Press From Montreal

We got some nice press in the Montreal Mirror. Here's the full article:

It makes the common mistake that Tiina and Steph are sisters. I mean, we can't really blame anyone for thinking that.

This is pretty funny (for us, not the poor guy in the photo). The French weekly paper in Montreal, Ici, printed a really nice big full-colour photo of us in their music listings section, and then on the opposite page they had this photo with the wrong label:

Ah, hilarious. Sorry, that guy, whoever you may be.

Excuse me sir, but I think you are in possession of mah bucket.

So, as Rachie pointed out earlier, we are currently travelling in a Civic, and to facilitate that, we've been using a roof rack.

We fastened the roof rack on with two straps that went right around the roof and inside the car and then proceeded to drive through heavy rain all the way to Montreal. The straps soaked up water and started dripping regularly on Erica and Tiina in the backseat. The straps were, like, wicking the water in or whatever... it was a real pain in the ass. At first they tied hankies on the straps, then those got waterlogged and we all eventually had to duct tape plastic yogurt containers to the drippy spots and hope for the best.

I'm sure anyone can guess what comes next, but of course as Erica was deeply asleep, a full bucket of water totally dumped out in her lap. It was great. She had to take her skirt off (wrap skirts, FTW) and we had to remind her not to go jumping out of the car whenever we got to a gas station. In fact, at one station, we pulled into full serve (we're not divas or anything, I think it was just the only one open) and she had to pull Cuddle Pillow Batman over her lap to preserve her modesty.

The best part about the whole thing was that when you looked in the car, it looked like we were living in some shanty town with a crazy greywater system, and we were hanging laundry on makeshift clotheslines. Basically every square inch of the inside of the car had a garbage bag and duct tape on it, and some wet handkerchiefs. Rachelle said it looked like Brooklyn back there. That was also because Wally was heating up a tin of beans on an iron wearing only an undershirt.

Our Favourite Picture

This is a really weird picture that cracks us up. It totally looks like I'm giving a big thumbs up, but it's actually just the shape of Erica's shoulder. I took the photo and looked at it immediately and thought "huh, I don't remember giving a thumbs up." This photo is our new favourite thing.

It's also enhanced by that picture of the naked guy in the background. This is in the L'Escogriffe bar in Montreal. Very awesome bar. Tiina witnessed two people having sex in the bathroom. It's especially alarming because the bathroom was like, co-ed with no door. It was just in the corner of the bar. The two stalls had doors, but there was no real room that they were in. Ah, Montreal. I totally saw a young couple making out under an umbrella outside in the rain too. So romantic and French.

Matt stashed some secret candy in my keyboard case, which I found on stage in Montreal (somehow I didn't see it in Fredericton). Here I am holding it on stage in the middle of our set:

Mmmmmm...chocolate-covered ju-jubes. Thanks Matt!

Oh, hey! We have vinyl to sell now! Our first EP was just re-released on a vinyl 7", which we are selling on tour for a cool $5. Here's Tiina holding one out of the package:

Now you can scratch and sample our songs!

Here's a shot of Erica working the merch table in Montreal. We have a ridiculous amount of merch to sell. You can see a little of our super awesome new shirts with the big ol' bling chains on them. I'll try to get a better picture of one up here soon. They are great.

Those Play Guitar owl t-shirts are really hot too. They have been really awesome to tour with, and have been kind enough to haul our drums and some other gear around for us in their van until we get ours. I really love their music. Our bands sound nothing alike, but I think that makes a show more interesting.

In Ottawa we got a nice surprise: our friend Jaime drove up from Toronto with The Guest Bedroom (who we played with) to see us! Yay Jaime! And yay Guest Bedroom! We'll be seeing a lot more of those guys at the end of the tour when we're playing southern Ontario.

We're still in Ottawa, drinking coffee and eating Kettleman's bagels.

Capital City Capers

Day 4

I can't believe we've only been doing this for three days.

Just a quick basic information post. We have lots of fun photo posts to make soon. We're in (*looks out window*)...Ottawa right now, after our third show so far. The Friday night show in Montreal was particularly awesome. That city just rules. One awesome lady was wearing Batman underwear and totally pulled down her pants to show us while we were playing "Batman." I like to see that kind of enthusiasm about Batman.

Today we drive to North Bay to meet our new van. It will be nice to have a little more travelin' room. That Civic is kinda cramped. We'll be chilling in North Bay for the next couple of days before heading to Sault Ste Marie. Once we leave Ottawa, it begins the "Parts of Canada that Rachelle Has Never Seen" leg of the tour. That will be exciting.

The thing about tour that you have to get used to is constantly waking up in one city, and going to sleep in another (with an excrutiating amount of time between those two things). There's also very little down time, and trying to do something like go to the bank or the drug store, or post on this blog, is kinda challenging. I think we'll get into a groove pretty soon though. It definitely is fun, though. It's a pretty awesome country. I look forward to seeing the rest of it.

Ok, look for amusing posts with pictures very soon!

Official Stolen Minks Souvenir (Never Forget Your Stolen Minks Encounter)

We're gonna be selling hand silk-screened copies of this sweet little number on tour, so bring wads of cash:

Poster made by the beautiful people at Yo Rodeo.

Meet the Team!

The cast:

Stephanie, aka Steffi

Tiina, aka T-dot


Erica, aka Ricky

Rachelle, aka Bobo

Cuddle Pillow Batman, aka Cuddle Pillow Bruce Wayne

Wally the Walrus, aka Short Stack


The plan: Drive this Honda Civic as far as North Bay, Ontario:

Switch to Tiina's family's van for the rest of the trip:

(Van may not be exactly as shown).

The route (more or less):

Date of departure: July 19
Date of return: Aug 21

Follow us on our adventure by reading this blog! Don't miss an exciting second!