The Captain's Log: June 2010

It's summer baby, and this is me checking in, Captain Awesome!

Been a while since I wrote anything, been to busy having an awesome time as always. So what have I been up to lately? Well it feels like alot, and this will be a long one so go get some food and drinks and let's go!

First of all me and Gobo - The Pigsqueeler from Hell thought we'd hop on a plane and take us to the other side of the world, namely Los Angeles! We headed out on May 30th and stayed there for 8 days so we'd make it back to Sweden Rock Festival, but more on that later. Well after like a million hours we made over there after landing in Amsterdam to have a few beers at 9 AM, and also Minneapolis.

Pirating away in Amsterdam, yarr!

Breakfast time, it's 9 AM!

Drunk and disorderly in Minneapolis

Let's just say that LA kicks major ass, I'd move there in a second if I was a billionaire. A bit smoggy sure, but who really cares? They all seem to be switching to a damn Toyota Prius over there anyway so that'll go away soon. So anyway, day 1 we just got there and headed to the hotel in Downtown LA and got our gear in place and get some rest so we'd be ready to get wasted in the morning.

Jason rockin' out at the hotel!

Said and done, day 2 ended up with breakfast at IHOP and a stroll around Downtown, bought us a guitar (can't be away for a week without a guitar) and some of the most amazing drink on the planet; Captain Morgan Tattoo. If you haven't tried out the Tattoo kind, you need to go out and get a bottle or 10 right now. Do it. So we poored the golden liquid down our throats and headed to the land of tourists, Hollywood! Plan for the day was to catch the always so hilariously amazing Steel Panther show at House of Blues. Ended up at a pretty cool cowboy-bar before the show to catch the Stanley Cup playoffs and have us some steak and beers, and after that Steel Panther delivered as expected, flawless!

Ready to party, LA-style!

Shopping for food!

And some more.. food!

If you're gonna drink, drink big!

Steel fuckin' Panther!

Hanging out with Michael Starr, a true star!

Day three! Headed over to Staples Center, home of Los Angeles Kings to check out the arena but unfortunately it was closed so we only got to touch the outside walls, kinda exciting anyway.. or? Took some pictures with statues like real tourists, had a fat burger and went away to Key Club later on to see Dark Tranquillity. Show was pretty good, OK atleast! Gotta catch some Swedish bands when going to LA ofcourse. END OF DAY 3, I'M ON A ROLL!

Day 4: Time to check out Hollywood again, that place is fucking huge! Browsed around the Walk of Fame to read famous peoples names on stars, now that was exciting! Almost peed my pants you know. Though whoever gives away those stars don't know the real talent so we made our own star happen since we deserve it for all the hard work we put in making noise. Anywho, decided we'd take a walk in the Hollywood hills to get closer to the Hollywood sign which didn't seem to be so far away.. but yeah, it was, and it was uphill.. all the time. I got exhausted, which is weird since my physical condition and healthy lifestyle should make me climb that sign in a minute. Must've been the smog, always blame the smog. Got close enough, took some pictures, and hijacked a bus to get down the hill again.

It must be some kinda sign..

I wonder if he was at the ceremony?

Zombiesuckers at the boulevard, you know it!

Climbing makes one thirsty, next stop: closest place that has beer. Found a Hard Rock Café, but shame on them it wasn't even ready yet so no beer there. Second place we found was Hooters, so in we go and get some beers and luckily the Stanley Cup playoffs was on the TV, yay! 125 bucks tab, a Flyers win, and two drunk swedes later we take a cab to drive us to The Rainbow. Killer place to have a drink at, and caught some Ramones coverband playing there which I later joined on stage to rip off We Are 138. Captain Morgue, live at Sunset Boulevard, yeah baby!

Moving on! Day 5 we did some ninjawork in Chinatown and Little Tokyo, had some Kentucky Fried, shopping for shit and just enjoyed the 25-30 degrees outside. Takes too long to tell you guys everything!

Tired ninja, fueling up with Monster

Day 6 was more fun, cause we ended up at Universal Studios and caught the Waterworld show, took the studio tour and some other fun stuff. Can absolutely recommend anyone going there to go there, alot of fire and explosions always make me happy atleast! And they have amazing burgers at Hard Rock Café at Universal aswell with the most kickass memorabilia you'll ever get to watch. Had lunch next to Tommy Lees Dr. Feelgod drumset, felt good. All that done we once again hit the Sunset Boulevard and ended up at Whisky A Go Go and The Rainbow once again to do some promotion aswell, good times.

Universal Studios, I was there

KA-BOOM, KA-BOOM!

Day 7, think it's Saturday or so? Got picked up by the guys in From The Fog who took us to Anaheim/Santa Ana where they were doing a show with Falling To Pieces at The Galaxy Theatre. So hung out with them and found out they had Jack Daniels + Cola ready mixed in bottles, kick fuckin ass! Saw the bands play which was excellent as expected and ended up with a afterparty made for grizzlybears long into the night. Extremely fun night, but not so much the day after. I don't get hungover alot, but that was brutal, a looong way back to the hotel and pass out on the bed after spending the night at a overpopulated hotel room.

Gotta hide the beer when drinking in public!

Falling To Pieces, what a nice bunch of people

Last day was really just getting our shit together, do some last shopping and stuff like that before getting up at like 5 AM to catch our flight back home. Left the guitar at the hotel room for the cleaning lady as tip, hope she rocks the shit out of it! Trip went well except for losing my camera in Detroit or so, but hey, small price to pay! Bet I forgot something but who cares, noone will ever know anyway!

Next stop, SWEDEN ROCK FESTIVAL!

Straight from LA we repack our bags and head to SRF to catch some more awesome bands. Thumbs up for Alestorm, Steel Panther, Aerosmith, Stone Sour, , Danzig, SLAAYYEEER!, Mayhem, Watain and a bunch others! I missed alot of the bands due to alcohol consumption so ended up with me seeing like.. I don't know, 12 bands? Gobo saw like 30. I lost. Well actually Axl Rose lost cause he didn't do a very good show. I left Guns N Poses to see some power metal instead in forms of Stratovarius.

All in baby!

Large dose of Captain Morgan makes Captain Morgue fall to the ground

This was the premiere of the new way of promoting the band aswell, and we call it man-tagging. Idea is to put stickers on peoples backs without them noticing it. So there were probably 50 people walking around with stickers on their backs, thanks guys! Not much more to tell about this, we partied, we listened to badass bands, we passed out, we went home! Good times!

You've been man-tagged!

So home to get some rest for a few days, pick up our girlfriends and drive down to Gothenburg to see our pals in Misconduct open up for Rise Against at Sticky Fingers. Hands down I'd say Misconduct put on a better show as a whole cause they always deliver, and they're true to what they do so thumbs effin' up for that. But Rise Against is Rise Against, they're just raw and plain awesome. Got a chance to say hi to the guys in Rise Against aswell, and alot sweatier than we arrived we left for our hotel to get a few hours sleep before getting home early in the morning. Work you know, gotta make a living! Apart from our car breaking down it was yet again another trip well done!