songs off in the distance. The purply moon was ascending into the gorgeous Arizona sky. We began to feel content and very... manly even. Things would work out. We were sure of it. Men.
We built a little bonfire and sat back, munching on hard tack and salt pork... ready to confabulate the night away... telling tall tales and chuckling like the Rio Grande at Christmas... that is... all but one of us : our guitar/piano player: Steven Tracy.
Or... as he was known in certain parts: THE TUCSON HEAT.
He was wily, bow-legged, and had all his wits and twirled/larded moustaches about him. He'd grown up in the AZ desert, ate cactus and sand as a child, nursed from a she-scorpion, and followed the golden hawk to water many a time on his BMX... back in the day..... the bygone days of auric Tucson Heat lore. Steven didn't trust the desert.
"Shut up YA'LL!" he spat, quick as a bull whip.
We shut up. The fire crackled and spit. The moon ceased purpleing. The coyotes muted. The tumbleweeds rooted.
"It's quiet. ----------- Too quiet."
We followed his lead and stayed as silent as dead men under the dirt of Tombstone. We grew quite a'feered, yet vouchsafed our entire trust, our very lives, in the steely-spur nerve, the saguaro heart of the Tucson Heat. He stood silent as stone, fingers twitching, one eyebrow raised under his giant hat. You could almost hear a buzzard poop drop, it was so quiet.
Then it happened, all at (a) once! :
A cougar lept down upon us from a rocky ledge above, his claws outstretched, his fangs drawn, his furry bulk, a ghastly silhouette in the purple heat of the night sky! HIs liony scream deafening... like a flaming freight train a'comin' right fer ya!
Four of us shrunk into the sand like sissies, shrieking like western orphans, our faces covered by trembling, pork-be-smudged hands! The other (TUCSON HEAT!) did not shrink. In a flash of a hawk's talon he swept up his US Volcanic Repeating Pistol {complete with ornate festoonery alluding to classic Greek mythology through the subjective, culturally imbued lense of the Victorian period and inlayed in gold [melted down from bullion] professionally and indeed discreetly by a one Gus Chiggins/Dodge City/1873} and fired the full weight of the "Rocket Ball" ammunition (serious stopping power) into the very heart of said leaping desert beast cougar! IN MID AIR! RIGHT OVER TOP OUR HOMEY LITTLE BONFIRE!
Needless to say, the cougar ended. And thus fell into the fire. Instant roast Cougar. Hearty victual for hungry cowboys. Well, one cowboy and four hawkling goslings straining for roast beast.
This adventure hopefully melted your face.
ADVENTURE #7
Last week Jeremy's (lead singer, mind you) grandma celebrated her 80th birthday. Festivities were complete: with multiple festooned pix of Jimmy Stuart in wartime regalia... oh the bravery...oh, what a dreamboat! A few days later, while she was unflaggingly voting for The Myriad, someone broke into her home. A veritable fiend seeking largess in the way of televisions, pearls, and smallish costly bred doggies. Ski mask. Crowbar. Home Alone II. You know how it is.
Said intruder cut through her screen and managed to break open the sliding glass door. Muscles rippling. He then began to ransack through the house looking for anything and everything of value. Even Harry Potter books.
Meanwhile, grandma continued to vote, like an air traffic controller... her job of paramount importance... her grandson's joy the ultimate goal...; she was quite unaware of the Voldemort thief in her home. She was focused and determined to "max out" as the marketing quip goes.
After turning the living room and the kitchen upside down, the intruder made his way down the hall and slipped past the office where gentle grandma was eagerly typing away. He eventually ended up in the master bedroom where he grabbed all her jewelry, cash, smallish expensive dog (vulnerably supine on the lux bedding), and car keys.
At this time grandma had just reached about 70 votes. Arthritis setting in. Regardless, as she neared her 100, she began pushing through like Carl Lewis in minimal wind resistance red nylon shorts and thus the burglar {such a chubby jungle cat} slipped out the front door heading for the car garage located under her condo complex.
Once he located grandma's car, the burglar, very high on life, couldn't figure out how to open the steel barred garage door (poor fellow) so he rammed it at 40 mph (wouldn't it have been funny if it was a Dodge Ram? But, crap... grandmas don't drive big trucks; they don't work at steel mills or lumber yards; they work at tender mercies), rendering the car almost useless and shaking the entire complex so bad that grandma was sure it was a kitten of an earthquake.
She continued to vote as the other condo owners called the police and reported the big, fat auto accident. Like a blue whale smacking into a nursery.
And so it followed that the police were on their way to the condo when a very fast moving, nearly totalled vehicle, sped by. They whipped around and began a high speed chase throughout the city which came to a quick end with the burglar apprehended and in custody.
Boom! Whatcha gonna do!?
The police then began to make their way to the condo as grandma finished her 100th vote, a golden crown upon her head loaded with the sumptuous onus of deliciously rare and exquisite jewels. Same as rappers. Pitbulls, too. Never forget pitbulls. Brindle and true.
Excited about completing the voting, grandma headed to the kitchen to grab a bedtime snack of meatloaf and sardines. She was quite surprised to find her entire apartment completely ransacked and she quickly called 911. To her surprise the police knocked on the door right as the 911 operator took the call!
She was so shocked at how fast they arrived she nearly forgot about the burglary. Grandma could not believe the police could show up within seconds of a call. Did they surf to her apartment on speeding lasers of justice? Anyhoo: They informed her they had already apprehended the suspect and were just coming to return all of her belongings. Even the $$$ pooch.
They stayed for a few hours to help get everything back in order and told her she was very lucky to have not come in contact with the intruder. When they asked her what kept her so occupied that the entire burglary went unnoticed she replied, "I was busy voting for my grandson's band The Myriad!"
See what happens when you vote for us?
May this be a lesson to you. ;)
Jeremy & Johnny Roger!
ADVENTURE #6
This is the adventure where nothing happens. At all.
I'm sitting at the computer and I can't recall a dern thing that would qualify as an adventure.
And yet the tour was fantastic, brilliant, splendid, indeed luscious beyond compare!
So, what's my problem?
Hmmm... ok.
I do remember one thing...
I remember it was chilly the night we traipsed around Times Square in NYC. I remember that we collectively donned our hats and scarves, coats and gloves. That was cool. We looked as bundled and fun as sweatered beagles at Christmas... with urban merriment all around our beady little eyes. I remember there were wonderfully GIANT Target advertisements all lit up like sunlit glory at midnight. Red and white. Men and women. Happy children. Sleds.
And, also, that there was another, extremely special add: a Juicy Couture billboard featuring a Greyhound dog replete with pink hair and a stylishly chic Critter-ture outfit smacking of Paris.
50 feet tall!
Veritable Goliath Greyhound!
Vanquishing all textile marketing foes!
Boomshackalacka!
Then we stopped at the Pig and Whistle for an Irish style bite to eat via NYC. There was Rugby on the tele. It was brutal. The guys were meaty and had like a billion bloody noses. Their teeth were popping like popcorn with each play, landing in the sodden grass... completely concealed... lost forever.
{Irish dentists were furiously shaking their fists!}
Huge Rugby dudes.
We all would have paid good money to see those dudes battle Goliath with the Greyhound in the middle of Times Square at high noon.
(!)
Good money.
Clash of the titans.
So let that be the adventure.
An imaginary one. The best kind.
Irish rugby guys battling a huge dog in expensive autumnal duds.
Does it get any better than that?
No.
Toodles!
ADVENTURE #5
I woke up in the total blackness that is the bus (submarine type) bed chamber. The little blue curtain you pull to lock yourself in for the night completely extinguishes all light. "The van was never ever ever this dark"; I thought, somewhat darkly. Anyhoo: it was really late/early and I was disoriented, as the bus wobbled down the highway. I checked the illumintated face of my trusty cell phone: 4:51 am.
It was stupid hot in the sleeping section of the bus. I put my hand over the vent thingy; seriously HOT AIR issued forth from it. No wonder My neck was all sweaty and I had awoken like a perturbed black bear in a buzzing berry patch sizzling with summer sun. So I rolled out and opened the door that leads to the drawing room/front of the bus and stumbled toward our wonderful driver: Mr. Dave, who is for all intents and purposes a bad arse. My flannel pajama shorts looked awesome in the low light of the bus console...illuminated all green and red like the death star controls that operate giant lazers of total destruction.
"Hey, David?"
Nothing. He was working. Driving like a pro. Lost in pro driving thoughts. I had to be careful, I didn't want to scare him and have us all end up in a southern bog.
"Hey, Dave?"
His head turned...: "Yee-ah?"
"It's really hot back there." (I thought of the other twelve sleepers, silently sweating in misery and not really being cognizant of why they were suffering being that they were asleep; I remembered seeing all their curtains pulled aside, their limbs flailing out, desperate and blind, trying like mad to achieve the perfect amount of cool... like everybody on myspace.)
Dave: "Oh. Ok"
He reached over and switched a deathstar knob that turned the air cool or something. It was a blue knob that glowed like expensive crystal. I loved it. Indeed cherished it.
Perhaps driver Dave was running the heat because he thought we were cold like the front of the bus; it's mid November after all, and there was a cold fog in the Georgia fields... he was being rational, he didn't know we all were perishing.
Quite suddenly he said: "Can you heat this up for like a minute?" and handed me his big styrofoam cup of coffee from a pilot truckstop. It was bigger than a football and over half full. It smelled like tepid road tar.
"Totally," I answered and wobbled toward the microwave. When I returned with the steaming cup he thanked me and immediately switched back into pro driver mode, handling the illuminated lazer controls with precision. He owned the night.
And thus, I rolled back into my submarine bed chamber and immediately felt the delicious chill of cold air from the vent. And, dear reader, I fell into the most magical sleep of my life. Nothing could wake me, not even a free ticket for a real life time machine.
ADVENTURE #4
Steven fell.
Hard.
Like 9 feet.
From the top of a staircase circa 1904.
Over the rail.
All the way down.
In the dark.
The black 2 am dark.
Onto a creaky old hard wood floor. In a hallway that used to be a confection store. Where little, sticky children consumed sweet licorice drops and dreamed of delicious candies filling their closets, their pillow cases, their tender hearts. 24/7. Cavities like jelly beans Little children who were so innocent, back in the very beginnings of a bright new 20th century, that they hadn't a clue that the very stairs that led them up, up, up, into the heart of confection heaven (ie the malt ball and pink salt**ter taffy room/the paragon of delights) would someday bring about the near demise of a one Steven Tracy. The Myriad's guitarist/pianist. The guy that was just too darn tall (6'4'', respectfully) to
adequately reach the tiny hobbit rail that accompanied the ancient stairs. Too tall. Rail too hobbit.
Steven was talking to his wife in the dark stairwell, pacing upward toward the apartment that was housing the Myriad graciously for that fateful, cold evening in Kentucky. Pacing upward. Missing just one step in the pitch black, then clambering like a crazy hick in a goldmine upward and ultimately reaching desperately with one hand (unfortunately busy holding a glass of refreshing water), for the grossly inadequate hobbit rail. One hand, only, you see, for his important cell phone occupied the other.
And thus, he missed the short rail. He tumbled sideways over said rail in his awkward upward progression. And then indeed he cascaded downward. Like a brick in the night. And rolled sideways in midair. Like a ballerina brick in the night.
Swoop!
Fall!
Boom!
CRASH! (the glass exploding on the hard wood floor)
He landed on his right flank after doing a full 360. And was amazed that nothing was broken but his self esteem. He hit the floor so hard that all Myriadites upstairs were quite alarmed(!), thinking a freight train had just hit a prize winning cow replete with blue ribbon. One member even got out of the shower (covered in Irish Spring suds), like a juicy trout with human legs and a hairy chest.
It was an adventure for sure. A crazy adventure. We never felt more alive. We're quite certain that they were the very stairs which lead to the habanero mouth of Hades.
ADVENTURE #3
New York.
The biggest, crispiest, juiciest apple. Ever.
Every time we're here, something really odd occurs. New York has a way of making you feel, well, out of sorts. And sorts is what we all aim to be. So New York takes away your sorts. It's ridiculous.
So I was on the bus making some delicious coffee and trying to wake up so I could go and get my gear ready for soundcheck. This is John Roger (bass). Randy (drummer) was with me. Waiting for coffee. Waiting to become a real human with me post caffeine. We still had on our teal flannel pajamas. That's how sleepy we were. Our hair was out of sorts, too.
Whilst brewing the sweet, sable, nectar of the gods, Randy and I noticed a New Yorker out ahead of the bus in front of a bagel shop. He was leaning against the newspaper stands and was quite at leisure at 10 am in the morning... smoking a big fat cigar. Taking his time.
He was donning giant black sungla***s and displayed a bit of prodigious girth. He wore ten thousand chunky gold rings squishing his thick fingers. He had slicked back hair that seemed to be slicked back with slick lard from the 1920's. He looked to be almost hypnotized in the glory and love of all that is New York City on this cold autumn morn. It looked to me as if he perhaps believed that he himself owned and operated New York in its entirety. The ill**trious proprietor of it all. In a black leather jacket.
Randy and I watched and watched and watched him, ignoring the coffee that had long since quit brewing. We couldn't look away from Mr. New York. It was as if he were a mighty lion laying in the sun-soaked grass of Africa. He was fierce. He was programmed to be awesome. His moustache bristled with truth. New York.
And then I felt my mouth magically voicing the words (out loud in the bus) that he himself was thinking and indeed living (I was as sure of it as I am sure that one day I will die). And this is what he said:
"New Yoak, Ha! ...Yah know, I could take it or leave it..." {puff of cigar/nod of the larded head} "BUT I SHOOR AS Hheck AIN'T LEEEVIN' IT! HA! HAR! HARDY HAR HAR."
Then Randy turned to me and said: "Exactly."
And the bagel shop issued forth the fragrant smell of dough and salt, filling New Yoak with cheer and health to all.
ADVENTURE #2 (previous adventures below)
“I began my little life by initially taking a miniscule form in Tommy’s kidneys…throughout many a mile of dusty highway way out west. He had no idea. He was on a lark, you see, doing merch for the Myriad. Minding his own business.
Poor chap.
Then one day in Denver he became very aware of my existence and wasn’t quite able to finish the merch counts for the band. The hour was late that evening, indeed too late… and too inconvenient for him to visit the solace of a mile high hospital. Besides, Tommy has no insurance.
So, sympathetically, I withheld my moment of birth ‘til the next evening’s show in Kansas; I felt sorry for him. He slept uneasily.
And so it finally happened like this: after the Myriad’s magical set that tornado evening in the land of Oz I made the impetuous decision to finally be born. And I doubled Tommy over with exquisite pain. I am a kidney stone after all. I hurt. I have spikes, like the hair of hipsters hefty with product. I am the kidney stone of your nightmares.
The Myriad blokes hovered around Tommy after he’d birthed me, asking him if he needed a bottled water, a scrumptious little candy bar, or anything…. ANYTHING that would dull the sting of passing baby me. Tommy sat there in a pile on the floor: ‘Noooo…. Nothing…. Ughghg… I’m finnne…. MAAAAN IT STILL STINGS!!!’
{What a good soldier.}
Tough.
In truth, he never asked for a switch from a stout oak to clench betwixt his teeth whilst I entered the world. Man, what a soldier. A merch soldier. From Louisville, Kentucky. The bestestest merch guy ever. He most certainly would have survived even the hottest melee amongst the hottest stone walls of Gettysburg, had he been born in the halcyon years of yore.”
ADVENTURE #1:
This one is simple. It occurred on the 11th show of the tour... in one of our favourite cities: San Francisco. At the Filmore. Mark Twain once stated: "The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco." (orsomethingtothateffect) Forsooth.
So when we found out at 1am (after tear down and such) that showers for the night were at a hotel about five blocks away, well, we shrugged, bundled up, and trudged onward with our little rolling luggage thingies in assorted colors. Delicious.
When we got there we discovered that the hotel was a sorta posh Japanese style hotel. Most delicious. The soaps smelled good, as did the shampoos. Ginger. All was set for refreshing showers after a cold slog through windswept streets de la noche. BUT THEN! TERROR STRUCK OUR VERY HEARTS! The shower head had arrived here in this, our very room, straight from the hot flames of plumbing hell! And it delivered to each of us in turn a torrential current of hellish water. Like a whip across the back, I tell you what! There was no adjusting this beast. There was no retreat either. We needed a good cleaning after a juicy rock show replete with hot lights and gigantor sound. Plus fog like 80's metal.
And so we were water tortured. Alas. And thus, we limped back to the bus... barely able to comprehend the proper direction due to the aqua concussions we'd recently received.
It was incontrovertibly NOT magical. It was painful.
Poor the Myriad. :(
But now we're fine. We've recovered. Thanx for all your cards and letters; they meant a lot to us during our discontent. And that concludes adventure #1.
TALES OF ART AND INTRIGUE:
Drawing rave reviews from both fans and critics worldwide, The Myriad's music covers a diversely artistic panorama. Atmospheric, melodic strains fill lyrics of heartache, doubt, and guts, while epic soundtracks span thundering anthems and sincere confessions with a mighty thump! The band has toured extensively, playing with bands such as Lovedrug, mewithoutYou, Mutemath, As Tall As Lions, etc, and has quickly earned a sing-along relationship with fans everywhere... a connection founded more on captivating performances than on-stage antics. Creative melodies evocative of at times kent, at others bjork, are delivered with the grand musical scope of the verve, radiohead and mew. The Myriad's first full length record, "You Can't Trust a Ladder" was featured as a Staff Favourite on iTunes (alongside the White Stripes and the Foo Fighters) when it was released in June 2005. Since then MTV has used some songs off the record for the Real World Denver show and is clamoring to use new songs off the forthcoming record "With Arrows, With Poise"(out this March) for future shows. "With Arrows, With Poise" was recently mixed at Hansa Studios in Berlin, Germany by Michael Ilbert (The Cardigans, Kent, The Hives) and mastered at historic Abbey Road Studios in London, England by Adam Nunn (Air, Radiohead, Franz Ferdinand, George Martin, Mogwai). The Myriad recently signed with Koch Records out of New York and is poised to set 2008 on fire! This summer, the band was featured as one of the Smashing Pumpkins' top 8 friends on Myspace and was asked to do a cover of "Perfect" for the Pumpkins' Myspace profile player. Beginning in October, along with the "Prelude to Arrows" special limited edition EP release on Koch Records, The Myriad will be touring beautiful amphitheaters across the majestic lower 48. In truth, The Myriad is as much a musical vision as it is a band.
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