Grand Junction On

This last two weeks has been a blast! So much fun in so little time…

After doing a small radio spot in Grand Junction, we hung out with the kind folks at KAFM where they introduced us to the local brewery. Sure enough, we ended up at Palisade Brewery the next day to try all their brews (crafted by Mike Armstrong - Head Brew Master). They invited us to play a small set at their happy hour BBQ. Mike ended up coming out to our show at the Spotlight Lounge that night and hooked us up with some “road brews” as he called them. THEY’RE GOIN’ LIKE WATER MIKE! He must have known we had a few days off.

Those next few days were filled with some of the most beautiful hikes and coolest views I’ve ever seen (I think the “road brews” might have had a little to do with it). Monument Valley, Arches, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks are awesome! The Narrows in Zion was TapWater’s favorite hike. I highly recommend getting some river shoes and doing this. Almost 90% of the hike is IN the river with 300 foot red rock walls keeping it nice and cool the whole time. I would love to do this one on a real hot day.

Well, now we’re here at Lisa’s house in beautiful Sedona (oh, darn) and ready for the next few shows. Can’t wait to see what this week has to offer. Hmmm…maybe I’ll go see what Palisade’s brew the cooler has to offer. ‘Till next time…hike on!!!

Peace - Steve

Tooth Hurty Part 2

Well a couple of days go by, the appointment is made. And yes it was for two thirty. Our illustrious band manager and angel from heaven Anne Tropeano had found a wonderful dentist at this place just outside of Denver, CO that coincidently happened to have an opening right about the time we would be rollin’ through town. All right Its my day off, go in for a quick visit to get a new filling put in and I’ll be on my way EEEEEAHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Sorry Charley. Do to certain complications yada yada yada… BAM !! I need a $600. root canal and THEY, oh yes THEY, have the time. Oh here comes that sweet strawberry colored bubble gum flavored gel on a cotton swab. And Holy Sheep Sh!t look at the size of that needle. “Open wide please” Oh my God this can’t be happening to me right now. I have shows to play, I have a girlfriend back home, Please God why me, why now.
AAHOOOOOHHYYEAHH. It doesn’t hurt really as bad as it could because of the gel but, I can definitely feel the sensation of that super sharp hypodermic needle sliding into the soft flesh in the back of my mouth between my top and bottom back teeth. Oh thank God that parts over with. Only an hour and a half left to go. Heck yeah let’s do this, bring it on…NOT! For the next eternity I had to endure the drill with the high pitch WHEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee feeling the weight of the doctors arm pushing, drilling, WHEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. “Suction” WHEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeee “Rinse” OH GOD! Meanwhile Anne is sitting there with me patting my foot…”your doing great” she says as my knuckles are ghost white from clinching the armrest with a kung fu grip. Then came the grinder. If you don’t know what the grinder is, it’s the same as the drill with a different head like a grinding wheel. GHGHHGHGGHGGGHHGHGHHGGGHHGHHH! My vision is blurred (like when you put your head on the car window when you’re a kid in the back seat with mom driving down the road) from the force and pressure of the grind, grind, grind. Then they have to use these little files and stick it way down into the freshly created hole and continue to manually bore it out. Only one problem… I felt that. I jerked in the seat and was politely asked to not jump or make sudden movements because the dentist had very sharp objects in my mouth. Oh yeah, like I could of controlled THAT. It happened again. “OK we’ll take care of that” OH NO NOT THE NEEDLE AGAIN. This time penetrating the gums one on the inside, one on the out side. More drilling, more filing. “Rinse”, “Suction” I still felt it. Am I in Hell? All I did was eat a stinKING PIECE OF CANDY !!! “OK I’m really going to put an end to this” .This time the needle gets me in the top, in the bottom, on the sides over and over again. Now my mouth and lips feel like a balloon, I’m surprised my face doesn’t float away. Finally they stop. It was a good thing to because I was shaking the building from my chair. Thank God. It’s over with. EHHHHH ! SUCCERRRRRRRRR! It was truly only a break. Back into my mouth they dive and….well you get the picture. I did make it through though, and now I have to make an appointment to get it crowned when I get home, I love the dentist.
Well that’s it. That’s my story. Well, what am I gonna do now? I think I’ll go have another sour jawbreaker. That should be OK. As long as I don’t try to bite it,… right?

Tooth Hurty Part 1

You know? I like a day off once in a while. I mean, who doesn’t….Right? It means that you get the day’s time to do whatever you want to do with it. I could go play disc golf, or, or go drink beer with Tim, or play my guitar or somethin’ yeah. So you think to yourself…if I could do anything I wanted today..I would….

GET A FREEAKIN’ ROOT CANAL !!!!


You see a couple of weeks ago… no wait, even before that. About a month and a half ago we had a couple of days off of show so we went to Napa Valley to take a well deserved brake. I got lubed that night at the local den of iniquity in town, and stumbling back to the bus I passed by this one store window which I could undeniably, absolutely 100 percent not resist. As my gaze was drawn inward as if compelled by some dreamy mystical magic force, I saw a splendid array of colors swirling all around.
Blues and reds, with purple delight.
Pinks and yellows, oh what a sight.
All cast with this wonderfully bright soft white light. Then, mesmerized, my feet started moving my body in through the front door only to be completely inundated and totally surrounded by……

CANDY !!!!!!!!

Tons of it!
There was lemonheads and cinnamon, and candy bars galore,
Nougats, suckers, and taffee pieces, all within this store.
So I grabbed a bag and started filling and filling and filling and filling…..
I felt like a kid in a candy store.
I grabbed Swedish gummy fish, and truffles, some hard candies and a Bit O Honey,
I grabbed sours and all sorts of taffee and then I gave them my money.
About 29.79 to be exact.
And that’s a fact.

So now we get to the fun stuff….

A few weeks later I get this little hankerin’
so I open up my drawer and pull out my sack
and figure, I’ll throw a couple pieces back
I take out the taffee and unravel the paper pop it into my mouth. And I started to chew and chew and OW!!!! What the heck was that! I had just bitten down hard on something very….very hard. So into my mouth my finger goes to fish out this piece of candy and something bites my finger. No I’m only kidding about that. I pull out this slobbery half chewed piece of taffee and peer at it with an inquisitive eye. Upon close inspection, it is revealed to me that I have solely and successfully single handedly extracted a filling in biting on my back bicuspid and now it was stuck in my candy. Well there’s only one thing left for me to do…..so I pull the filling out, and put this slobbery half chewed piece of taffee back into my mouth and
continued chewin'

New Music!!!!

Well, it’s finally here…our new acoustic CD “Dirt Road Rendezvous” is now available on www.tapwatermusic.com (and trust me, your parents will love it). Touring, consistent shows and a lot of work in the studio helped us tune up the acoustic machine, so we thought it was time to record a live studio CD. After a little research and a great reference from our pal Simeon Flick, we came across Sven-Erik Seaholm of Kitsch & Sync Productions. It was there, in his comfy little living room studio on August 7th where we made a bit of history. Sven is an audio-jedi and real easy to work with. He even made a cameo appearance (see if you can hear his part on our title track). Thanks Sven!...the bearded lady would be proud of you. So check out the “What’s New” section of www.tapwatermusic.com and hear what we’ve been up to lately! Don’t forget to tell everyone you know about it…especially mom and dad.

Peace - Steve

Arcata Brothers

We played a festival in Benbow, CA and met this cool guy named Rudy while while we were late night jammin down by the Eel River. We told Rudy we were on the look out for a drummer, and he said he was a drummer/percussionist. We set up a date to jam up at his house in Arcata, and when we got there his friend Simon jumped in on the jam and was an awesome drummer as well. All of us hit it off, and on our second leg of the tour we stopped by Arcata again to audition these guys. Needless to say it went well, and on our third leg of our tour we stopped by Arcata again to pick them up for a ten day stint. All the TapWater people were worried about seven people traveling in our vehicle, Irvin, but it turned out that we couldn't have traveled with more chill dudes. It was a little crammed but turned out to be a great time. They caught up to speed quickly on most of our material with Simon playing a contraption "trap" kit and Rudy playing percussion and marimba. In addition to music these guys fit in to our picture of recreation as well with much disc golfing, swimming, bocce ball, chess, and of course moderate beer drinking ;} It was a great time, and we are all looking forward to more music and recreation with Simon and Rudy.