Absolutely freezing here in Boston. Arctic winds sweeping in. Took a cab to Dodge Bar on Dodge Street in Salem & caught Bob Kerr (from local band Vein) playing an acoustic set. He’s got a great voice, the timbre of Lou Reed & some Springsteen in there – but very much his own style. Great vocal delivery. It was so damned cold tonight that not many folks saw the show, Salem was like a ghost town (pardon the pun). Can’t believe people live in this year after year.

(Bob Kerr)

Checkya tomorrow,
Fires out.

This, our local liquor store, gets a laugh every time we drive past…

We stopped in to pick up supplies at good ol’ Bunghole before getting home a few moments ago. We’ve had a big day visiting people, including a huge lunch at our host Kevin’s favourite steak joint.

It’s 14 degrees (-10C) in Boston tonight. The sun goes down early, about 4:30, so it feels like the middle of the night at 9pm. Hibernation weather

Checkya tomorrow,
Fires out.

Earlier this afternoon, when the snow storm had momentarily stopped, we got out & walked around the corner to our regular coffee place. Yep, that’s me in the car-park (they call it a parking lot) on the way out, standing in about the same position where I’ve nearly fallen on my arse twice since arriving on Monday.

There’s a layer of ‘black ice’ underneath the powdery snow. It’s dangerously slippery & you never know exactly where it is until you go for a slide. There’s definitely an art to walking on snow & we’re seriously out of practice. The locals seem to have it down, no problem. Today was a day when most people seemed to stay home due to last night’s blizzard, work and classes canceled across the New England area.

Got up at 5 this morning. Couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d take a walk through the snow down to Dunkin’ Donuts & grab a coffee. Managed to drop money all over the counter and dollar notes on the floor (for the second day in a row). My hand-eye thing doesn’t seem to work that early. Anyway, the girls at the counter had a laugh, “don’t worry bout id…”.

Checkya tomorrow.
Fires out.

We’re all head down, working away on tour prep in our Boston log cabin hide-away. The tour kicks off in about 6 weeks, Starting in Canada & moving down the east coast to the deep south. In early Feb we’ll announce all the tour dates & cities for the USA and China.

A blizzard is expected overnight here (it’s just after 8pm now). They’re saying on the news that by morning we’ll be under a massive load of snow. They even ran a thoroughly riveting story about a school principal in the throws of deciding whether or not to cancel classes tomorrow. It helped pad the snow news out to about 15 minutes, or half the entire news bulletin. Nice work Mr Murdoch.

Checkya tomorrow,
Fires out.

Here’s a quick 20 second video from yesterday in Boston. We were in the car on our way to a radio station in Malden (one of Boston’s suburbs) in the middle of a snow storm. The weather just a little different from summer in Tamworth, Australia, where we were just a few days before.

We’ve been shaking off the jet-lag, getting out and meeting people, working on tour preparation (we kick off in Canada early March), and trying not to fall over walking on the icy ground. I nearly went arse-over last night walking through the apartment car park with japanese take-away in hand. As it turned out, I regained my balance by throwing my arm out in a windmill motion, Pete Townshend style (I hope nobody saw it). The take-away did a complete aerial 360 – but was surprisingly intact when I opened the bag inside the apartment a few moments later.

Checkya tomorrow,
Fires out.

Body clock totally messed up. Going to bed now. Talk more tomorrow.
From snowed-in Boston,
Fires out.

Tamworth was great, spent the weekend sitting out on Mum’s verandah soaking up the last bit of Australian summer before flying out yesterday. Mojo (the dog) was going weird just before we walked out the door. He knows when we’re about to leave on a long trip now (sad).

So, 27 hours and 3 flights later, here we are in Boston. It was minus 7 (C) when we arrived late this afternoon, snow & ice everywhere. Just had dinner at our host Kevin’s favourite pizza joint in East Boston. Now we’re back at his apartment. We’ll be based here for the next couple of months before the tour starts.

Shaking off the jet-lag…

Checkya tomorrow,
Fires out.

Last minute packing. About to step out the door & drive up to Tamworth for a couple of days. Boston, Monday.

Suffice to say, send-off drinks at Stalk & Kim’s last night weren’t kept to a manageable level. Hazy start today. Worth it, though – had a great night.

Checkya tomorrow from Australia’s hoe-down capital.

Fires out.

Today is our last day in Melbourne for a long while. We’ll be over at Kim and Stalk’s tonight for dinner, attempting to keep the send-off drinks to a ‘manageable’ level. We’ll head north tomorrow for one final stop at Tamworth before flying out to Boston on Monday – a huge year of OS touring to commence shortly after that.

Kent Aberle (our drummer from Atlanta, Georgia) emailed us yesterday with the message below (he’s stoked – just got endorsed by Sonor Drums).

“Just as I was getting down heartened today about the snow, I got a call from Will at Sonor Drums.  I’m now endorsed by them.  I’m trying to sell my current kit to purchase a sonor kit for the tour.  Sonor also endorses some new Australian dude named Phil that plays for a band called AC/DC!”

The video below features Kent holding a drum clinic in Georgia.

Checkya tomorrow.
Fires out

Down to the last two days in “sunny” Melbourne, Australia. So far, summer hasn’t hit us here – it looks & feels more like a dreary spring. No complaints though, as half of the eastern sea-board is underwater with NSW & QLD enduring catastrophic flooding set to be the worst on record. Crazy weather all over the world…

Friday we’ll be on our way north for one more stop before flying out to Boston on Monday. And my hand should be almost functional by then after Saturday night’s cat attack (the little bastard went nuts when I tried to pick it up). We’ll be based in Boston for nearly 2 months in the lead up to a very big year of touring, starting with Canada and the US.

We’ll also soon be announcing a series of dates for China in May (a dozen shows across the country including Beijing and Shanghai).

Checkya tomorrow,
Fires out.